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A snow-covered village near the town of Dudinka, Siberia. 1998.

The room was smoky, full of fumes that stung the eyes and twisted every nose hair. Morgana couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose - the famous wizard pipe-brew of Siberia was not at all to her tastes. But she suspected it was a test of character, of the patrons who frequented the murky bar. It was Russia, after all - they had a direct approach to proving one’s worth.

She nodded to the bartender who had raised his eyebrows upon seeing her and might have been reaching under the counter - for a wand, a bat or a button, she’d never know because she slid a piece of parchment towards him. He glanced at it and visibly relaxed, nodding before getting a glass and filling it with some sort of drink that was eye-watering even from where she was seated.

The witch was surprised when he passed the glass to her. Before she had the chance to ask, he said in Russian-accented broken English, “Present.” A gift. Not to her. Not for her.

She’d observed the strange rituals they carried out at the bar while the drink was being made. There was some sort of reverence the patrons had for the place. Though many eyes were on her, they made no move - but there was a suggestion that if she so much as stepped out of place, they would be upon her in moments. She had no interest in provoking them. The Russian prison tattoos[1] writhing around their wrists spoke more than anything else they would say.

Morgana accepted the glass, and right then someone nudged her elbow. She turned to look up at this absolute bear of a man looming over her, and immediately got the point. With her new escort, she headed to the back of the bar, where an immensely tacky bead curtain was held back by a thinner but no less gaunt and intimidating man. She caught sight of the hunting knife in his belt.

It took a few more bead curtains before the darkened room beyond came into view. A hunched figure sat at a barely illuminated table covered in the most odd devices she’d ever seen, picking at one with his veined hands. A toothpick swivelled in the semi-darkness as its wielder appeared to roll his jaw while deeply engrossed in his work. Morgana set the glass down in front of him before taking the ragged stool as her seat. “Добрый вечер,”[2] she said.

He took a minute to answer, and when he did so he took the toothpick out of his mouth. “Здравствуй.[3] Very respectful. Most people, they come here and use wrong words. Lucky for them I do not mind.” His accent was thickly Russian, but understandable. She looked up and saw the red lenses glint in the darkness. “Good pronunciation, too.”

“We’re not friends,” she said.

“No, but we have met, have we not?” She had to give him credit for his pronunciation and fluency with English, give or take the odd missing article.[4] “I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I did my part, so did you. In Russia, that good enough.” He laughed, his gravelly, deep voice resonating in the tiny room. “But you come here, not to talk about that. You come here to ask me.”

He knew more than he let on, that was for certain. But anyone who could have given her the extremely sensitive information that he had would be that kind of person. “Yes,” she said, drawing back. “Why did you help me? You got nothing out of it. The caches we found--”

“Were part of Russia’s history, Madame le Fay.” His accent turned curiously French as his lips shaped her alias. “I am Russian patriot. You sought to return these caches to the motherland. Not regime that was rot from inside and out. Not given to descendants of Mongolian-Tatar barbarians. They were willing to pay highest bid. You said no, Russian Ministry of Magic is highest bidder.”

Morgana narrowed her eyes. As much as they had benefited from their one-time relationship, she didn’t trust this man. She’d done her reading on her way here, on the hidden train of the Trans-Siberian Railway, wearing more and more furs the deeper they headed into the Russian Far East. There was a lot in his background that was practically calling out to be mistrusted.

“I know you think, I want something.” He set aside the device he had been picking at and took up the glass, swilling it as one would fine wine. “You are right. You are greatest thief of artefacts, reminding wizards and witches of their heritage. Returning it to them.”

“You’re giving me too much credit, Lysenkov. Or… Vyacheslav?”[5] It was the first time she dared utter his name. The bar made it seem as if he was a revered figure, a living legend.

“Lysenkov. All this worship, too much for me.” He shook his head, long grey hair cascading over his shoulders as he did so. “I have nothing worth holding above your head. Too much credit? No, never enough. You sell them to highest bidder, but always taking back what belongs to us. Travelling across the land to find our people’s memories? You should be comrade.”

