by Claudia Gray
Paul remains with me throughout this, several feet away. He must notice how bizarre it is for me to need these reference materials, but he says absolutely nothing about it, simply waits patiently. That helps me feel a little more in control, even as I make a mess of the letters. The fountain pen blots every other word, and handwriting takes so long; if you ask me, Skype is a much better way to keep in touch.
Between notes, I search the List for any reference to a Theodore Willem Beck. Okay, it would be an extreme long shot for Theo to turn out to be nobility too, but I’m desperate to figure out where he is. In a world without Google, that info is a lot harder to come by. But the book has no mention of him, just like my maids this morning had never heard his name. Theo’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
As I work on a letter to a Greek princess who is apparently my aunt, I remain vividly aware of Paul’s presence. He stands by the door of the salon where I’ve chosen to work, the two of us alone in the vast, elegant room, looked upon by oil portraits of my various ancestors, all of whom seem to be disapproving. Finally I can’t take the silence any longer.
“You must find this very dull, Markov,” I say.
Paul doesn’t even turn his head. “Not at all, my lady.”
“You wouldn’t rather be with your”—Regiment? Is that right?—“fellow soldiers?”
“My duty calls me to remain with you, my lady.”
And there’s something about the way he says “my lady” that flusters me. I turn back to my letter, but I can only stare down at the page.
Okay, I’ve learned that Paul Markov isn’t a killer. That’s a relief, but that truth raises more questions than it answers. Why would Paul destroy my mother’s research and data and take off? And if he’s entirely innocent, why did he fight Theo so savagely in London?
Well. Theo and I attacked him first, and Paul did say he was suspicious of Theo when he saw him . . .
Wait. My eyes widen. Theo—it couldn’t be.
No. It actually couldn’t be. Theo took an enormous risk to try and help my mother and avenge my father; he leaped through dimensions without any guarantee he wouldn’t be turned into “atomic soup.” He’s as confused about what’s going on as I am. The shifting worlds around me have left me unsure of so many things, but Theo’s loyalty, at least, has been proved beyond any doubt.
Paul Markov remains a mystery.
Yet he’s a mystery I’ll have to solve if I’m to have any hope of repairing the Firebird.
I try to concentrate on my letter, but I can’t. I drop my head into one of my hands. Paul takes one step toward me. “My lady? Are you well?”
“I’m . . . overwhelmed. That’s all.”
“Do you need to walk into the Easter room, my lady?”
Easter room? When I look up, Paul is smiling—but shyly. Even here, in a world where he’s a military officer in full uniform, gun and knife in his belt, he remains unsure of saying the right thing.
I rise from my chair and let him lead the way.
Paul takes me through more of the long corridors of the Winter Palace. Gilded ceilings glitter overhead as we walk through columns of green marble, through rooms painted gold or crimson or royal blue; my slippers softly echo the click of his shining boots along the paneled floors. Finally we reach a pair of tall, white doors. Paul pushes them open and steps to one side, allowing me to enter first. I walk inside, and only barely manage to stifle a gasp.
The Easter room turns out to be where our family keeps the Fabergé eggs.
Each egg is a jeweler’s masterpiece. Small enough to fit easily in an adult’s hand, they are set with porcelain, or gold, or jewels, or most often a combination of the three. Some are modestly pretty, like the pink enamel one latticed with rows of tiny pearls; others are spectacularly inventive, like the egg of lapis lazuli surrounded with silver rings like the planet Saturn, nestled in a “cloud” of milky quartz dotted with platinum stars.
In my dimension, a few dozen Fabergé eggs have survived from the decades the Romanovs gave them to one another as Easter gifts. In this dimension, that tradition has lasted for well over a century. A couple hundred eggs glint and shine from their places on the long shelves that line the walls. It’s like falling into a jewel box, but a thousand times more dazzling, because every single egg is a unique work of art.
