Late afternoon, deep winter, too far north for long days. The sky was already inky, but the lights of the city shimmered on the surface of the black water and pooled on banks of snow, on scraped streets, glinted on the black arms of leafless trees. Stockholm was quite beautiful in winter, despite the bitter cold. The air was frozen in Illya's lungs each time he breathed in.

He turned his back on all of that and bent to the basic Yale lock that held the door closed. This building was only a few stories high, only a dozen years old, a world away from the beautiful architecture closer to the centre of the city.

'Simple enough,' he murmured, and he pressed a little strip into the tiny keyhole and pulled his sleeve up to reveal his watch. He and Napoleon both turned away and closed their eyes as he pressed the detonator. Blinding white light flared into the darkness. If he had looked, and if it were dark inside, he wouldn't be able to see a thing when the glare faded.

'The whole thing should be simple,' Napoleon murmured beside him as Illya touched the door experimentally. It was swinging loose. 'Get in, neutralise opposition, get the papers, get out.'

Illya huffed an almost silent laugh, and got out his gun.

'Is it ever?'

Napoleon patted him on the back. 'Come on, Raffles. Let's get in.'

Illya slipped through first, feeling Napoleon following. The space behind the door was dark, but there was light further on. They slipped silently across the room and opened the door onto a corridor that was so brightly lit it was momentarily dazzling. He and Napoleon pushed into the space simultaneously, Illya covering the left, Napoleon the right. Silenced shots sputted through the air and on either side of them men fell.

'See. Simple,' Napoleon said rather smugly, and Illya snorted.

'Two down – how many to go?'

He took aim at another figure that had appeared around the corner, and dropped the man before he could even raise his gun.

'Remind me to spend more time in the firing range,' Napoleon said, eyeing Illya appreciatively. 'Okay, let's clear out this level, then check upstairs. I think the labs are on the second floor.'

They circled around the ground floor, taking out anyone they saw, dropping them with the same tranquilliser bullets they had used on the first few.

'Like a modern rendition of sleeping beauty,' Illya said musingly as he looked down on the blank face of the latest man he had dropped.

'All right, IK,' Napoleon nodded, patting him on the arm. 'I think that's it down here. Let's try upstairs.'

They backtracked to the stairs. It was a modern building and the stairs had open backs and scant railings, which allowed the U.N.C.L.E. men a good view of anyone who might suddenly appear at the bottom, but conversely meant anyone appearing could get off a shot through a gap. It made Illya nervous.

'That's a lab,' he said at the top of the stairs, nodding towards a plain panel door with a narrow rectangular window set in the top half. He could smell the telltale scents of a lab even without looking through the window. 'Probably good stuff in there. Notes.'

'Yeah,' Napoleon murmured. They got close enough to the door to see a little through the window. 'Two, maybe three hostiles. On three?'

'On three,' Illya nodded.

So Napoleon counted, 'One, two, three,' and Illya shouldered the door open.

He saw lab benches, colourful flasks and test tubes, a Bunsen burner hissing near the middle of the room. A number of crass posters on one of the walls of women in bikinis. A second door on the other side. There was a man near that far door and another man at a lab bench very close to this one, and that was what Illya focussed on. He was already raising his gun as Napoleon reached past him to shoot at the man on the other side of the room, but the scientist closest to him raised his hand sooner, lifted a clear glass beaker, and threw the contents in a thin, glittering arc at Illya's face.

The pain was instant and absolute. Everything else vanished. Illya screamed and choked and his eyes were on fire, his nostrils full of an acrid scent. Then he was peripherally aware of other noises, of Napoleon saying something, of the sound of thudding footsteps, and a shot, another shot. Illya dropped to his knees so hard the jolt ran through his whole body. He was screaming and moaning out pain, the pain crushing through his head, his eyes the only thing that existed, as great orbs of burning pain. Somewhere through the pain he heard Napoleon saying, 'I need to leave you. The other guy ran. I'll be back, Illya, I promise. Hold tight.'

Illya replied but he hardly knew what he said. He pushed himself under the bench behind him, pressed his back hard against the wall, feeling the solidity of it against the curve of his spine, the solidity of the underside of the bench against his head. He was gasping breathlessly with pain and he clamped down on the screams because that sound could get him killed. He huddled around himself, drawing his knees up to his chest, everything a whirl of burning pain. He scraped his jacket sleeves over his face and it didn't help at all. He wanted to open his eyes but he couldn't open his eyes because they hurt so much.

