The Secret Language of Stones (26 page)

In answer, his warm wind blew against my cheeks.
I wish I believed that. I don't. I've seen grief. You've seen it.

“You are fixated on the raw, early grief. But think about what happens later. What happens when we build up our own protective layers of nacre and our very misery turns to something beautiful, a memory of love.”

He didn't respond.

“Jean Luc?” My voice sounded panicked even to me.

Yes.

“What happened? Suddenly you weren't there, were you?”

No, I wasn't.

“Why?”

I'm not sure.

“Has it happened before?”

Only the last few days. I try to reach you, and it seems you're just too far away. Or I'll be listening to you and then suddenly I feel as if I'm being pulled back.

“Are you telling me it may be time for you to go?”

It might be. I don't think I'll be allowed to
remain in this limbo for much longer.

I nodded, feeling tears springing to my eyes.

The warm wind wiped them away.

But not yet. And not here. Not until you are safely back in Paris. I promise.

What could I say? Was I meant to go to him? I stood beside the window and, hiding my tears, looked out at the sea. What if I just
walked out onto the cliff and stepped over the edge? Then we could be together. There would be no separation between us. I could go be with him wherever he went. Life wouldn't separate us.

No!

The word was so loud in my head I put my hands up to my ears. He'd shouted his admonition inside of my very soul.

There is a pattern to all of this, a method, a weaving. You cannot pull the threads out and control it yourself.

“Are you sure? How do you know? Do you believe in fate?”

Don't you? You are a daughter of a witch, a
Daughter of La Lune. Isn't that fate? Isn't there a pattern to whom you are born to and whom you become?

“I don't know, I am not sure.”

And for what seemed the hundredth time, I cursed my mother and my history. This had been foisted on me. All of this. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. My headache had worsened. I needed coffee and some headache powder. Resolving to find the kitchens, I walked to the end of the long corridor, alone now, without his voice in my head, and continued on.

Through a door, down a hallway. A stone staircase I hadn't seen before. I smelled the scent of age, of undusted newel posts, of mice behind the walls and spiders that feasted on the neglect. Much older than the rest of the castle I'd seen—from the construction of the rough-hewn beams and cracked stone steps, I guessed this section dated from the Middle Ages.

As I followed the spiral down, the temperature continued to drop. The never-ending circle of steps went deeper than one flight, deeper than two or three. I thought about stopping, going back up. I really was lost. And then I heard a voice—indistinct and far off.

“Jean Luc?”

No response. In silence, I descended deeper, taking another step and then another. Suddenly I heard the voice again. More distinct. Two voices. Good, I could ask for help, get directions to the kitchens.

I hurried. The voices getting louder. I came around another spiral. Only a dozen steps now to the bottom.

Before me lay a darkened cavern. I peered into its depths to find the men, to call out, to tell them I was lost, to ask for help. I saw them. Opened my mouth to yell out—and then instead put my hand up to stop myself from screaming.

Two men stood with their backs to me: Grigori and Yasin. But they were not alone. The Dowager was with them. She was seated in a tall-backed wooden chair. Fury in her eyes as they bent over her, tying her arms to the chair with thick, rough rope.

In Russian, Grigori asked her a question.

And she answered him back, shaking her head no.

He asked the same question again, even more loudly.

She repeated her answer, this time without shaking her head.

Yasin yelled at her.

She only shook her head, no.

With a burst of anger, Yasin pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into the Dowager's mouth.

Grigori went to work tying her ankles together with another length of rope. Her expression remained stoic.

And then she noticed me. She shook her head slightly—the regal movement, an order telling me not to try to help but to leave, to escape. Then her eyes met mine. I wasn't looking anymore at the Imperial Dowager who'd ruled Russia alongside her husband. In her eyes she was nothing but a frightened elderly woman begging me to save her.

Chapter 28

My instinct was to run the rest of the way down the stairs, but something held me back. My horror? My understanding that I couldn't fight two men? My shock that Grigori, my sometime lover and certainly my friend, was in the process of committing a violent act against the tsar's mother?