Morgana frowned. All she had done was to track down the missing caches based on the reports of ‘the Treasures of Yaroslav’, as the Russian Ministry of Magic had commissioned her to do so before Muggles found them. Some of the caches had held magical artefacts from the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasions and might have borne hefty curses and jinxes. The fact that several other parties came to tussle with negotiations and prices was only to be expected, but they were all outbid by the Russian Ministry anyway.

It had been Lysenkov who had sent important information about the clues in the map she was supposed to follow but lost due to heavy snows. Some of it had been quite sensitive, and she had sensed that if the Russian Ministry knew that she knew some things about them now she might not be allowed to leave the country. But he had his spies leave a note for her on how to solve the puzzles, and in return all he had written was “Pay it forward!” No one in the criminal underworld was that kind. No one.

“What is it that you want, Lysenkov?” she said, watching him drink that eye-watering concoction without so much as a flinch.

He finished the glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with a satisfied sound. She saw the unmistakable etched ink under the hem of one of his fingerless gloves. Not surprising.

“You steal things, yes?” The old man leaned forward in his creaky seat. “I need you to do job for me, Madame le Fay. Stealing timeless piece out of Russia. Valuable. Russian Ministry wants it. But, I will be your highest bidder.”

Well, she wasn’t surprised at that either. She leaned back in her uncomfortable seat. “What is it?” she asked. “And handling requirements. I deal with special requests of that sort.”

Lysenkov laughed. “Handling requirements? No need! Sure, could do with pretty lady… but no, Lysenkov, Lysander here, too old for that. Artefact is me, Madame le Fay.”

1.	Russian prison tattoos often tell you what crime(s) the person wearing them committed and what sort of criminal they are/were.
2.	Good evening, formal.
3.	A less formal way to say hello. Indicates that he already sees her as somewhat of an acquaintance/friendly face.
4.	Russians who speak English as a second language tend to leave out articles (a, an, the). This is because Russian doesn't have articles.
5.	Formally she should be addressing Lysenkov by his first and patronymic name. However, as he is missing either patronymic or surname (deliberately), she's not sure which name to call him by.

It took her a moment to understand. “You want passage out of Russia? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes, very good!” He clapped his hands. She was starting to wonder if he wasn’t all there. “To England, where I want to go. Away from motherland.”

She sat there, trying to process this request. “I-- wait. Let me get this straight. You want to be smuggled out of here to England? For what reason does the Ministry of Magic want you?”

Lysenkov held up his hands and wiggled his fingers at her. “Too many fingers deep in Ministry. Crime. News. Knowledge. Information. Yes, I know, smuggling, not what you do. But stealing, yes? Ministry sees me less than person. To them, I might as well be an object - an artefact of an age Russia will deny with her dying breath. Glory to the old motherland, but Lysenkov is no longer part of it. I have had enough. I believe in freedom.” He uttered a phrase in Russian that Morgana would not have cared to translate directly, for she knew he was essentially flipping the bird at the people he once worked under.

Morgana looked down at his hands again. He had at least seven ring tattoos[1] showing out from under his gloves. That would mean she was not only smuggling someone, she was smuggling a known criminal.

He saw her gaze. “I know what you thinking,” he said. “Russian Ministry will want me back! Greater crime for you. No, no.” Lysenkov shook his head. “All this, debt paid. Repaid. Time done, spent, lost, gained. Old Lysenkov sees all, does nothing. Like three monkeys!”

“This is greater than just palming off a few clues, Lysenkov,” she said, looking up at him without moving her head. “You’re asking me to do something well outside of my scope. Why not ask the Syndicate[2]? You have the leverage to get one of them to ship you across the English Channel.”

“Because, Madame le Fay, I prefer being indebted to you.”

She stared at him. This man was baffling her more and more, but somehow she felt that it was all deliberate. After all, the clues he sent her managed to rile up the parties that had trailed after her, long enough to make them start fighting among themselves and therefore completely let the Yaroslav treasures slip out of their hands. He had a history of doing this - moving pieces around a board, disobeying all rules just to see them fight between themselves while the true goal was achieved. Lysenkov was not a stupid man; he was playing the long game. Maybe that’s why he’s so old and still alive despite all that he’s done, she thought. After all, the better you were at surviving the odds, the longer you get to live.