He tried so hard to control his breathing. His breath was coming out in wheezes and every now and then a whimper broke through, and he clenched his arms around his knees and fought so hard to stay quiet. He was shaking so violently that above him glass rattled and tinkled on the bench surface. The Bunsen burner kept giving out its steady hiss somewhere in the middle of the room. Far, far away he could hear shouting and shots, and he bit his lip hard into his mouth and another moan escaped him, and his head spun and his stomach churned, and suddenly he was vomiting thickly onto the floor.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god…

He rocked and shook and tried to clamp the need to scream inside him. What if Napoleon didn't come back? What if one of those shots had got Napoleon? What if Napoleon needed him, and he was here, underneath a lab bench, caught in a cage of agony and unable to do a thing? He could feel his U.N.C.L.E. special clenched somewhere between his knees and his chest but he couldn't unclench his hands enough to consider holding it.

What if Napoleon were dead? Was there a telephone here? No, he had his communicator. Of course he had his communicator. But he couldn't move, he couldn't unclench his hands, he couldn't –

And then footsteps thudding on the floor again, and then – oh, such a beautiful sound – Napoleon saying, 'Illya? Illya, it's all right. I've cleared them out. All dead or incapacitated. I can get you out of here.'

Illya opened his mouth that was dry and full of the taste of vomit. He tried to speak but only a wail of pain came out, and then another, and then another, like a flood of waves all crashing in to the shore. Napoleon was pulling him out from under the bench, saying, 'There's not too much on your face, but your eyes, Illya – '

He felt Napoleon's hands on his face, his fingers trying to pull up the lid of one eye. Illya couldn't bear to think of anyone making contact with that terrible site of pain, and he wailed, 'No, no, don't touch.'

'Illya, I have to,' Napoleon said, his fingers still touching Illya's forehead, his other hand at the back of Illya's head. He prised the eyelid up and said shakily, 'Jesus Christ...'

Illya stared into a confused haze and wasn't sure if his eye were even open or still closed. Then Napoleon was making him walk across the room and he stumbled into a hard edge, then there was water running and Napoleon forced him to bend his head into the lab sink. The water was running over his face and over the eyes that Napoleon was ruthlessly forcing open one at a time, but the pain was still so bad he felt dizzy and the water made it so much worse.

'I can't see, Napoleon,' he said. Water spluttered into his mouth and he spat it out. His voice was thin and shaking as an old man's.

'Both eyes?'

Napoleon forced his eyes open again and the water kept running, and Illya felt so dizzy he had to lean hard on the edge of the sink to keep himself from falling.

'B-both eyes. Can't see...'

'Okay, I'm getting you to hospital.'

The tap stopped running and Napoleon made Illya straighten up. Instead of wiping his face dry with something he hugged Illya to him and pressed his face against his own jacket so that Illya's skin was sponged dry.

'It's all right, Illya. I'm getting you to a hospital,' Napoleon said again. 'Listen, can you walk?'

He was shaking so hard that he couldn't think. He tried to speak and he cried in pain again. Napoleon put an arm around his back and shoved at him and Illya put one foot in front of the other, again and again, and moaned and cried as that pain drove through him. He was so dizzy. His knees almost gave out, but Napoleon held him up.

'Come on, Illya,' Napoleon said, his voice so soft and so worried. 'Come on. All right. Stairs. Come on, one at a time. That's it. There you go. Only three more. Okay...'

Illya walked and walked, and then there was the freezing air of outside hitting his face and his wet hair. That cold on his acid-burnt face hurt so much that he almost blacked out.

'Come on,' Napoleon said. 'I've got you. All right, into the car.'

And he was sitting, the door was closing with a solid metallic thump, he was pressing his hands over his face, moans pushing up through his throat as the engine started up and the car began to move. Napoleon was driving much faster than was safe.

And then they were there. Napoleon braked to a halt so suddenly that Illya flew forward and his cheek hit the dashboard, and Napoleon said, 'God, Illya, I'm sorry. But we're here. Come on. Come on, get out of the car.'

He was out and on the other side of the car, pulling Illya out, putting an arm around his back again and squeezing him hard and saying, 'I'll have to leave you in the ER, Illya. I have to get back and organise the clean-up team. I'm so sorry, Illya. I'm sorry.'