As stealthily as I could, I crept backward up the stairs. Worried my panic could be smelled. That my pounding heart could be heard. Why were they tying her up? I wanted to help her, but first needed to figure out
how
to help her. Rushing ahead wouldn't do her any good if they restrained me as well.

The stairs turned, and I could no longer see into the dungeon. I climbed and climbed up those endless steps. There were servants in the main part of the castle. If I could just get back there, I would find Briggs. Explain. Get him to call the police. Gather the rest of the staff. Take on the two Russians.

Panting, I reached the top of the stairs. Looked around. Of course, nothing had changed. Still lost, I had no idea how to find my way out of the ancient wing of the castle. And I knew if I wandered around for too long, Grigori and Yasin might find me there and suspect I'd seen something.

I forced myself to take deep breaths and assess my options.

I stood in a circular stone room, with ancient tapestries covering most of the walls. Like the rest of this wing, the room appeared abandoned. I turned in a full circle. Trying to see something I could use to help. I focused on the narrow casement windows illuminating the stairs.

Finally, I thought of an idea. Maybe the view would help me figure out where I was.

Peering through the rectangular opening, I looked into fog and incessant rain. Straining through the atmospheric morass, I thought I saw the sea. But that was no help. The whole of the back of the castle faced the sea. I sank to the floor. If I was going to help the Dowager, I needed to understand what I'd witnessed, but first, I needed a hiding place in case Grigori and Yasin came this way leaving the dungeon—they mustn't find me.

A narrow hallway off the main room led to a series of smaller rooms. I chose the last, empty with only a closed, locked door at its other end. From the dust on the warped parquet, no one had ventured this way in weeks, maybe longer. I sat down on the floor, leaned up against the door, and tried to think through everything I'd seen and what I needed to do.

I pulled the long chain from around my neck and wrapped my fingers around Jean Luc's amulet. He was no seer, no witch, and no wizard. His voice in my head couldn't solve this for me. But he'd become, in a way, my strength. My trajectory to the abilities I'd denied for all this time. Only when I spoke to him, when he was by my side, when he made love to me, did I allow there was really more to this plane, to this dimension, to my senses and my talents, than I'd accepted.

But what good would any of that do me now? I hadn't learned how to harness any of my other abilities. I didn't even know what skills were available to me. I'd read most of the history my mother had given me. I'd studied some of the spells. But I hadn't yet begun to practice, and without practice, I remained a neophyte, incapable of effecting any magick.

The only way out of this was through logic and determination. As my fingers fussed with the talisman's gold chain, I realized I'd twisted it up with the ruby enamel egg necklace. Still trying to think through my dilemma, I disentangled the two.

What did Grigori want? I tried to remember anything unusual I'd overlooked during the planning of this trip. Or on that last morning when we said good-bye. Yes, there had been some tension over Monsieur giving me the necklace. I'd never quite accepted Monsieur's reason for not letting his son take on this task. Or why he wanted me to hide the emerald eggs from him. And when I'd asked, Monsieur had seemed disturbed by his own admission that he was afraid Grigori wouldn't be able to hide its existence.

Buy why was its existence so important?

I pressed the spot between my eyes where Anna had shown me my third eye slept. I needed all the insight and intuition it offered now. The answer to this puzzle lay in small moments and odd comments. What had I seen but missed? Not knowing there was a secret, what had I overlooked?

Monsieur's hatred of the Bolsheviks. Anna's fear of them. And Grigori . . . I pictured his face when he'd told me how the Bolsheviks had destroyed the Russia of his father's generation. I pictured Grigori as he described his mother and her revolutionary poetry. Not ashamed at all, as Monsieur's son should have been, but proud of her? Yes, Grigori was proud of his mother's revolutionary roots. When he'd talked about what the Bolsheviks wanted, about who they hated and how determined they were, he'd been angry. So had Monsieur Orloff. But now, thinking about Grigori's comments differently . . . he'd never decried the Bolsheviks. He said they'd destroyed old Russia . . . it would never be the same again . . . the land his father and Anna wanted to return to had vanished.

But he'd never expressed regret. He'd only spoken facts.

