Excerpt from City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Can you wait until after the show? I'll be done by eleven. Where are you right now?

I hesitate, thinking of all those times we had vodka and vareniki after performances, our faces adorned by half-erased makeup and youth.

I'm around the Field of Mars.

Just hang out there and come meet me at the theater. Please?

I think I should go to bed early. Jet lag, I type and press send. Nina doesn't say anything, and I realize with a pang of regret that I didn't even tell her toi toi toi.

My feet ache painfully, but I don't want to go back to the hotel just yet. I wander off to the Summer Garden and walk under the linden trees in bloom, their nectar so intoxicating that with one sip, bees drop to the ground.

I stop when I reach a gallery of Greek sculptures. I sit on one of the green benches between the statues and watch the sky turn from cobalt to violet and rose-gold. The twilight will last until sunrise. There is no place other than St. Petersburg in the summer where I've felt this slowing of time. Instead of the past, present, and future all flowing in order like train cars, they fold translucently into one another; and many years ago feels as close and real as yesterday, tomorrow as distant as years from now.

As if my thoughts have opened a portal, I see him between the white statues. Perhaps a phantom, or a piece of my imagination that has escaped like a moth into the night air. I grip the armrest of the green bench. But he begins walking toward me, and his quality of movement lets me know he is real. By god, there have been only a few humans who could look so alive. He darkens, lightens, darkens, lightens as he passes through the shadows of the statues. Darkens. Lightens again—revealing his arched eyebrows, black hair. Flashing green eyes that can rage or laugh without saying anything. The great Dmitri Ostrovsky to his fans, Dima to his friends, Dmitri Anatolievich to his company members. But to me, he is Janus. My two-faced downfall, and the only person in the world I would not hesitate to call my enemy. We maintain eye contact until he stops abruptly in front of my bench.

"Natasha," he says with a nod, as if it were the most natural thing that we have run into each other.

"Dmitri." I level my voice so as not to give him the satisfaction of unnerving me. "What are you doing here?"

"What a way to greet an old—" He laughs. "Whatever you want to call me. May I?" He gestures at the spot next to me and sits down without waiting for my answer.

"Welcome back to Piter," he says, stretching his legs out before him and crossing them at the ankles.

"Let us dispense with the niceties," I say, and he smiles.

"I could never understand why you hate me so." Dmitri looks out at the statues, shaking his head in an exaggerated show of regret. The frown disappears in a moment, restoring the smooth planes of his face. He hasn't changed much since our last meeting. I remember the light filtering through the flute of champagne in his hand at our bar off Place des Vosges. I can hear the moonlight rushing through the four fountains and dropping like silver spoons into the basin. Our friends murmur toasts in French and Russian—Santé! Budem!

That night was just before my accident—and then I realize with a start that Dmitri might be the same, but I've lost everything since then.

"I have nothing to say to you, except that we are two people who should never have met," I say, managing to keep my voice slow and steady. The air glows violet and warm between us. He cups his chin in one hand and turns to face me.

"Natasha, for my part I have always been truthful. Whatever I believe is what I do and what I say. You see how strange this is to most people, who live by deceiving everyone and, above all, themselves," he says, smirking. "Were you always truthful?"

Excerpted from City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim. Copyright © 2024 by Juhea Kim. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.