“Alright, let’s say I do this for you.” She looked down at the table, carefully averting her gaze. “What’s in it for me? You do realise the price that comes with this is steep, yes? I’m sure you do.”

She heard the bead curtains clatter behind her. The men guarding the doorway would have considered that statement a threat, she was certain of it. Any moment in which she made the wrong move and she could very well be seeing something that wasn’t meant to see the light of day.

He held up his hand. The noises behind her stopped. In the silence the pair of red-tinted glasses focused on her. “Well aware of it, Madame le Fay. I assure you that you will be compensated for your time… and you will not be detected, and neither will I.” Lysenkov lowered his hand. “I will secure passage and ensure you have smooth journey out of Russia to England. Easy enough for old Lysander. Exchange… your country has interesting crime scene, madame. I will send eagles and hawks. I will command ants and rats. And you will have eyes, and ears. Everywhere.”

Her heart nearly stopped at this. He was offering her his skills at gathering information. This was the Vyacheslav Lysenkov, legendary spy and intelligence agent double-crossing and triple-crossing, if reports were to be believed, multiple crime rings. Some said even the very Russian Ministry of Magic itself, outwitting its own agents in complex games of cat-and-mouse.

Or he could be no one and just making it all up. But there was something about this man who had a reputation that everyone in this bar seemed to revere. The people who had given her the directions to his hiding place had spoken his name with utmost respect. There was something about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and she’d spent more than enough time with members of the Syndicate and that blasted smarmy René Cartier to know the difference between a novice and a master.

“If I do not satisfy your wishes, madame,” his voice did that strange French 180-degree thing again, “then I shall, as some say, oblige you and sleep with fishes.”

Morgana stayed perfectly still for a few minutes. The man in front of her lifted a hand to rummage in the pile of discarded objects - all different parts of magical devices used for spying upon people, she knew now as she watched a few more than familiar pieces roll across the table - before picking a piece out and delicately picking at it with the thinnest hex key she’d ever seen. She looked at the timeworn fingernails, the black ink that revolved around his fingers, the wrinkled skin.

At last she got to her feet, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. “Moscow Canal, five days from now, five am. I’ll have someone on standby looking for you. You won’t have any trouble getting there, I assume?”

“No, quite smooth I assure you.” His surprisingly white teeth gleamed in the semi darkness in a grin. “No problems. No troubles. Lysenkov has his ways.”

“I don’t doubt that.” She held out her hand to him. The fingers that gripped hers were wiry and strong, rough from whatever work he had gotten himself into and yet it was the firmest handshake she’d ever had the honour to hold with a criminal. There was a gladness in this handshake though that would have been hard to fake even as someone as masterful as he might have been. He might be trustworthy after all. “Smooth departure from Moscow - will you secure that?”

“You have my word.” Their handshake released, she turned on her heel and faced the bead curtain being swept aside by one of the men guarding the doorway.

“Я очень благодарен.”[3] She stopped in her tracks when she heard that. It was definitely said in a gentler tone than previously she had heard him use. Morgana turned halfway and smiled.

“Не стоит благодарности.”[4] And somehow she felt the air relax from the tense atmosphere since she had walked in. Glad to leave the acrid bar, she left the town wondering if she had made the right choice.

1.	A ring tattoo denotes a conviction.
2.	The Syndicate of the Seven Seas, a coalition of smugglers and black market magical artefact traders based around Central Europe and the Mediterranean.
3.	"I am very grateful." Formal but very personal expression of gratitude. He is letting her know that their agreement means a lot to his life.
4.	"Don't mention it." Polite way of saying 'you're welcome' in formal situations.

Five days later, at 4:30 am, port officials were informed of a ship carrying illegal goods leaving Moscow Canal at 5:00 am. Police officers stormed the ship and confiscated the cargo in the hold, causing a huge dispute between a Russian mafioso and the merchant whose cargo it had been - a member of the Syndicate. The dispute ended in a fight that held up the docks and part of Moscow for three hours.

A chartered passenger boat departed on schedule at 5:00 am with no interference and little question whatsoever, bearing an additional passenger not on its list that was quite joyful to be leaving the shores of Russia.