Was it possible? Was Grigori a secret member of the very political party his father and Anna despised? The very opposite of a tsarist
sympathizer? A spy in his own father's house? Had Monsieur Orloff sensed his son's betrayal on some deep visceral level? Anna too had said things that seemed harmless, but now, if I read them with this new knowledge, they took on an entirely different meaning.

When she said she thought Grigori might find his destiny with me, I'd assumed she meant it in a positive way. What if she hadn't? What if she'd seen it but didn't understand it?

If Grigori was in fact a Bolshevik, then coming here to meet with the Dowager suggested what?

What were they planning to do with the empress?

He'd told me the revolutionaries were obsessed with destroying the symbols of the monarchy. But if they'd wanted to, they would have killed her already. So then what did they want?

Monsieur often talked about how the Bolsheviks were in desperate need of money. Suddenly the antiques store took on a changed appearance. Was Grigori helping fund the movement from the heart of Paris? Were the cracks I'd found in the vault's wall an effort to break through into that treasure trove so he could steal from his father and give the party money?

My imagination spun wildly. This was all a story I was inventing. Like Jean Luc . . . making it up in my mind.

Except hadn't my mother proved he wasn't my invention? And seeing the Dowager tied up was no invention either.

The enamel eggs around my neck—the ruby ones on top of my blouse and the emerald ones next to my skin—began to hum and vibrate. What was the real meaning of the two necklaces? What hadn't Monsieur Orloff told me? Why had he taken all of the emerald eggs off of
The
Tree of Life
to give to the Dowager?
Why those eggs?

I reached inside, pulled out the hidden necklace, and held the eggs up to the window. I'd seen them almost every day for nearly four years, locked in the display case, hanging off the sinewy sculpted silver branches. Now, inspecting them, I looked for anything atypical compared to the other eggs we made. The fine workmanship, a hall
mark of Monsieur Orloff's artistry, was evident. Perfect enameling, refined designs, tiny exquisite stones set in the bands, crossing the eggs horizontally or vertically. My jeweler's glasses were still in my smock pocket and I put them on. But even when I looked at the work magnified, nothing shouted out.

Then, turning one egg, I examined its back and noticed a miniature lock in the center of the horizontal band. Examining another, I discovered it was locked as well. I looked at a third. All of them were locked. I studied the ruby eggs. Only one was locked. The single egg Monsieur had pointed out up by the clasp. The one with the note folded up inside of it.

Removing the small key from the end of the chain, I opened the ruby egg. As I unfolded the paper, a second, even smaller key fell out. I picked it up, examined it and then the note. All in Cyrillic. But I didn't need to be able to read it to guess the purpose of the second key.

Refolding the paper, I enclosed it once more inside the egg. The second miniature key was difficult to hold. My fingers covered the ridges and notches, preventing me from fitting it into one of the emerald egg's locks. Trying to position my fingers farther back, I fumbled and the key fell.

The chamber wasn't well lit. The casement windows didn't allow in much light. I couldn't see the key on the stone floor. Had it fallen in between a crack? Getting on my hands and knees, I searched and finally, after a frantic five minutes, found it a few feet away, where it had bounced.

Picking up the key once again, I held it more cautiously, careful to keep a grip on it. I'd almost maneuvered it into the lock when I fumbled again. This time, I was prepared and tried to catch it. Instead, I watched in despair as it fell into one of the dreaded cracks and dis­appeared from sight.

Chapter 29

For a few minutes, I sat on the floor staring down into the crevice. Had I actually dropped the key? The enormity of my clumsiness weighed on me. Fishing around in my smock pockets, I found my jeweler's tweezers. Gingerly, I pushed them down into the crack, hoping to reach the key, but the hole was far too deep.

Frustrated, I began to question what I was doing, wasting time trying to open the necklace. How could the enamel eggs matter now? Why was I focusing on them instead of how to get out of this maze and help the Dowager?

Because Grigori and Yasin wanted something from her. What if it was the necklace?

Rooting around in my pocket again, I searched for anything I could use as a key. I needed to know what hung around my neck. Why were the eggs locked? Why was the necklace so precious that Monsieur had lied to his son about it? Was it the clue to the scene I'd witnessed down below?

