The Unfailing Light (32 page)

I shook my head, stifling a yawn. “I want to stay. Please.”

A pair of arms wrapped gently around me, steering me toward the hallway. “You need rest, or you will make yourself ill.” George led me to a leather settee in an empty sitting room a little way from the noise of the Great Hall.

I got a good look at him under the gaslight lamps. “George, you need rest more than I! You’re pale as a ghost!” It filled me with alarm. “Were you injured?” Without thinking, I grabbed his coat and went to open it. “Did Danilo hurt you?”

He gently grabbed my hands with his and pulled me off of him. “Duchess, please refrain from undressing me. And no,
Danilo
did not injure me.”

I ignored the sarcasm in his voice. “But you are hurt. What is wrong? Can Dr. Badmaev help you?”

“I will be fine. Do not worry about me, Katiya. I will have your brother take you back to Smolny.”

My heart sank. I knew I had to return to the institute, but I had hoped that the grand duke would take me in his own carriage. I should have realized he had more important things to tend to.

“Katiya, I want nothing more than to accompany you. But I’m afraid if I had you in my carriage I would take you far away from all of this and never let you go again.”

I almost laughed as I realized he was reading my thoughts again. I threw my arms around him, laying my head on his chest. “George, you’ve come back to me.”

“I never left you.”

“But you were in Paris, and I was behind the empress’s spell
at Smolny, and you couldn’t hear me. And I was hearing such terrible things about you.” My fingers curled around one of his golden buttons.

“From Crown Prince Danilo?” He pulled back from me, an eyebrow raised.

“The devil! Is there no way I can nullify the blood bond with him?”

George gathered me in his arms again and pulled me close. “We’ll find a way, love,” he murmured against my ear.

“Ahem.” My brother sheepishly cleared his throat, just outside the door. “Katerina? Dr. Badmaev said the Koldun is being taken back to Vladimir Palace. He should recover with no difficulty. Are you ready to return to school? It’s almost morning.”

“Mon Dieu!”
I said, leaping up. “Elena. She came with me tonight. I haven’t seen her in hours.”

George stood as well. “No one has mentioned seeing her. Perhaps she has already returned.”

“You shouldn’t worry about that Montenegrin witch, Katiya,” Petya said. “Most likely she was part of the crown prince’s plot to make sure you were here.”

I shook my head, frowning at the scorn in his voice. “I don’t think so.” I had to believe that Elena had been ignorant of her brother’s treachery.

“You must hurry.” George took my hand and kissed my fingers. In front of my brother. I couldn’t help blushing. “I will see you soon, Duchess.”

I curtsied. “Your Imperial Highness.”

Petya bowed his head as well, with a military click of his heels. “Your Imperial Highness.”

In the carriage, Petya seemed embarrassed as he escorted me back to Smolny. He was silent for a long time before asking, “Does Papa know?”

“Know what?” The sky was already beginning to lighten. An enormous gray bird swooped over the roof of our carriage as we crossed over the Fontanka Canal, and it landed on the elaborate iron railing that lined the bridge. An owl, apparently resting its belly after a successful night of hunting. Its enormous green eyes seemed to follow us as we rolled past. The sun would be coming up soon. I would be expelled for certain.

“About you and the grand duke. Maman will be pleased.”

I groaned. “Please do not say a word to Maman. Or Papa. There is no way the tsar would approve of a marriage between his son and me. Do not get Maman’s hopes up for nothing.”

“What do you mean, for nothing? The grand duke has no business behaving in such a manner if he does not intend to marry you.”

“Calm down, Petya,” I said with a sigh. We were pulling in through the open gates at the school. I grabbed my brother’s arm. “The grand duke still has hopes for his parents’ blessing. But until he receives it, I don’t dare to even dream. Please promise me you’ll say nothing of this to anyone.”

He looked as if he would object, but finally nodded his head. “All right, Katiya. But I don’t see why you should worry about their approval. Why wouldn’t they want you as a daughter-in-law? You’re an Oldenburg. With imperial blood.”

“And aligned with the Dark Court. You know the empress is jealous of anyone who is friends with Grand Duchess Miechen.” The footman opened the door of the carriage. “Please, Petya. Not a word to anyone.”

He looked troubled, but he nodded at last. “I promise.”

My brother stepped out of the carriage after me, intending to escort me inside, despite my hope to sneak in silently before the school was awake. “You were tending to a family crisis,” he said. “I will vouch for you.”

“A family crisis?” I smiled as I took his arm.

“Imperial blood, Katiya,” my brother said, his chin jutting up in the air. “We are family.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
 

I
was not expelled, much to my disappointment. I had hoped that I would create a horrible scandal and my parents would pack me off to medical school in Zurich in disgrace. But Madame Tomilov accepted my brother’s apologies, and even excused me from classes for the day. “You will need to rest after such a stressful night, Katerina Alexandrovna. Sister Anna will look in on you later.”

Elena, however, was in far more trouble than I. She had frightened the new kitchen girl when she tried to sneak back inside, and the poor girl had screamed, waking the entire school. Madame Tomilov sent a letter to the king and queen of Montenegro requesting that Elena return home immediately, as she had disgraced herself and the Smolny Institute for Young Noble Maidens. Grand Duchess Militza, who was already aware of her brother’s imprisonment at the Fortress, had arrived early that morning to pick up Elena and her belongings.

Elena was tearful as she watched her sister’s maid pack her trunk. “Katerina, I have behaved so badly to you. And to Alix and Aurora. I never believed Danilo could be so cruel. Please forgive me.”

