The Unfailing Light (22 page)

Aurora wrapped herself up in it and spun around. “Ugh, it smells horrible!” She unwrapped it and threw it toward me, but it fell to the ground.

I sighed and picked it back up, folding it carefully. “We should give it to Sister Anna. Maybe she can clean it up and find its owner.”

The shawl did have a peculiar smell to it. An earthy smell of decay. My heart pounded in my ears and I felt dizzy. It smelled of a tomb.

“Katerina?” Elena was staring at me.

I took a deep breath. There was a logical explanation. I was certainly mistaken. The shawl had probably been lying
under that shrub all winter. It probably just smelled because it had been outside in the damp for so long, not because a dead person had been wearing it.

“Katerina Alexandrovna! What is wrong with you? You look pale as a ghost!”

I looked at Elena and tried to shrug nonchalantly. “I just felt a chill all of a sudden. Let’s hurry and catch up with the others.”

“Should we take the shawl or not?” Elena looked doubtful.

I sighed and hesitated. “It would be the right thing to do.”

“Well, come on, then. I’m starting to lose feeling in my hands out here.”

“Perhaps the cook will make hot cocoa for us when we return,” Augusta said hopefully.

Elena grinned. “He’s very handsome, for a cook, is he not? Aurora says he can’t be more than twenty, but I think he’s much older.”

I held my tongue. It was the glamour that made him appear so young. He looked to me like a man in his late thirties or early forties, but as a member of the fae, he could have been over a hundred years old. “Leave him alone, Elena.” I started walking, leaving her behind.

Her laughter followed me as I hurried to catch up with the others, the shawl bundled up in my arms.

Sister Anna, who had not even noticed our absence, took the shawl disdainfully. “One would certainly hope the woman who lost her shawl was not in the habit of losing her clothing in the woods frequently.”

Elena giggled and whispered to me, “Perhaps we should tell her we found a pair of drawers in the woods as well.”

I rolled my eyes but grinned. Poor Sister Anna.

Alix sat in the dining hall by herself that evening, apparently deep in thought. I worried about her, even without Elena being able to cast any charms on her. I left Elena chatting with Erzsebet and approached Alix.

She looked up but said nothing.

“Were the winters at Hesse-Darmstadt as cold as the winters here in St. Petersburg?”

She shrugged and looked intently into her cup of cocoa.

“I guess it is difficult to adjust to living away from home for the first time. Do you hear often from your family?”

Alix finally looked up at me. “What do you want, Katerina Alexandrovna? I’d like to be left in peace.”

“Why must you be so mysterious?” I asked, growing impatient with her. “You know about the ghost. Don’t you wish to help get rid of her? And protect the students?”

“She is not harming anyone,” the princess said stubbornly.

“But she has before, and I’m certain it won’t be long before someone else gets hurt. Please help me, Alix. You know something that you’re not telling me.”

“Why? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

She didn’t cry, but looked as if she might. Without another word, she stood up and left.

Disappointed and just a little bit puzzled, I rejoined Elena and Erzsebet. I had learned nothing about Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was almost as much of a mystery as the Smolny ghost.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
 

I
t was the height of the St. Petersburg winter season, and most of the girls bemoaned the balls and ballets we were missing. Pepita’s staging of the ballet
The Sleeping Beauty
had debuted at the Mariinsky Theater. It was said even the tsar liked it, although his comments were not effusive enough to please its composer, Tchaikovsky. There was a much-talked-about ball, given by Grand Duchess Ella, where everyone wore emeralds. Elena sulked and obsessed over whom the tsarevitch had danced with. Alix sulked too, in her own dark corner of our room.

It was also the full moon, and I contemplated how much of an effect on my roommates that had.

I sat on my cot and sulked myself, wondering what George Alexandrovich was up to in Paris. I wondered exactly what dark magic he was learning.

“The Black Lily has great plans for him.”

I sighed and rubbed my temples.
Danilo, do not tease me if you are not going to tell me everything you know
.

His laugh filled my head.
“They are waiting for an auspicious time to hold their great ritual. And then George will be initiated into their Inner Circle.”

Their Inner Circle? Are they organized in a similar fashion as the Order of St. John?

“Very similar. As are most occult orders these days.”

Danilo, you wouldn’t know who the current Koldun is for the Order of St. John, would you?

He laughed again.
“Your precious George would not tell you?”

I was a little mad at myself for not thinking to ask George when I saw him.

“I do not know who the Koldun is, Duchess. That is one of their most closely guarded secrets.”

I sighed. The crown prince was no help at all. It did concern me, though, that he knew George would one day become the next Koldun, and what would Danilo do with that information? What could he do?

Alix and Elena were both deeply absorbed in either their own thoughts or their geography books. I couldn’t tell which. I didn’t dare disturb them to say I was going to the library.