My fingers found a two-inch-long gold rod. A remnant of what I'd heated and stretched upstairs, planning to use as a binding around the Dowager's talisman. It would work fine if I could heat it. I thought about the soldering torch in my bedroom. Just above me somewhere upstairs—near and yet impossibly far at the same time.

I tried to remember what I'd read in the grimoire my mother gave
me. There'd been a spell for putting fires out. Another for drawing water to you. One for sending it rushing away. Had there been one for creating fire out of thin air? I thought so, but I couldn't be sure. There must have been. The book contained dozens and dozens of spells, but I had been lax in learning the lessons of my heritage and how to harness my power.

Heat? How could I summon heat?

And then I thought of Jean Luc. He was a source of heat. I grasped his talisman and closed my eyes. Tried to connect and summon him.

I felt nothing.

I grasped the talisman tighter.

“I need you,” I whispered.

Still no answer.

Had he in fact left? Was our time over? He'd just warned me it was becoming more difficult for him to come to me and one day he'd be gone. But so suddenly?

“Jean Luc?” I heard the panic in my voice. “Jean Luc?”

And then, ah yes, I sensed him. That delicious warm breeze. Weaker than ever before, but there.

Not quite time yet, but soon.

“I need you to help me. I need your heat.”

You possess your own, Opaline. Just claim it.

“But how?”

You know. I think you've always known.

“I don't. Tell me.”

Nothing. Silence. What did he mean?

In my desperation to understand what Jean Luc meant, to help the Dowager, I finally stopped trying to make sense. I had to save her. That's all I knew.

Holding the small rod between my fingers, I focused on it and willed it to heat. I
told
it to, insisting it warm so I could use tweezers to bend it into a shape I could fit inside the lock.

My whole body went rigid. My eyes saw blood-red blackness. For
a moment, it seemed as if I'd in fact stopped breathing. I put all of my weight and my energy and my life force into the two inches of gold pressed between my fingers.

The gold began to heat . . . In seconds it became so hot I could barely hold it. The only pain I'd ever welcomed. If anyone had told me I'd be able to do this, I would have sworn it was impossible. How had I— No, there was no time to think through this wonder. The Dowager was in danger and I needed to find out if the reason was contained in the chain of eggs I wore around my neck.

Working as fast as I could, using the two random tools I happened to be carrying in my pocket—the tweezers and a file—I fashioned the soft gold into a makeshift key with three notches mimicking Monsieur Orloff's key for the ruby eggs—just a bit smaller. Calling on my memory of the original.

Done, I put the new key on the stone floor to let it cool and harden before trying it out. If I used it while it was still soft, I might break it. Only then did I realize how badly I'd burned my fingertips. Closing my eyes, I tried to cast the pain off in the same way I'd brought on the heat and felt the intensity lessen. Not a lot, but enough for me to pick up the key and fit it into the egg. Feeling the lock catch, I turned it.

The lock sprung open. I pried apart the egg's shell and peered inside.

I stared down at a brilliant blue diamond that must have weighed at least ten carats. Teardrop-shaped, and as flawless as any I'd ever seen. A sliver of ice, shimmering, frozen, dazzling.

Opening the next egg, I found a heart-shaped pink diamond. Sparkling like a rainbow on fire.

Inside the next egg sat an oval canary diamond. In the next, a pale green diamond. In each of the thirty green enamel eggs, I found an extraordinary colored diamond. A king's ransom—a tsar's ransom's worth of jewels. Each glittered and shone and twinkled in my lap like a droplet of colored water in sunshine. These were worth enough to
bribe an army, to rescue a royal family, to rebuild an empire. It wasn't a rumor. The stories were true. I was staring at part of the treasure the tsar, worried about rumors of a revolution, had entrusted to Monsieur Orloff to take out of the country and secrete away for a time when his family needed them.

And now, the tsar's mother did need them and Monsieur had entrusted them to me to give to her and I was going to fail. Unless . . .

