“An excellent thought,” Winifred said, picking up her pace to keep up with their long strides. “He has never brought anything to us to merit the kindness we’ve shown him. He’s a leech.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Henry said, with a fond look at Etta.
“That was pure luck,” Winifred groused.
“Well, it was certainly fortunate,” he agreed. “What did you make of him, Etta?”
“Julian?” she clarified, brushing a leaf from her hair. “He’s…” A brat, obnoxious, high on himself, rude. “…an Ironwood.”
“Was he untoward to you at all?” Henry asked carefully. “He’s a shameless flirt, but I judged him to be fairly toothless. Many of the Thorns feel he’s outstayed his welcome, and if it wasn’t for the happy serendipity of finding you, I daresay I might agree.”
“What do you mean, Julian’s outstayed his welcome?” she asked.
“You’ve more questions than sense, child,” Winifred muttered.
“He’s no longer able to provide information about Ironwood that we don’t already know,” Henry said. “Ironwood has taken a few of our travelers prisoner over the years, and I had considered trading Julian for them.”
“That’s probably the thing he’s most afraid of,” Etta told Henry. “Ironwood might actually kill him.”
A road emerged beyond the trees ahead of them. Within an instant of its appearance, streams of headlights swept over it, and two old-fashioned black cars rolled into place in front of the trees.
“You really think so?” Henry asked. “Everything is such a joke to him, I half expected his dalliance with us to be for amusement alone. Ironwood wouldn’t kill his heir, not when he needs him.”
“The astrolabe could be used to create new heirs, if he uses it to save his wife,” she pointed out.
“That was your mother’s theory, yes,” Henry said. “And a likely one.”
“Julian could have gone back to Ironwood at any point, especially when it became difficult to survive in hiding,” she continued, working out her own thoughts on the matter. “Instead, he came to his grandfather’s most hated enemy and betrayed him to you. He needed help, but he clearly felt like he needed protection, too. So I don’t know if you should send him back to Ironwood, but you could at least use that same fear to get some last important details out of him that he might not give you otherwise.”
He nearly beamed at her. Etta, again, had to fight the ridiculous glow her heart gave in response.
“Second most hated,” Henry said. “I daresay that honor belongs to your mother, and she’d skin me for taking that from her.”
Winifred let out a loud harrumph and released her hold on her nephew’s arm, charging forward to the first of the cars. The driver barely had time to jump out and open the door for her.
“I might have a better use for him, if tonight turns out the way I imagine,” Henry said as he wisely steered them toward the second car. He nodded to that driver. “Paul, how are the boys?”
Etta missed the man’s answer as she ducked inside the car and slid across the seat. Henry joined her after a moment, removing his hat and gloves.
“All the logic of the Hemlocks, without the ruthlessness of the Lindens,” he said, as he set both on the stretch of leather between them. The car dipped as one of the guards sat in the front beside the driver. “You’ll do very well indeed.”
As she settled into the warmth of the car and let it thaw her stiff skin, she passed his coat back to him. Henry folded it in his lap and turned his gaze out his window. Etta watched his face in its reflection, how the easy humor and brightness vanished like a flame blown out. He seemed to retreat into himself, leaving a look of severe contemplation as he touched the rose she hadn’t noticed he’d tucked into his lapel.
And Etta could picture it so clearly then, how the reflection of the bridge had disappeared in the water, leaving one half to wait to see its other self again.
THE CITY DWELT IN DARKNESS. THE ROAR OF THE ENGINE swallowed every other sound from the world outside her window, those streets cloaked in the gray evening haze. Etta felt she was watching a kind of silent movie. As the car rolled down a huge main thoroughfare—“Nvesky Prospeckt,” Henry explained—Etta had the sense they were slipping into St. Petersburg on the edge of someone’s shadow: uninvited, unwanted.
The light slush covering the ground was nearly indistinguishable from the sludge of garbage that lined the street’s gutters. The car jumped as it rolled over something—Etta craned her neck back, but saw only the tattered remains of a banner and two poles that were being dragged away by men in stark military uniforms. Her gaze followed their path to a courtyard where a bonfire raged. The cloth and wood were fed into it behind a wall of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, backlit by the flames. A few men and women lingered at the fringes of its glow, but the car sped by too quickly for Etta to see what they were trying to do besides stay warm.
The beautiful fa˚ades of the buildings that rolled by, with all of their glorious arches and domes, looked as though they’d been painted with jewels. It made the contrast of what was happening on the streets that much bleaker.
Etta leaned back against her seat, resenting the thick white fur coat Winifred had stuffed her into. The truth was, she burned with the desire to be herself, to see more clearly the points at which she and Henry might intersect. But dressed so grandly, wearing another creature’s skin, and still feeling the burn of Winifred’s crash course on period etiquette, she felt the pressure to let Etta slip away. To disappear into this false image of a lady.
Her dress was a thin, rose-pink silk sheath, cut straight and falling just above her ankles. The topmost layer was sheer, draping over her in scalloped tiers, each edged with the smallest bit of shimmering fringe.
