The Unfailing Light (14 page)

“Why not? I honestly can’t understand why you chose to return here in the first place, Katiya. I didn’t understand your desire to go to Zurich either, but what on earth made you change your mind?”

I couldn’t trust Dariya and tell her the truth. She knew about my powers, and she knew about Elena. But anything I confided to her now could be passed along to Grand Duchess Miechen. She couldn’t learn about the empress’s spell around Smolny, or that I was being held a prisoner here for my own safety. As well as for the tsar’s. He needed me close by, and safe, in case Konstantin returned. I was certain that the empress did not want the grand duchess knowing of the threat to the tsar.

“I’m really too young,” I said finally. “I only just turned seventeen, Dariya. Next year I will be ready.” The tsar could not make me stay at Smolny longer than that.

“That is true,” Dariya said, nodding sympathetically. “You’d probably be the youngest student at the university, and you would hate all the attention that drew. But tell me, how is teaching? I would imagine that the Blue Form girls are just as silly as ever.”

I smiled. “They are. And yet, they seem so bright and eager
to learn. I don’t remember being so intelligent when we were in the Blue Form classes.”

“Speaking of silly girls,” Dariya said, “I did hear one piece of Light Court gossip that will amuse you. Grand Duchess Ella made the empress furious when she insisted on taking Alix from Smolny. She said Alix was very ill.” Dariya’s liveliness disappeared and she looked at me anxiously. “It wasn’t the veshtiza, was it?” she asked.

“No,” I assured her. “I’m positive it wasn’t.” I suspected it had to do with the empress’s spell around the school. But if Alix was some sort of supernatural creature, like Elena and myself, how had Ella convinced the empress to release Alix? I remembered the way the carriage had passed through the spell’s barrier with extreme difficulty. “How do you know the empress was angry?”

My cousin shrugged again. “Grand Duchess Ella has not been invited to dinner at the Winter Palace since. But I’m sure the empress will forgive her soon.”

I wondered just how much magic was required for maintaining the spell around Smolny. The empress must have been more powerful than anyone suspected. Or she had someone or something helping her.

We were coming to the end of the path and Grand Duchess Miechen’s carriage was waiting for Dariya. I embraced her when we got to the carriage. “Thank you so much for coming to visit. It would not have been the same if I’d had to spend my birthday here alone.”

“We’ve been celebrating your birthday together out here in the courtyard for six years. Under this same birch tree! Since you would not leave Smolny, I had to come to you.” Dariya
smiled. “The grand duchess sends her birthday wishes for you as well. As does my stepmaman.”

“Give them both my thanks,” I said.

She turned around to look at me. “What are you going to do about your grand duke?”

“Worry.” I could think of nothing else. It was not proper for me to write to him. And whom could I trust to send a message for me? Not Dariya.

Dariya sighed. “Then I wish I hadn’t distressed you with the news. I would not have told you if I did not think you could do something about it. I thought you and the grand duke had an understanding.”

I shook my head. “The only understanding we have is that he has his path to follow and I have mine.”

My cousin crushed me in her arms. “I’m so sorry, Katiya. Perhaps it is for the best. You belong in the Dark Court, after all. With us. You deserve a proper Dark Court marriage.”

I shivered at her words. Why was she so ready to claim her alliance with Miechen? Of course, it was the court we’d both grown up in, whether we were aware of it as children or not. I pulled away and stared at her. “What if I don’t want a marriage at all?”

“That’s ridiculous. You can study medicine if you wish and still be married. I’ve learned that there are girls who marry male students just so they can attend the university. Without their father’s or guardian’s permission, they simply find husbands of convenience. Usually for a large amount of money, of course.”

“That is not what I want at all,” I said. I remembered Dr. Bokova, the woman I’d met on the train. Did she have to
marry a stranger in order to get her education? No wonder she thought I was privileged and spoiled.

Dariya smiled. “I believe you can create the life you want, Katiya. You are strong enough to make all of your dreams come true.”

“And what about you? What about your dreams?”

My cousin shrugged. “I want the rich and handsome husband and the grand palace. That is enough for me, I think.” She glanced around and, seeing we were still alone, she smiled. “And there are several rich and handsome young men that attend Miechen’s court. Being a lady-in-waiting has its advantages. The grand duchess has been so kind to me. She’s pointed out several eligible young princes.”

I wondered if Miechen kept Dariya close because of her relationship with me. Was the grand duchess spying on me through my cousin? Surely she had other methods. “Don’t be in such a hurry to get married,” I said. “Enjoy your time at Miechen’s court. Within reason, of course.”

Dariya grinned. “It would be so much more enjoyable if you were there too. Perhaps I will see you at one of the balls soon?” Her eyes lit up. “The Smolny Ball is coming up!”

I brightened up at the thought, remembering my dance with the grand duke. Would the empress allow me to leave the school for the ball? Surely the Winter Palace would be protected from Konstantin and his magic.

I stood there at the gate and watched the horses pull Dariya’s carriage away, taking my cousin with them. The carriage passed through the spell barrier easily. I hadn’t felt lonely before, but now I felt incredibly alone. And cold.

The wind had picked up as the sun had begun to sink
behind the birch trees. Shivering, I made my way back inside the institute. I had a nice bowl of borscht for supper, and a fruit tart. After dinner, Elena brought out a deck of cards she kept hidden underneath her pillow.

Erzsebet threw herself down on Elena’s cot. “Are you going to tell Katiya’s fortune?” she asked.

Elena looked up at me and smiled. It made my blood run cold. “I’d rather you did not,” I began, but she interrupted me.

“Katerina, it is your birthday! Don’t you want to know what the next year holds for you?” She shuffled the cards in her deck delicately before handing the pack to me. “You only have to pick one card.”

