The Unfailing Light (8 page)

This made me like the idea even less. “I’ll be trapped! I cannot believe you would do this to me.”

George sighed. “Katiya, I want to know that you are safe. Why must you be so stubborn?”

“You don’t know that it will help at all, and what if the lich tsar gets in and I can’t get out?”

Papus stood up. “I am certain you will be safe, Duchess. And the members of the Order will be on guard outside of the institute. The Order of St. Lazarus.”

My eyebrows rose at that, and I repressed a shudder. Several members of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the elite imperial guard, had been turned into the walking dead by Princess Johanna. She’d been building an army of undead soldiers for Konstantin. Thanks to me, the unfortunate creatures were now sworn to protect Tsar Alexander as the Order of St. Lazarus. “The tsar is aware of this?”

“The tsar is the one who commands it.” George took my hand. “And he will command you to report to Smolny, if you do not go willingly.”

I stared at him angrily, trying very hard not to let the tears leak out. I jerked my hand out of his and turned toward the window.

“To the devil with this!” George muttered with an exasperated sigh. He stomped out of the parlor. The door slammed, rattling Maman’s china figures on the curio shelf.

“Duchess?” Papus said softly. “It is not difficult to see that he cares for you a very great deal.”

“He is being unreasonable. I cannot hide behind the empress’s magic spells. And why isn’t everyone more concerned with protecting the tsar? He is Konstantin’s main enemy. Not I.”

“The Order is protecting the tsar as well. The empress cannot,
unfortunately, cast a protective spell around the tsar. But—”

“And why not?” I interrupted. “Why won’t her spells work on him?”

“She is forbidden by the church to cast any spell over the sovereign. But he is well protected nevertheless.”

At that moment, Maman came hurrying in with Anya, behind her, carrying a tea tray. “Katiya? We heard loud noises! Is everything all right? Where is the grand duke?”

I had no idea where George had gone. Surely he wouldn’t leave the French sorcerer here alone. I looked out the window into the street. George was standing next to the imperial carriage. He still looked angry.

“Perhaps I should go down to him,” I said, hesitating. I was afraid this would be the last time I would see him before he left for Paris.

I could have sworn Papus winked at me as he nodded slightly. “I am going to sit here and drink my tea, if you do not mind.” He settled himself in the stuffed chair and smiled at Anya and my mother.

I flew down the staircase and out the door before my mother could protest.

The grand duke turned around as I approached him. His glare softened. “I was expecting Papus to follow me,” he said.

I shook my head. “He is taking tea with Maman. I wanted to apologize to you. I should never have made you angry.”

“Don’t you understand how much I wish I could stay here and protect you myself?”

I sighed. I wished he would hold me, but there was no way we could touch, not here in front of my family’s dacha. The
unhappy look in his eyes told me he’d read my mind and felt the same way. “Will you leave soon?” I asked.

“Tonight.” His smile was sad. “Please let me leave with some peace of mind, knowing you will soon be safe at Smolny?”

There was no way I could avoid it, so I finally nodded, blinking back tears. “The tsar’s men will not have to drag me kicking and screaming. I will go quietly.”

His sigh was heavy with relief. “Thank you. The imperial guard will be posted around your mother’s dacha until you return to St. Petersburg.”

Papus joined us just then. “So sorry to keep you waiting, Your Imperial Highness. Shall we go? It was an honor to formally meet you, Duchess.”

George took my hand and bowed over it. I felt his lips touch the back of my hand just barely. “At your service, Duchess.”

“And I am at yours, Your Imperial Highness,” I said. “Please take care of yourself.”

“Always.” With a grim smile he turned and climbed into the imperial carriage after Papus. I stood there and watched the carriage pull off toward the winding mountain road that would take them to the harbor in Yalta. A ship would take them to Varna, on the Bulgarian coast, and from there they would travel by train to Paris. The journey would last the better part of a week.

And I would be returning to St. Petersburg with Maman within the next few days. By the time the grand duke reached Paris, I would be back at the Smolny Institute for Young Noble Maidens.

CHAPTER NINE
 

T
he following morning, we left the family dacha and returned to Sevastopol, where the train waited for our long journey back to St. Petersburg. Our private railcar was comfortable, and the trip would have been pleasant if not for Aunt Zina’s nervous dog. The tiny bichon frise shed almost all of its hair and vomited every half hour from nervousness.

Dariya had already abandoned me and was traveling back to St. Petersburg with Miechen’s entourage. Maman was kind enough to let me sit by the window, and I stared out at the vast fields as we raced north through the Crimea. The mountains stretched out before us, the rich farmlands disappearing into the distance.

When night fell and the view outside the window darkened, everyone climbed into their sleeping berths. The swaying of the train lulled me to sleep and I dreamed I was back at the Livadia Ball. I dreamed that I was searching the ballroom
for George Alexandrovich. I wandered in and out between hundreds of dancing couples as the orchestra played a polonaise from the opera
A Life for the Tsar
. But I could not find George anywhere.

A man grabbed my arm, digging his fingers painfully into my skin. I turned around but the man was wearing a black mask. He was much taller than George, but nowhere near as tall as the tsar.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The man smiled; his white teeth were dazzling and sharp. “Your life will be in less danger if you do not know, Duchess. You have been poking around where you should not be.”

The man had a French accent, but did not look like the wizard Papus. He was much taller and his movements were far too graceful and quick. Almost unnatural. Before I realized what he was doing, he had swept me up into the crowd and we were dancing the polonaise. “The Koldun is keeping his eye on you,” he said. “He believes you are a danger to the tsar.”