Reverently I tiptoe to one of the shelves and pick up an alabaster egg. My inner voice chants, Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t don’t don’t. The silver hinge in the middle opens, and I lift it up to reveal a tiny clockwork dancer inside, a metal marionette who begins to dance while a tune plays. It’s so beautiful, so delicate, that it takes my breath away.
“Not your usual favorite, my lady,” Paul says softly.
How many times has he brought me here, when I was sad or lonely? I sense this is far from the first afternoon we’ve found ourselves alone here.
“Which one is my favorite?” I look up into Paul’s gray eyes, challenging him to know me.
Without hesitation, he points at an egg the deep, vivid red of wine, decorated with swirls of delicate gold filigree. The beauty of the red alone—I could mix my paints for hours and not capture that depth of color.
I realize why Paul’s holding back; surely he’s not allowed to touch it.
So I lift my chin and say, “Get it for me, Markov.”
He pauses for only the briefest moment, then takes the egg into his broad hands. (And they’re so large, so strong. I think he could span my waist with his hands.) As I watch, he lifts the top to reveal the “surprise,” the extra layer of finesse or artistry hidden within each egg. Here, it is a small silver charm—a tiny framed portrait of my mother.
“Oh,” I whisper. Of course this would be the one I always return to, the one I love best of all. Paul nestles the egg in my waiting palms. His fingers brush against mine for a fraction of a second, and yet I imagine I can feel his touch long after it has ended.
For a few long moments we stand there, so very close, looking down at the delicate, priceless thing in my hands. I am aware of Paul’s silence, of the rise and fall of his breath. We are alone in a room that stretches for dozens of feet, with a ceiling that vaults twenty feet above our heads, and yet our nearness feels almost unbearably intimate. The afternoon sunlight slants through the tall window, glinting off his military decorations and the gilding on the egg I hold.
Paul says, “Your mother was very beautiful, my lady.”
He’s only judging by the portrait. In this dimension, he probably never got the chance to know Mom. I think of how much she loves him, back home, and feel a pang at the loss—this other connection that should have existed, but didn’t. “Yes, she was.”
“Very like you, my lady.”
I can’t look up at him. I can’t catch my breath.
Why does he get to me like this?
But if I’m being honest, what I’m feeling began a while ago, growing from curiosity to hope to something I can’t even name.
“Oh—” I wince as one of the prongs inside the wine-colored egg falls down into the shell. Mom’s portrait won’t hang in its place any longer. “I broke it.”
“Don’t worry, my lady. The tutor will be able to fix that, I’m certain. Professor Caine is very adept with his clockmaker’s tools.”
Of course. At home, every once in a while, Dad tinkers with old clocks, getting them to run again. His fine scientific mind, denied theoretical challenges in this world, has turned to more mechanical ones. Here he must tinker with machinery all the time.
At last I look up at Paul, and I’m beaming with such happiness that I know he’s surprised. But I can’t help it.
I just thought of another way out.
13
“PROFESSOR CAINE.” IT’S SO BIZARRE, CALLING HIM SOMETHING besides Dad.
But what about this isn’t bizarre?
Dad walks into the Easter room, escorted by Paul, who went to fetch him at my command. When he sees the wine-colored egg in my hands, Dad nod
s, anticipating my request. “It’s that hook, isn’t it? Really, someday soon, you should have the Fabergé jewelers reset that properly, Your Imperial Highness.” He reaches into his jacket and withdraws a small leather roll—his packet for his watchmaker’s tools. “But I can put it right for now, never fear.”
“Of course you can.” I smile at him, hoping to butter him up for a favor. Then I realize that’s sort of ridiculous. When you’re a grand duchess of the House of Romanov, you don’t ask for favors; you make commands.
But this is still my father, and more than ever, I want to treat him with respect.
“I had another project for you, if you were willing to take a look at it.” Carefully I place the broken egg on a small side table, then reach into my pocket. There, wrapped carefully in my lace handkerchief, are the pieces of the Firebird. “This locket of mine is broken.”
Dad glances from the egg over at me, smiling. “I believe you’re trying to make a jeweler of me, to avoid any future exams in French.”