Was this what Grigori and Yasin wanted? The Bolsheviks required money. Could I trade the diamonds for the Dowager's life? For mine? Could I trust Grigori to take the stones and leave us alive? What if their plan had been to steal the jewels and destroy the great Romanov matriarch as well?

Carefully, I replaced every stone into its hiding place, locked each egg, and then slipped the treasure-laden necklace back over my head and under my chemise.

Then I opened the ruby egg that had held the original key. Once more, I unfolded the note, this time wrapping it around the new key. I now guessed the note explained about the hidden stones in the emerald egg necklace. Or perhaps it was a message meant to be found to throw someone off the track of the other necklace. Knowing Monsieur as well as I did, I guessed the latter.

After putting my tools and my glasses back in my pocket, I stood. I needed to find help from someone I could trust.

As quietly as I could, I crept out of the stone archway, nervous to be leaving the safety of my shadowed hiding place. But I wasn't going to waste any time trying to find my way through the maze of rooms. I was just looking for a way out. And I found it. A window large enough for me to crawl out of. Opening it was relatively easy, and in moments, I was outside in the dripping rain, standing on the soggy grass.

I took several deep breaths. Dampness filled my lungs. The fog hung heavy over the cliff, so misty I could only see a few feet in front of me. My urge to run almost overwhelmed me. What did I care
about the woman bound and gagged, deep inside the castle? She wasn't my sovereign; I wasn't her liege, but only a jeweler who made watches . . . who heard voices. Incapable of being a heroine in an adventure story.

Except how could I leave her? A terrified woman who'd lost her son, her country, perhaps even her grandchildren.

But this wasn't my battle, wasn't my family. I took my first steps away from the castle wall. Started to run. I would find the road. Someone would stop. I could go to the police, send help for the Dowager, then go back to Paris. No, to Cannes. I never needed to go back to Paris.

But I could still see the Dowager's eyes boring into mine. I couldn't just leave her. Especially when around my neck I wore what might be all it would take to save her.

Turning, I stared at the impossible building, trying to figure out where exactly the ancient wing was, but the fog and the last renovation hid the clues. I was just as lost looking at it from the outside as on the inside.

I circled around it, knowing I'd come to the front or back entrance soon. My plan was to find Briggs. While I could have been wrong, I believed what he'd intimated to Grigori—that he worked for the British royal family and had been lent to the castle for the occasion. I'd tell him what I'd seen and he'd be able to get help.

I'd reached the east end of the castle and turned. Around the corner, I saw Grigori and Yasin walking toward me. Consternation on their faces.

“We've been looking for you, ” Grigori said. “Where did you get to?”

I hadn't realized how much time had passed. I searched his face. Did he know something, or was I projecting my fear?

“I was working when one of my headaches started . . .” I'd decided to tell him as much of the truth as I could. Not at all sure I was calm enough to lie well. “Sometimes fresh air helps. I've been walking.”

He eyed my smock.

I shrugged. “I didn't think to take it off. When I feel a headache coming on, the sooner I can get outside, the faster it goes away.” Surely he remembered me talking about my headaches and would believe me. “Why were you looking for me? Do you need something?”

He smiled. I was confused. His eyes were as gentle as his touch when he took my arm. “The empress is indisposed, and I went to your room to see if you'd like to join us for a light supper.”

Yet again, I questioned what I'd seen. Had it been my imagination? Perhaps my mother had been wrong. What if I was ill? What if I saw and heard things like the crazy owl lady after all? And she simply sensed what I saw and believed it to be real. This man holding my arm, whom I'd kissed and made love to, wasn't capable of anything sinister. He was an antiques salesman. Yes, he was bitter he'd gone to war for France and been handicapped for life. But Grigori wasn't evil.

“I'm sorry the Dowager's ill again,” I said to Yasin.

“It's often difficult for Her Highness to deal with the upheaval and sadness she's had to endure,” he said. “She said to tell you she'd very much be looking forward to meeting with you in the morning instead of tonight. If, in fact, you will be finished.”

“I will.”

“Good. Now let us enjoy our supper,” Grigori said as he led me to the entrance to the castle and away from help.