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The same determination that kept her alive for twenty years in that place.

Whatever secrets she carries— whatever caused my father to imprison her rather than simply divorce her— will come to light eventually. For now, it’s enough that she’s here. That she’ssafe. That my sister has stopped crying for the first time since learning our mother is alive.

The rest can wait.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Stella

“So the wormhole creates a shortcut through space-time,” Bobik explains, his hands animating the concept in the air between us. “Like folding a piece of paper to connect two distant points.”

I nod, genuinely fascinated despite the complexity of the topic. “And scientists think these actually exist? Not just in science fiction?”

“Einstein’s equations predict them,” he says with the confidence of a university professor rather than a ten-year-old. “The math works. The problem is the energy required to keep one stable would be… astronomical.”

He grins at his own pun, and I smile back, adjusting Polina’s sleeping weight against my shoulder. She’s heavy with milk-induced slumber, her tiny mouth occasionally making suckling movements in her dreams. The contrast between my conversations with Bobik and the simplicity of caring for a newborn creates a strange harmony I’ve come to cherish.

“So, no intergalactic travel in our immediate future?” I ask, gently rubbing Polina’s back.

“Not unless we discover negative energy,” Bobik sighs, wheeling himself toward his bookshelf. “But quantum entanglement might offer another possibility. There’s a new paper I read last week that suggests—”

A soft knock interrupts him. We both turn toward the door as it opens slowly, revealing Aleksei’s broad frame. I know he returned yesterday, but he’s made no effort to come to me. Ican only imagine he’s been taken up with settling his mother in. Now, something in his expression— an intensity I can’t quite read— makes me straighten slightly, instantly alert.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, my arm tightening protectively around Polina.

Aleksei doesn’t answer. Instead, he steps aside, revealing an elderly woman standing behind him. She’s slender, with iron-gray hair pulled back in a simple bun. Her clothes are plain— a modest blouse and skirt that seem designed for utility rather than style. But it’s her eyes that capture me instantly— dark, intelligent eyes that hold both warmth and wariness in equal measure.

They’re exactly the same color as Aleksei’s.

“Stella,” Aleksei says, his voice carrying an unfamiliar note of emotion, “Bobik. This is my mother, Maria Tarasova.”

Time seems to pause as the significance of this moment registers.

Maria Tarasova— the woman Aleksei believed dead for half his life. The woman recently rescued from Vostok Institute in icy Siberia. The mother who has never met her grandchildren.

“Grandmother?” Bobik’s voice breaks the silence, his excitement palpable. “You’re really here?”

Maria hesitates at the threshold, her gaze moving from Bobik to me, then to the sleeping baby in my arms. Something in her expression shifts— a softening, a recognition that transcends our lack of actual acquaintance.

“Yes, my dear,” she says, her voice gentle with a musical Russian lilt. “I’m really here.”

She enters the room with surprising grace for someone who spent decades in confinement. Her movements are measured but fluid, her posture straight despite her years. As she approaches, I notice her hands— slender like Diana’s, but marked with the subtle signs of hard work and hardship; the skin is rough, her knuckles reddened.

Bobik wheels himself forward eagerly, stopping just before her. “Papatold me you were coming home. I never knew I had a grandma.”

Maria kneels before his wheelchair, bringing herself to his eye level. The gesture is so naturally maternal it creates an ache in my chest— a flash of memory surfaces of my own mother kneeling to speak to me as a child, her eyes level with mine, her attention completely focused.

“And I’ve been waiting to meet you, my wonderful boy,” Maria says, taking Bobik’s hands in hers. “Your father has told me how brilliant you are, how kind.”

Bobik beams under her attention, his usual reserve completely absent. “Did you know I’m named after your father? Bobik is short for Boris.”

“I did know,” she says, smiling. “He would have been very proud of you.”

Her gaze shifts to me, and I feel a curious warmth spread through my chest. Something in her eyes carries the same loving vigilance my own mother had— that ability to see everything without judgment.

“And you must be Stella,” she says, rising slowly to approach me. “The mother of my granddaughter.”

“Yes,” I manage, suddenly emotional for reasons I can’t fully articulate. “This is Polina.”