Erzsebet and Augusta were looking up at me expectantly. Even Aurora, who was writing a letter on her own cot, glanced over at us with curiosity. Elena sighed sadly. “What if the cards can warn you of something before it’s too late? Or prepare you for something exciting?”

I sighed and took the cards from her hand. I shuffled them again, knowing from watching Maman all these years that the cards would not read properly unless I’d touched them myself. I closed my eyes, willing the cards to say something benign about my future. Please, no Death card or Hanged Man, or anything else that would frighten the Bavarian princesses or cause them to whisper about me in the halls. And Aurora would be sure to tell Princess Alix if my cards foretold of evil and misery.

I held my breath as I handed the cards back to Elena. I pulled the card on the top of the deck and laid it down, faceup, on her quilt. The Queen of Swords. An elegant but unsmiling woman riding a horse, her sword held up like Joan of Arc. It
was the same card the Montenegrins had sent me last year at Christmas. Fear made my stomach clench into knots.

“Oooh, how pretty!” Erzsebet said, shoving her sister aside to get a better look.

“Is she going to win a lot of money gambling, like the old woman in that Pushkin story?” Aurora asked.

Elena’s face showed no surprise. “No.” She picked the card up and examined it more closely. “But she will be taking dangerous risks, just the same.” She looked up at me. “Every queen has her king. And Danilo is waiting for you to realize fate wants the two of you together.”

I rolled my eyes, pretending the card had not spooked me. “Fate has nothing to do with it. Your ambitious mother wants the two of us together. But it’s not going to happen.”

She sighed as she wrapped her cards up in a silk cloth and tucked them back under her pillow. “Sometimes I do not understand you, Katerina Alexandrovna. You throw away happiness at every chance you get.”

I went to sleep that night a little sad that I had not received any card or birthday token from the grand duke. Of course, it would not have been appropriate for him to send me anything, but social propriety had not stopped Danilo. I closed my eyes, wondering if George Alexandrovich even knew when my birthday was. Everyone knew the birth dates and saint days of the imperial family, for all of Russia prayed for each and every one of them. So all my life I’d been saying prayers for His Imperial Highness Grand Duke George Alexandrovich Romanov of Russia. Every April and every May, long before I’d ever met him.

I thought of his arms around me in the Crimea, his soft
lips on mine, and hugged myself in the dark. The recently full moon was shining through our tiny window, illuminating the sleeping bodies of Elena and Aurora. I wiped the silent tears off my face, and made an attempt to quit feeling sorry for myself. Somehow, I did not think my blue-eyed grand duke, somewhere in the moonlit streets of Paris with his secret wizards, was saying any prayers for me. But I could still pray for him. I prayed that he would return safely to me soon.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
 

T
he fall days grew chillier and shorter, the nights longer. Alix had returned to Smolny the day after my birthday, looking much healthier than before. But she remained as shy and aloof as ever. Elena and Aurora ignored her, but the Bavarian princesses and I still tried to draw her out of her shell.

Soon it was almost time for the annual Smolny Ball, where the eldest students were invited to dance at the Winter Palace. One Monday morning, the empress herself arrived at the institute with her oldest daughter, Grand Duchess Xenia, to issue our invitations. It seemed she was planning to lift the charm and allow us to go to the ball.

All the students of the White Form, the eldest class, assembled in the dining room to see the empress. In the room hung a large portrait of the empress’s predecessor, Marie Feodorovna, who was Tsar Alexander the Second’s wife and our present tsar’s mother. I was only ten when she died, but I
remembered the scandal caused when the tsar married his longtime mistress and tried to make her the new empress. It had shocked and horrified the rest of the imperial family. Marie Feodorovna had been a sweet and kind, but sickly, woman. When Alexander the Second was assassinated only a few months later, his widow took their children and moved to Paris.

The current empress was wearing a pale-rose gown with a cameo at her neck. Grand Duchess Xenia followed behind her in a dress of pink and white stripes, carrying a matching parasol. She smiled shyly and winked as soon as she spotted me in the line of students.

Elena stood at one side of me, and Princess Alix on the other. We curtsied low, as we’d over and over again been taught. The empress slowly walked down the line, nodding at each girl as she passed her. She stopped as she came to the three of us. I felt the familiar shimmering feeling, as her faerie sight washed over me. I did not know if she was looking for anything specific, or if she was trying to intimidate me, her husband’s Dark Court necromancer. The girl who loved her son.

“Katerina Alexandrovna.” The empress was addressing me. I was allowed to raise my head.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“How is your mother?” she asked. “Does she still have that atrocious-looking old cat?”

“She is well, from the last letter I received from her. It has been several months since I saw her. And her cat, Sasha, is the same, Your Imperial Majesty.” Was this some sort of test? Surely she did not really care about my mother, or her unfortunate
and undead cat. The empress had not exchanged any such pleasantries with anyone else.

“That is good to hear. And how do your studies go?”

“Very well, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“That is also good to hear.” Suddenly the shimmering feeling was gone and the empress continued her progress down the line of students. Why had she chosen to speak with me? Did she know the truth about Sasha? That I had raised the poor cat from the dead when I was little just so my mother would not be sad?

Princess Alix looked pale. Perhaps she was sensing the empress’s power for the first time. The empress frowned a little as she looked at Alix with the faerie sight as well. What did she see in the Hessian princess? Had she looked at Elena too?

When the empress had made her way to the end of our line, she turned to us all and said, “Madame Tomilov has told me how proud she is of everyone. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Winter Palace next week. I hope it will be a night to remember.”

We all curtsied in unison. The grand duchess did not say anything, but instead presented us with a box of medical supplies for our small infirmary. She gave us all a shy wave before turning to follow her mother out.