I was confused. The Koldun was the tsar’s own wizard. George was in training to replace the existing one. Who that was, I did not know.

I raised my chin and stared into his black eyes. “I can assure you, and you can assure your Koldun, I will give my life to protect the tsar.”

He chuckled. “That would be a terrible waste,
ma petite
.”

A sudden chill gripped my heart. “What do you mean?”

The masked man did not answer but instead spun me away from him as the music swelled. I found myself unable to stop spinning. The ballroom turned into a huge blur.

I woke up with a gasp. The train was rocking gently as it
raced through the dark Crimean night. My mother was asleep in the berth next to me. At some point she had covered me with a thin blanket, but I was shivering. I could still hear the masked man’s laughter in my ears.

Maman shifted and moaned softly in her sleep. The train berths were small and cramped, but our car was much more comfortable than others. I had no right to complain. Taking my blanket and wrapping it around my shoulders, I climbed out of my berth and stood at the window. The sky was beginning to lighten, and by sunrise, we would be passing through Kharkov. I dressed quietly and slipped out of our compartment and headed to the dining car. A cup of hot tea would clear my head.

It was near Kharkov that the imperial train had run off the track last autumn. Twenty-one people on the train had died in the crash, and many more than that had been injured. Officially, the train had been going too fast and the engineer had lost control.

I’d heard whispers from the Dark Court that the train had been sabotaged by vampires. But even an army of vampires could not have accomplished such destruction. In my heart, I suspected dark magic, and remembered Grand Duchess Miechen’s express disappointment when the imperial family survived. She did not hide the fact that she wished for her husband, the brother of the tsar, Vladimir Alexandrovich, to inherit the throne of all the Russias. Was she cruel enough to plot the murders of her own nieces and nephews?

It would have taken much more than any man-made explosive to blow the imperial train completely off its track. The tsar had been forced to tear the crumpled metal roof with
his own hands to free the empress and their children. The empress had a sprained hand, and Grand Duchess Xenia had had cuts and scratches on her face and arms. The youngest, Grand Duchess Olga, had been thrown clear through a broken window. The young grand dukes had been badly bruised but were all right. I’d seen the faint scar on George’s hand where the glass had cut him.

Shaking the awful images from my head, I slipped into the dining car. It was empty except for a woman close to Maman’s age. She was wearing a plain black dress and sat reading a book while her tea grew cold.

As I sat down a few tables away from her, the waiter hurried up to me. “Your Highness, we would have been more than happy to bring breakfast to the Oldenburg car. There is no need for you to sit here with other passengers.” He nodded to the woman in black dismissively.

“It is quite all right,” I said. “I did not want to disturb my mother or my aunt. And I won’t be any trouble to you. If you would just bring me tea, please. With lemon.”

As the waiter bowed and left, I looked up to see the woman staring at me. She saw me looking back and quickly glanced again at her book.

The sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. I put my hand flat against the cold window as we rolled slowly past the scene of the accident. A cathedral was being built on the site to give thanks for the imperial family’s safety. Imperial guards stood before the building site, their pale faces stony and grim. The Order of St. Lazarus.

The woman was staring out the window at the guards as well. And she was frowning.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

She seemed surprise that I had addressed her. “Those men. There is something dreadfully wrong with them. I have seen the same sickness in St. Petersburg.”

I felt my stomach sink. “You have?” How many other people had noticed the walking dead in St. Petersburg?

She gestured to the open book on the table in front of her. “I’ve been researching their symptoms but cannot find any known diseases that correlate.”

“Are you a doctor?” I asked. When she nodded, the anxious feeling I’d had was mixed with excitement and curiosity. I was almost giddy. A female doctor! “I would be honored if you joined me. My name is Katerina Alexandrovna of Oldenburg.”

Recognition showed in her face. “Your father is Duke Alexander Petrovich, then. I am Maria Bokova. I have recently agreed to work in the Oldenburg Hospital for Infants.” She stood and curtsied to me, stiffly.

“How exciting! Please sit with me,” I said, waving my hand at the empty seat at my table. “I plan to attend medical school myself and have many questions I would love to ask you!”

As she sat down carefully, she folded her hands primly in front of her. “And your father agrees to your plans? Why would he allow his daughter to be subjected to such misery?”

“Misery?”

“It is not a life for a pampered young girl, Highness. Why would you throw away the life you have for one such as mine?”

“I want to help people. I want to find cures for diseases.” I’d always known that it would be hard, but I had not expected a female doctor to be so hostile. I had expected more
camaraderie. More support. “And I am not a pampered young girl,” I said, unable to ignore her bitter remark.

“Don’t believe for a moment that your father’s money and imperial ties will make it easy for you,” she continued. “It’s bad enough if the instructors and the fellow students believe you have received special favors for being a woman. Whether you actually received those special favors or not. And if they believe your papa bought your admission to the university, it will be a thousand times worse.”

“I passed the entrance examination to Zurich on my own,” I said coolly.

She nodded, but did not seem very impressed. “Perhaps you think it will get easier once you hold your diploma in your hand, but that is rubbish. There are more political and bureaucratic hoops to jump through in order to practice here in Russia as a doctor.”

“And yet you intend to practice in St. Petersburg, and not in the country,” I pointed out. “Surely the problems with bureaucracy are greater in the city.”

Dr. Bokova sighed. “Yes, and I am very grateful to his highness, your father, for this opportunity. I am willing to risk the headaches and heartache. There are so many poor women and children in the city that need medical care.”

“I hope the other doctors at the hospital will not make your work difficult,” I said. Secretly, I worried if Papa could do anything about it if they did.