'It's your job,' Illya said through gritted teeth. Napoleon didn't need that extra guilt. But Illya wanted to plead with him to stay. He wanted to plead. He cried out again, a lurching moan of pain, and Napoleon held him more tightly. Everything was a mad whirl as the air got warmer and a babble of voices rose around him. He was being pushed down into the familiar feeling of a hospital wheelchair, and Napoleon touched Illya's shoulder and said, 'Good luck, tovarisch.'

Then he was gone. Illya shook and his teeth clashed together and someone was speaking to him, very loud and very clearly, but he couldn't understand a word. The wheelchair was moving and those Swedish voices kept talking and talking, and he strained to understand but he was dizzy and breathless. Hands touched him. He was urged out of the chair and onto a bed and someone was trying to get his jacket off him, and he was so cold that he hung onto it for a moment even though he could smell the sick on it.

'Nej, nej,' the voices were saying, and the jacket was taken and replaced with a blanket. Someone loosened his tie and popped the button on his collar. Someone was doing something at his head, pulling him up the bed, tilting his head back off the end of the bed, and there was water running again, fingers forcing his eyes open again, water and more water. Oh, how that hurt. He couldn't see. He couldn't think...

'Vilket språk talar du?' someone asked very clearly, and then with a heavy accent, 'What language do you speak? Vad är ditt namn, tack?'

The pain was making him gasp for breath. His hands were clenched into immovable rocks. He forced his mouth to move. He said, 'Illya. Illya – Kuryakin,' and then he ground out another cry of pain through clenched teeth. He felt as if he were going to be sick again.

He could hear them talking, those lilting Swedish voices, a little interchange between men and women, and he couldn't work out what they were saying. They took his tie all the way off and struggled with unbuckling and then stripping off his shoulder holster. He wondered about his gun. Perhaps Napoleon had it. He ought to know where his gun was.

They unbuttoned his shirt and the cold disc of a stethoscope touched his chest above his heart. Someone was taking his pulse. He turned his head wildly, staring into a white blur, and hands touched both sides of his head, stilling him gently but firmly. And then they asked again, 'What language?'

He heaved in breath. A hand came down onto his forehead, a thumb pulled one of his eyelids open, light swam hazily, and the water started running over his eyes again. He should be able to manage in English but he was grasping even for English words.

'Русский,' he managed. 'Україна.'

He couldn't stop it; his stomach lurched again. He was retching drily while hands turned him on his side and someone stroked his shoulder in gentle reassurance. He retched once more and something bitter and liquid spilled out of his mouth, and then he tried to turn back, and they let him, that hand still stroking him, the water coming back to flush over his eyes. His teeth were chattering. His hands were clenched but they were shaking. Someone pressed a cloth to his mouth, wiping his lips, and he tried to remember a word in any language for thank you, and failed.

They were raising his legs, they were tucking more blankets over him. There was a sharp sting in his arm and gradually the sharpest edges of the pain faded. He felt so cold, so shaky, and he tried to blink against the water they were pouring over his eyes because it hurt, but they wouldn't let him. He struggled to see through the pouring water, moved his eyes jerkily left and right, tried to find some kind of shape or colour to latch onto. It must be the water blurring everything like this. It had to be.

And then there was a hand on his arm, a warm voice very close to his ear.

'Illya? Illya, can you hear me? Illya, can you understand what I'm saying?'

'Так так,' he said, and realised only as he answered in Ukrainian that she was speaking Ukrainian to him. The relief was so huge that he sobbed, he just let go, and she stroked his arm and said, 'Illya, I'm Dr Avramenka. You can call me Lena. All right, Illya?'

Her voice was an anchor in the busy room.

'Yes, y-yes,' he said shakily.

'Illya, I'm a cardiologist here at the hospital, but I come from Lviv. There's nothing wrong with your heart. I was called down here so I could talk to you, because the doctors are having trouble knowing if you can understand. Illya, can you speak any Swedish?'

'I – I – ' He took in air, tried so hard to focus through the pain. 'I speak some,' he said, 'and – and – fluent in English. But – I'm having trouble – '

'All right, Illya,' she said softly, rubbing his shoulder gently. 'You're in shock, and that can do funny things to the mind, yes? Don't worry for now about other languages. I can stay here for a while and speak to you in Ukrainian or Russian. Which would you prefer?'