“Of course,” I said, relieved that she was indeed innocent of her brother’s plot, and too surprised to say anything else.

She sniffled. “It’s not because of what I did, but because of Danilo. He has disgraced our entire family. I would already be on a train home if it weren’t for Militza.”

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She embraced Alix and Aurora and begged them not to forget her. Aurora promised to write and entreated Elena to do the same.

Elena asked me to tell the Bavarian princesses goodbye for her. “I cannot bear to face anyone else right now.”

“Of course,” I said, giving her a hug before she and her sister left.

Alix had been much luckier when she sneaked back inside the school that night, and had even managed to get a few hours of sleep. “How nice it must be to spend the entire day in bed,” she grumbled, fixing her pinafore for breakfast as I finally crawled into my cot. She grinned shyly at me from the mirror, though, before she and Aurora left. “Tonight, I will tell you all about my ride home with Nicholas Alexandrovich.”

I smiled back at her as I snuggled under my quilt.
Perhaps
, I thought,
if the empress could approve of a werewolf as a daughter-in-law, she might approve of a necromancer as well
.

I awoke that afternoon still feeling bruised and sore but decided I needed some fresh air. I took a walk in the Smolny
gardens with the Bavarian princesses after tea. Augusta and Erzsebet were distressed to hear of Elena’s departure. “But what about the Spring Ball?” Erzsebet wailed. “Elena wanted to go so badly with her sister!”

I did not think Grand Duchess Militza would be attending any balls for the next few weeks. I would not have been surprised if she accompanied her sister home to Montenegro until the scandal died down.

Augusta picked a lonely snowdrop that had bloomed earlier than all the others. “Still, Elena frightened me sometimes,” she said. “Even more than the ghost in the library.”

“How could you say such a thing?” Erzsebet fussed. “Elena never hurt anyone.”

Not that anyone would remember. I grabbed Augusta’s hand and squeezed it. She smiled back.

“Look! An imperial carriage!” Erzsebet squealed. A handsome black carriage pulled into the circular drive in front of the Smolny gates. “Do you think it’s the empress? And her daughters?”

A footman approached us with a curt bow. “Duchess Katerina Alexandrovna, Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Miechen invites you to take a ride with her through the gardens.”

The Bavarian princesses gasped. “Katerina! What have you done to catch the grand duchess’s attention?”

“I do not know,” I said, even though I knew it could not be good. “Will you tell Madame Orbellani?”

“Of course!” Augusta said excitedly. “Imagine! All the handsome young men on the street will see you riding with the grand duchess!”

“Don’t be silly. No one can see inside the carriage
unless they press their face to the windows,” Erzsebet said. She tugged on her sister’s arm. “Come along, let’s go and find Madame.”

I followed the footman back to the grand duchess’s carriage, and he assisted me as I entered the vehicle. Grand Duchess Miechen sat like a queen, dressed in a deep-navy-blue walking dress, her gloved hands folded serenely in her lap. She nodded to me but did not smile as I sat across from her.

“Katerina Alexandrovna.”

“Your Imperial Highness. Is the grand duke in better health?”

She said nothing for a moment but merely stared at me. I tried very hard not to fidget. “Yes. My husband is feeling much better, thanks to you and Dr. Badmaev. I owe his life to you, Duchess. I suppose you will consider this your debt to me repaid.”

“If it pleases Your Imperial Highness.”

She did not deign to answer. The grand duchess actually looked quite displeased, her lips twisted in a thin frown. “The grand duke was extremely foolish to attempt the werewolf spell, even if he did believe he was protecting the tsar. I hope the young princess of Hesse will not look unfavorably upon the Dark Court because of his ill judgment.”

“I’m sure that is not the case, Your Imperial Highness,” I hurried to assure her. The grand duchess Miechen had never seemed more lethal to me than she did now, when she seemed most in danger of losing her tenuous hold on the Dark Court. I knew Miechen’s weaknesses, and I was a liability to her. “Princess Alix would not say or do anything that would upset the balance between the Light and Dark Courts.”

The grand duchess’s eyebrow rose sharply. “Wouldn’t she? Does she not hunt the darkness one night a month?”

“The evil men she pursues are not under your protection, Your Imperial Highness. No one except Monsieur Sucre. He never belonged to the Light Court, did he?”

Instead of answering my question directly, she countered, “And neither do you, Katerina Alexandrovna. You must remember that, no matter whom you love.”

It was the cold, hard truth. Regardless of the fact that I tried to use my dark powers only to help people, the empress would never look upon me as a daughter-in-law. She would always see me as a tainted, Dark Court creature. And she and the tsar would never allow me to even dream of a future with George Alexandrovich. I looked away through the window, at the gray and barren gardens passing by. “I shall never forget, Your Imperial Highness. May I return to my friends, please?”

The grand duchess smiled at me, her tiny fangs showing. “There is hope for you yet, my dear. Your young man is in line for the position of Koldun one day, once my Vladimir is gone. A Koldun is almost as powerful as the tsar. It is much easier for a Light Court member to fall into the shadow of the Dark Court.”

Was that what had happened to her husband? I felt nauseous at the thought. “I would never let that happen to George Alexandrovich.”

The grand duchess’s smile was malicious. “It’s too late, Katerina. His descent has already begun.”

“
Mon Dieu
, no!” I could not listen to her anymore. The carriage had just pulled into the circular drive, but had not
come to a complete stop. I opened the carriage door anyway, not bothering to wait for a footman, and flung myself out.