“Watch out for the ghost, Duchess.”
Danilo was still listening to my thoughts.

Thank you kindly for your concern, but I must learn who she is
.

“Why? There is nothing you can do about the ghost while you are safe behind the empress’s spell.”

There has to be something, Your Highness. I can’t let her hurt anyone else
.

There was no answer, which surprised me. Only silence in my head. Where had the crown prince gone?

It was nice having my thoughts to myself again as I hurried to the library. It seemed as if Danilo had been in my head more and more often over the past few weeks. I was getting tired of his interruptions at the most inopportune times.

A frightened girl from the Blue Form came running out of the library. “There’s something horrible in there!” she cried, grabbing my arms. I hugged her to me, trying to calm her down.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing, but something is still in there! I’m not crazy! I heard it laugh!”

I pulled away from her to look at her closely. “Did anything hurt you?”

She shook her head. “Please don’t tell the headmistress! I don’t want her to think I’m crazy!”

“You are not crazy. Run down to the kitchen and see if the cook has something warm and sweet for you to munch on.”

“Do you think he’d let me?”

“Tell him that Katerina Alexandrovna sent you,” I said, smiling kindly.

She started downstairs, but turned back. “You’re not going in there, are you?”

“Just to get a book. I’ll be right back out.”

She shuddered and hurried down the stairs toward the kitchen. I hoped Sucre would be helpful and make her feel better.

The library was freezing. The ghost was there. I took a step
into the room. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to find out who you are. Were you a student at Smolny?”

The bookcase began to shake. I took a tiny step back, closer to the door, and the shaking stopped. Was I making her nervous?

“I wish there was a way we could communicate,” I said. “You could tell me what your name is, and how old you were when you—”

A heavy force came out of nowhere and knocked me on the side of the head. I fell to the floor in a daze.

The room began to spin slightly.

“Katerina? What have you done now, my beloved?”
Danilo’s voice was sarcastic.

I felt like someone was kicking me in the ribs. I curled up on the floor, holding very still, and trying very hard not to cry out. I’d never felt pain like this before. I had to get out of the room. Trying to reason with a ghost was one of the stupidest things I’d ever done.

Over and over, the cold force slammed into me, knocking the wind out of me. An angry young girl’s voice hissed around my head.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I tried to crawl back out of the library. There was a dull roar in my ears, like a winter storm had kicked up inside the tiny room.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Books began to tumble off the shelves.

She was throwing a temper tantrum.

“It’s all right,” I groaned, holding my side. “You don’t have to talk about it.” I pushed myself up carefully and stepped
back out of the room. I could not take in a very deep breath without pain. I knew it had been foolish of me to try to deal with the ghost alone, but now I was furious. From the hallway I whispered to her, “Once I find out who you are, I’ll find the means to send you away. I will not let you hurt anyone here anymore.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
 

I
went to the kitchen to see if the Blue Form girl was feeling better. The kitchen staff was busy scrubbing pots and pans. I found Sucre at the kitchen table studying an almanac.

“
Bonsoir
, Monsieur Sucre.”

“But it is not possible,” Sucre muttered to himself. He looked up and saw me. “Ah, it is the Dark Duchess,” he said, sighing. “
Comment allez-vous
, Mademoiselle?”

“I am well, Monsieur Sucre. What are you studying?”

He frowned and pushed the almanac away. “It is nothing. What brings you to the kitchen? Are you wanting something to eat?”

“No, Monsieur. I wanted to see if a young girl had come to see you. She was badly frightened by the ghost.”

Sucre’s mutterings were in a dialect I could not understand. His eyes seemed to glow a brighter blue than before. “Why doesn’t the headmistress lock up that damned room? You
children have no business disturbing that … that thing that lives in there.”

“But she doesn’t just stay in the library. She’s been in my room. And here in the kitchen too.”

Sucre looked as if he were about to say something, but was cut short by a loud shriek from the back of the pantry. His face grew dark as he rose from the table to investigate.

I caught a glimpse of the piece of paper tucked into the almanac he’d been reading. The handwriting was barely legible:
Wolf’s Heart
. The almanac was turned to March, with the eighth day circled. I shuddered, not knowing if it was a recipe or some faerie ritual.

I followed Sucre to the pantry and peeked through the crowd, wondering if the ghost had scared someone again.

Two women sank to the floor, crying and crossing themselves.

Next to them, the kitchen girl, the one who’d been injured by the ghost the night of the Smolny Ball, lay dead.

Sucre quickly shooed everyone out of the pantry and closed the door. I could see his glamour straining to seal the door shut, as he worked his faerie magic on the kitchen staff. He pulled a loaf of brown bread out of the oven, the steam rising from its warm surface.