'Ukrainian,' he said instantly. 'Thank you. I'm so – '

But another wave of pain pressed through him, and a moan pushed past his lips. She stroked his arm.

'All right. I know, Illya. I know it's very painful. You have something corrosive in your eyes. They think it's acid. It's caused a lot of damage to your corneas. Illya, do you know exactly what the substance is? It's important.'

He gritted his teeth, tried to focus. 'I don't – I think it was acid. S-someone threw – they threw – '

She spoke swiftly in Swedish then switched again to Ukrainian. 'You don't know exactly what it was?'

He was so dizzy. He was spinning round and round. 'No. Don't know. I'm an agent, I was – '

'They found your card,' she told him, stroking his shoulder again. 'It's all right, Illya. But I have to explain some things to you. Do you think you can listen to what I say? Do you feel able to take it in?'

They had stopped irrigating his eyes. The water had stopped and the blur was still there. They were dabbing his face dry and scrubbing water from his hair, and he thought, They've given up. They've given up trying… But he still couldn't see. He couldn't see...

'Illya, the nurse will put some cream on the burns on your face and some drops in your eyes and then you'll be bandaged up,' the Ukrainian doctor said very clearly. 'Can you listen to me? I need to explain some things to you.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes...'

'All right.' She stopped stroking his shoulder and took hold of his hand. She stroked his fingers until they relaxed enough that he could hold on to hers. Her hand was soft and warm. He turned to look her and there was just a thick blur. 'Illya, whatever acid it is in your eyes, it's done a lot of damage,' she said clearly.

'Yes,' he said faintly. 'Okay.'

'Illya, it is very unlikely that you'll be able to see again,' she said in a low, steady voice. 'Do you understand that? There isn't very much that can be done after burns like this, and your corneas are very badly damaged. You are probably not going to recover any useful vision.'

The bottom dropped away from his stomach. He felt as if he were falling. He was spinning round. He tightened his hand on hers as the pain seared again, as someone put icy cream onto the most painful parts of his face, on his eyelids and eyebrows and his cheek. They dripped those drops into his eyes, and his eyes stung, and then a numbness started to creep over them that didn't entirely efface the pain.

'I – I – ' he tried to say, but there were no words.

They were lifting his head up a little, speaking to him, and the Ukrainian doctor said, 'A few bandages, Illya. Some pads over your eyes and then bandages.'

There were kind, gentle hands, someone supporting his head, and they were putting something over his eyes, and then the bandages that wrapped around and around. The confused blur turned to black.

'Illya,' the doctor said gently. 'I need to know that you understand what I've told you about your eyes.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes.'

Oh god… The reality of what she had told him was sinking through the thick, thick layers of shock. No useful vision. No sight. That last moment, that frozen moment standing in the doorway to that lab, the coloured test-tubes, the tawdry posters, the flickering strip lighting and that man raising his hand with a beaker of clear liquid… And that was it. He felt as if he were falling. There was nothing beneath him. He began to sob.

That wonderful doctor leant over him and eased him up a little to put her arms around him, and she just held him, rocked him, whispered words of comfort to him, and then she began to sing softly, gently into his ear, singing lullabies that he had heard from his mother's lips so long ago.

'I have two children,' she told him between songs. 'They are five and seven, and I sing these songs to them every night that I can, even though they are half little Swedes.'

Illya didn't reply, but he listened to her soft voice and thought of his own mother. And then the dropping fear came over him and the pain became overwhelming, and she began to sing again.

'Where did you grow up, Illya?' she asked after a while, after his breathing had settled to a more steady rhythm and some of the tension had left his body. She settled him back down on soft pillows and offered him water, and then asked again, 'Where did you grow up? Tell me about yourself.'

He swallowed the water and licked his lips, and then said, 'Kyiv. I was born in Kyiv, just after the famine.'

'Ah,' she said slowly, with that slight hollowness in her voice that he was used to from people who knew about that awful time. 'Yes, I was a child then. I haven't been to Kyiv. Did you like it there?'

