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 Contents  Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Prologue Chapter 1: 1954 Chapter 2: 1954 Chapter 3: 1941 Chapter 4: 1941 Chapter 5: 1954 Chapter 6: 1954 Chapter 7: 1941 Chapter 8: 1941 Chapter 9: 1954 Chapter 10: 1941 Chapter 11: 1941 Chapter 12: 1941 Chapter 13: 1954 Chapter 14: 1954 Chapter 15: 1941 Chapter 16: 1954 Chapter 17: 1954 Chapter 18: 1941 Chapter 19: 1941 Chapter 20: 1941 Chapter 21: 1954 Chapter 22: 1941 Chapter 23: 1941 Chapter 24: 1954 Chapter 25: 1954 About the Author    Guide  Cover Title Page Copyright Table of Contents      © 2022 MARVEL All rights reserved. Published by Marvel Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Marvel Press, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023. First Edition, February 2023 Designed by Kurt Hartman Library of Congress Control Number: 2022938443 Hardcover ISBN 978-1-368-02227-9 eBook ISBN 978-1-368-09227-2 Visit www.HyperionTeens.com and www.Marvel.com  Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Prologue Chapter 1: 1954 Chapter 2: 1954 Chapter 3: 1941 Chapter 4: 1941 Chapter 5: 1954 Chapter 6: 1954 Chapter 7: 1941 Chapter 8: 1941 Chapter 9: 1954 Chapter 10: 1941 Chapter 11: 1941 Chapter 12: 1941 Chapter 13: 1954 Chapter 14: 1954 Chapter 15: 1941 Chapter 16: 1954 Chapter 17: 1954 Chapter 18: 1941 Chapter 19: 1941 Chapter 20: 1941 Chapter 21: 1954 Chapter 22: 1941 Chapter 23: 1941 Chapter 24: 1954 Chapter 25: 1954 About the Author  For Mom, Dad, Zach, McKelle, Q, and Kenai The Living Room Residency 2020–2022 And Chief—my favorite Soviet sleeper agent   When you wake, the only thing you remember is dying. The crack of the ice as your body struck it, louder than antiaircraft fire. The cold that drove all the breath from your lungs. The water that flooded them when you gasped in shock. You had fallen hard but landed weightless, the world going white around you as you floated, too cold to swim, too cold to breathe. Too cold to do anything but die. You don’t know how, but you were certain you were dying. It had always been different before—though you can’t remember what exactly that “before” looked like. Before, you had flirted with death like a drunk at a bar, reckless and giddy but with no intention of following it home. You had stood on the knife’s edge. Sucked last chance after last chance to the bone. They had been endless. Until they weren’t. But you aren’t dead, are you? So then, what is this? Your eyes are crusted shut, and when you crack them open, the light burns. Spectral clouds dot the corners of your vision, fog gathered and made flesh. Here are the ghosts coming to collect you. You can’t recall their names. But surely you had a mother and a father once. Perhaps it’s them, beckoning you over the threshold with hands outstretched. Maybe a friend who didn’t survive childhood—doesn’t everyone have one of those? The first time you learned that people really die, and the thing to fear is not the loss but the losing. Maybe the ghosts are soldiers. You remember soldiers. Maybe it’s them, your band of brothers, gone into the deep, frigid water before you, now waiting on the other side. The ghosts wear white caps, and their faces are covered. You can’t see their eyes, just the light overhead reflected in them. It refracts through the glass bottles hanging above you, long tubes snaking down from them like kite tails before disappearing under your skin. You can feel their contents draining into you, and your body seizes against the added weight. Your chest constricts, a spasm like those raised by the cold. Suddenly you’re back in the water. You’re afraid, but you don’t know why. You want to fight, but you don’t know what. You’re not sure you could, even if you tried. Your limbs don’t feel like your own. Your whole body is a foreign landscape, treacherous in its strangeness. There is pain in places that don’t exist. Weakness in muscles that never relax. The water is gone, but the cold remains. “What is your name?” a ghost asks. You can’t see your legs, but you try to move them. It’s like trying to break through a shell of thick ice. “Do you understand me?” the ghost asks, and you do. You understand him, but you still can’t move your legs. You try your arms, but only one of them obeys. Your fist closes and opens and closes again. Is it yours? A fist. A hand. You try to look, but something holds your head in place, and the light is still in your eyes. You want to stand—you always thought you’d die on your feet, rising to meet the bullet. But here you are, drowning in light and full of water, with nothing but a hand that isn’t yours. “What is your name?” the ghost asks again, and you know the answer. Don’t say it, you think, and you clench your jaw until you feel the pain. Your whole body trembles with the effort it takes not to answer, to keep your head above the current when it would be so much easier to give in and let yourself sink. “Almost finished,” the ghost says, and you feel the soothing press of fingers against your forehead, pushing back your hair. Someone else had done that, once. Someone else had touched your hair with tenderness, but when you reach for the memory, there’s only empty air. You can feel the absence of whoever once occupied that space inside you. It steals your breath, the enormity of that chasm. Your heartbeat stutters, the tremor echoing in a rising electronic beep. “Tell me your name,” the