“No, I promise. This is important to me, and it’s complicated—” I stop talking before I begin to sound panicky. If Dad (or Paul, standing guard at the door) realizes how worried I am about the Firebird, there might be questions I won’t be able to answer. “The locket’s meant to be more than decorative, you see. When all the pieces are put together properly, then it will function again.”
“What does it do?” Dad pushes his glasses up his nose as I unwrap the handkerchiefs a little to reveal the bronze-colored pieces within. “Play music?”
“No.” But what am I supposed to tell him? He’d hardly believe the truth. “I’m afraid I’m not sure.”
“Then I doubt I’d be able to set it right, not knowing how it should work. Of course I want to help you, Your Imperial Highness, but this might be a task best given to a professional.”
Oh, no. If Paul and I are going to have any backup plan for getting out of this dimension, I need someone like Dad to work on the Firebird. Okay, he’s gotten stuck playing tutor in this lifetime, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a genius. He’s my best chance, maybe the only one I have.
There’s no guarantee Colonel Azarenko won’t have thrown away or sold Paul’s Firebird locket by the time he returns from Moscow; if mine doesn’t get fixed, Paul and I will both be trapped here forever.
To still my rising panic, I take a few deep breaths and watch as my father works on the red Fabergé egg. He deftly works with a tiny pair of prongs to twist the hook back into shape, but it’s what he does next that takes my breath away.
Dad picks up the charm portrait of my mother, the one commissioned by Tsar Alexander V, who probably never looked at it again. But Dad holds the charm for a long moment, his eyes drinking in the image of her face, and within him I glimpse the deepest sadness and longing I’ve ever seen.
(“I had no idea what your father looked like, the first time he came to visit me,” Mom said once as we cooked out in the backyard on a hazy summer afternoon. “But I was already half in love with him.”
Dad had laughed as she hugged him from behind. “And I’d picked out the wrong faculty photo, so I thought this ‘Dr. Kovalenka’ was rather elderly.” He lifted her hand to his and kissed it. “Still, some very enticing equations had already been exchanged. I was half in love too. So you see it was a very intellectual courtship—at first.”
“At first.” Mom’s smile became positively wicked. “Now, the other half of falling in love came when we met at the airport and I discovered you were incredibly sexy.”
“Same here,” Dad confessed. “I came near tackling you at baggage claim.”
Josie and I had made gag-me faces, because we were younger and still thought it was gross to see our parents cuddling like that. It was before I realized how incredibly rare it is to watch two people actually stay in love their whole lives.)
Maybe it’s wrong of me to use his feelings against him, but down deep I know Dad would want to help me, and to comfort the version of Mom back home who’s mourning him and desperate for me to return to her. So that makes this all right. At least, I hope so.
“This was my mother’s,” I say, holding out the lace-wrapped Firebird again.
That does it. Dad turns from the Fabergé egg. “Your mother’s?”
“She always used to show it to me, when I was little.” The first rule of lying, Theo once explained, is Keep It Simple, Stupid. “I can’t remember the trick, the thing it did—but I remember loving it. Mom always used to share this with me, so when I found it a few days ago, I was so excited. But you see, it’s in pieces. Someone’s got to put it together again. You could—I know you could.”
Very gently, Dad hangs Mom’s tiny enameled portrait back within the wine-colored egg and closes it again. Then he takes the lace handkerchief in his hands and lifts one piece of the Firebird, an oval bit of metal with computer chips inlaid. There’s no way he has any idea what the hell a computer chip is, I realize, my heart sinking. Am I fooling myself to believe this is possible?
“Do you have any idea of its basic framework, Your Imperial Highness?” he says.
I tap the locket cover. “It all fits in this locket, folds up until you’d think it was only a piece of jewelry. And I don’t think anything’s missing or broken, just knocked apart. But—more than that—no.”
Dad considers it for another moment, then says, “Most devices have a sort of internal logic. I might be able to work it out, given time.”
“Would you try?”
“Why not? I always enjoy a good puzzle.”