He remembered the beautiful buildings and the light sparkling on the Dnieper, the snow in the winter and the bright summer sun. He had that lurching feeling again because he couldn't see, because he would never see the Dnieper sparkling in the sun again. He suddenly thought of his apartment, the mundane lines of his apartment, of the view from Napoleon's balcony over the East River, of the angles and glittering light on the windows of the Manhattan skyscrapers. Not seeing them. Never seeing them again. How could that be true? How could it possibly be true?

He fought to push that falling feeling away, and thought of Kyiv again, and said, 'Yes, I was very happy there.'

His words slurred a little because he felt exhausted, and she asked, 'Will you sleep a little?'

'No,' he said.

He couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in this place. He felt so vulnerable. He was still shaking. He couldn't stop shaking. Someone came into the room then and spoke Swedish, and he didn't even try to understand, but then Dr Avramenka said, 'Illya, I need to take your temperature and your blood pressure. Now, we want you to change out of these clothes anyway, and you will have to wear a gown until someone can fetch you pyjamas. Then we'll take you up to the ward and find you a proper bed. Can I help you change?'

He agreed without even really thinking about it. Everything was tangled up with shaking and pain and thinking I'm not going to see again. No useful vision... He let her undress him like a doll and he slipped his arms into the sleeves of the gown, and then he lay passively while she took his blood pressure and temperature. Then there was talking again between her and others in the room, and Illya lay in his haze, shaking.

'All right, Illya. There's a bed being made up for you in the ward,' Dr Avramenka said gently. 'Let me help you into the wheelchair. It's right by the bed. Right here.'

So Illya sat up, and everything swam. The doctor's kind, strong hands helped him, other hands helped him, he let his trembling legs drop him into the wheelchair. Blankets were tucked over him, a hand was pressed onto his shoulder. Dr Avramenka said, 'The orderly is going to push the chair, and I'll be alongside.'

The chair moved. He bit his lip and let himself be pushed, felt that odd feeling of sitting still and being wheeled over a hard floor. There were sounds of other people talking in Swedish. The chair stopped. Elevator doors opening. The different sound of a metallic room as he was wheeled inside, and then the slight jolt, the hum of the cables. A hand was on his arm and Dr Avramenka asked, 'Are you doing all right, Illya?'

'Yes,' he murmured as the doors opened again, as he was wheeled out of the elevator. He felt as if he were falling, but he was all right. He listened to all the odd little sounds, to the words of Swedish being exchanged above his head, somewhere outside of his bubble of shock. And then he was being helped into a bigger, softer bed. Crisp, clean blankets were being folded efficiently over him, and Dr Avramenka said, 'That's it. You're settled in on the ward.' She spoke in Swedish to someone else, then said, 'Now, here, Illya. Here is a cup of tea. I want you to drink it down, and we will talk about your pain.'

He took the china mug in shaking hands and took a sip of the liquid. The tea was hot and terribly sweet, and his hands shook and it spilled on the blanket. The doctor's kind hands closed over his and helped him bring it steadily to his mouth again. He turned away from the sweetness, but the doctor said, 'No, I want you to drink it now, all of it. The sugar will help.'

So he drank the tea to the dregs, even the undissolved grainy mess of sugar at the bottom, then the doctor asked him careful questions about his pain, and a moment later he was given another injection which numbed the edges of it even more.

'What time is it?' he asked.

'Almost seven,' she told him.

He felt so disconnected. He wondered if there were windows on this ward, if the windows had blinds, if the night were inky outside now. He tried to remember if he had seen the sunset today. The sun would rise in the morning and he wouldn't see it brightening the sky. The urge to cry thickened his throat, and he swallowed hard.

Surely Napoleon will be back soon…

He was so tired. The pain made him so tired. But he couldn't imagine ever sleeping.

'Illya, is there anyone here that I can call?' Dr Avramenka asked. 'Is there anyone who can sit with you?'

Illya thought. There were a few local agents, but he didn't know any of them. They hadn't even checked in at the local headquarters. They hadn't needed to. They'd spoken via communicator to let them know about the mission, and they would be available for clean-up. But no, no one he knew. There was just Napoleon. He hoped to god that the clean-up was routine and safe.

'I'm waiting for my friend to come back,' he said rather shakily. 'My partner. He had to leave me, finish the mission.'

She stroked his arm softly. 'All right. I'm sure he'll be here soon. You just try to relax, Illya. Let the painkiller work.'

Try to relax... He didn't know how to relax. He was still shaking. The pain was still terrible. He was still so scared.