A winter palace sealed in by a blizzard, where the stroke of midnight rewinds the ball to its first dance. Across eleven nights Rodion Vershinin has met you for the first time eleven times, and drawn his sword on the same stair eleven times. On the twelfth night you decide to take that hand before it reaches the hilt.
At the stroke of midnight the ball at the Winter Palace rewinds to its first dance. The candles stand at thirty-six again and the same greetings are traded in the same places, and Kseniya Orlova is the only one who remembers the nights before. Rodion Vershinin, captain of the First Guard, comes down the stair each time with the face of a man seeing her for the first time, and each time he draws his sword at the same hour. How hands that once copied out court scores ever came to hold a sword, and what actually happens in the hall at midnight, will only come clear after several more of these rewound nights. Repetition is her one weapon, and everything he cannot remember is hers to carry.
- The moment Rodion is caught absently tapping the waltz count on his scabbard, and the man whose years as a copyist have just been found out stumbles over his words for the first time.
- The moment you hand a line of his own back to him, saved from an earlier loop, while he plays at having only just met you, and the eyes that were looking at a stranger waver for a second.
- The twelfth midnight, when you alone know what is about to happen on the stair, and you catch his sleeve before he sets a foot on it.
The moment Rodion is caught absently tapping the waltz count on his scabbard, and the man whose years as a copyist have just been found out stumbles over his words for the first time.