Hope leaps within me, bright and wild. “Oh, thank you!” My first impulse is to hug him, but I manage to hold back.
Dad smiles as he folds the remnants of the Firebird back in the lace hanky. “My pleasure, Your Imperial Highness. Always a pleasure to help you.”
“You’ll never know what it means to me.” Is it possible I’ll actually get out of this?
“I understand,” is all he says, but in those two words I hear his love for my mother, and the depth of what he’d do for her memory.
Not even my father is such a genius that he can instantly repair a complicated device he’s never seen before. Nor can he create more hours in the day. Christmastime is the heart of the season here in St. Petersburg, which means virtually every night involves another dinner, or a dance, or a social gathering. My dad is exempt from few of these occasions; I am exempt from none. Azarenko is still in Moscow, and without that time machine Mom never got around to inventing, I can’t make New Year’s come around any faster.
For the time being, I have to make myself at home.
I start with the basics. I memorize as much of that Royal List as I can. A calendar of my appointments turns up in my desk, so I’m able to figure out what I should be doing next, and I find a map of the Winter Palace that helps me learn my way around. (If I get lost in my own house, that’s probably going to tip them off that something’s up.)
The strangest part is how strange it isn’t. After a few days, it feels completely ordinary to wear floor-length dresses every day, and wear my hair piled atop my head in a complicated wreath of braids. My palate gets used to the taste of briny caviar, the pickled flavor of borscht, and the strength of Russian tea. I can read and speak English, French, and Russian without any difficulty switching between them—and I make sure to practice a lot, hoping to carry a little of the French and Russian back home with me.
Each morning, the servants prepare me for my day, doing everything I need, from slipping the stockings over each of my legs to polishing my earrings before screwing them tightly upon my earlobes. (No pierced ears for a grand duchess: in this dimension, at least in St. Petersburg, any kind of body piercing is as good as wearing a T-shirt that says, PROSTITUTE HERE, ASK ME ABOUT MY HOURLY RATES.) They even take care of everything when, on my fourth morning here, my period starts. It’s a huge hassle, involving this contraption like a garter belt but not one bit sexy, and actual cloth towels folded between my legs. I
have to stand there, blushing so hot I must be turning purple, while they change it every few hours and take the towels away to be hand-washed by some unlucky individual. Why couldn’t I have had my period in the dimension where I lived in a futuristic London? They probably had, like, miracle space tampons or something. But the servants don’t seem to think anything of it, so I try to endure it without giving away how completely freaked out I am.
Each day, I go to the schoolroom and study French, economics, geography, and anything else I can talk Dad into reviewing. He responds to my greater curiosity, introducing more science lessons about the innovations of the day, like the race to develop airplanes. (They’ve already been invented here, but only just, and planes are still cloth-and-propeller jobs. The longest flight in history, so far, lasted about twenty minutes.) Peter loves it, asking so many questions that I wonder whether he inherited Mom’s scientific curiosity; Katya pouts about the additional homework, but I can tell she’s intrigued despite herself.
Seeing my father again never gets easier, but I’m glad even for the pain. To have this one last chance to spend time with him is a gift I could never take for granted.
And Paul is always near me. Always with me. If he’s not in the room with me, he is outside the door.
At first the reassurance I take from having him near is simple. As long as Paul is nearby, I can make sure he stays safe. I can believe we’ll get his Firebird back or my dad will fix mine so that I’ll be able to remind Paul of himself—and then I’ll be sure that we can get home.
Another grand ball is scheduled, only one of more than a dozen leading up to Christmas. I won’t be able to fake another fainting spell to get out of this one. Unfortunately, the kind of dancing they have at grand balls is not the kind I know how to do. Waltzing seems to play a major role.
I have no idea how to waltz. If the tsar’s daughter goes out on the dance floor and makes a total fool of herself, people are going to wonder what’s wrong with me.
That afternoon, when Paul and I go to the library, I don’t even bother sitting at my desk. Instead, as soon as Paul closes the tall doors behind us, I say, “Lieutenant Markov, I would like to learn how to waltz.”