Before they’d left the venue, Henry had handed her a pair of white gloves that stopped just above her elbow and a long strand of pearls, and had given Winifred some sort of diamond—hopefully crystal—barrette to affix in Etta’s hair. After an hour-long struggle, the woman, with the help of two other maids, had managed to wrestle Etta’s hair into something resembling finger waves, pinning the length of it up and under like a false bob. She’d be lucky not to find bald patches later that night when she finally got to take the pins out.
Etta wrung her hands in her lap, glancing around—at the driver, at Jenkins in the front passenger seat, at Henry. He had his gold pocket watch open again, but quickly snapped it shut. Etta caught a glimpse of the time: seven something. Way too early for there to be no other cars or carriages out on the street besides the ones that were parked, or those that looked more like tanks—clearly military. Here and there, a few scattered people moved by, ducking into shops or making their way home. It reminded her of the short time that she and Nicholas had spent in London during the Blitz; this scene had all the uneasiness of the last dying leaf on a branch, waiting to fall.
“Are we in the 1920s?” Etta asked, turning to look at Henry again. It was an obvious guess based on the cars, style of dress, and small touches of décor in the hotel.
He, however, had turned his head to look up at something the car was racing past—flagpoles?
“1919,” Jenkins offered, turning to speak to her through the partition. “It’s—”
“I thought the reforms had been passed,” Henry said, with an edge of anger. Jenkins and the other guard seemed equally startled by it. “Why does the city look this way?”
They’ve already broken from the original timeline, Etta realized. In some way, big or small, the timeline had altered enough that Henry no longer fully recognized some of the parts in the century’s great machine.
“Some socialist leader was imprisoned, caught red-handed in an assassination attempt on the minister of the interior,” Jenkins explained. “A small alteration, not nearly enough to cause a ripple, only a headache for our preparations. Rumor has it there are some of the old Bolsheviks out working people up about it, hence the military presence. Give it a
day and it’ll pass.”
“Bolsheviks,” Henry muttered, pressing a hand to his forehead, “or Ironwoods?”
A single drop of sweat worked its way down the ridges of Etta’s spine.
“This isn’t the St. Petersburg you knew?” she pressed. “You seemed surprised by the state of the city.”
“It’s called Petrograd in this era,” he corrected, with his usual gentleness. “I am surprised to see the state of it, knowing the reforms to improve lives across the country had passed. Whatever messes have been made, we’ll clean them up while we’re here.”
The first tap against her window sounded like a rock kicked up from the road—it was the second hit that made her turn, just as a man launched himself out of the darkness of an alley and leaped over the sidewalk.
His arm craned back like a pitcher’s, and Etta gasped, instinctively cringing as a bottle hurtled toward the car, smashing against her window. Another man, a woman, more, surged out from the city’s cracks and crevices.
“Faster!” Henry barked, reaching into his jacket for a pistol.
“Trying!” the driver barked right back.
Another stone flew toward the web of cracks on her window, but she refused to be pulled down, to have her face pressed against the seat until she was nearly smothered by leather and flickering fear. Clattering, shattering, smashing. The whole car rocked with each hit.
Etta searched the buildings around them for more protestors. Up high, on top of a bakery, two cloaked shadows moved. As impossible as it was with the distance between the buildings, they seemed to easily make the flying leaps to keep pace with the car. There was a flash of silver, like a blade—
Or a gun.
This time, she yanked Henry back down with her as a gunshot—two—shattered her window, blowing shards of glass inside, over her head, along her back. Etta’s whole body jumped at each blast, one hand pinned beneath her, the other rising to cover her right ear.
The men up front were slinging words and orders to each other over her head. Etta fought to breathe, to sit up again, but the heavy weight of Henry’s arm kept her down until, finally, the shouting outside became muffled. The car wheezed and shuddered, but began to cruise faster.
She stayed in that same awkward position for the next ten minutes, until she felt the wheels of the car begin to slow. Henry released her, still swearing beneath his breath. Etta sat straight up, her vision black and spotty. She brushed small, sparkling pieces of glass from her coat and hair, watching, stunned, as they collected in her hand and lap like ice.
“Are you all right?”
Etta hadn’t realized Henry was speaking to her until he gripped her shoulder, almost to the point of pain, and turned her toward him to begin inspecting her. There was a small cut above his left brow, but he seemed otherwise fine.
“My God,” he was saying, “I’ll kill them myself.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Etta insisted. A cold wind blew up the back of her exposed neck through the opening in her window. “What was that all about?”
“Protestors,” Jenkins said. “Damn it all! We should never have taken Nvesky Prospeckt. But the palace assured us it would be safe. Sir, believe me—”
“The people on the roof—” she tried to say.
Henry held up his hand, still breathing hard as the car rolled through a gate and came to a slow, shuddering stop.
Several figures in suits and nondescript uniforms flowed out of a nearby building’s arched entryway. With a start, Etta opened the door and let herself out on unsteady feet, the glass spilling out around her feet, disappearing into the light smattering of snow. Her breath heated the air milk-white as she slowly tipped her face up.
They’d arrived at a building that was beyond imposing—ornate couldn’t begin to capture its presence. It was almost Baroque, the way the pale green fa˚ade was trimmed with gold. The building itself was massive, stretching on as far as her eyes could see in both directions. Statues of women and saints watched from the roof above, dusted with the same sooty snow. It had to be the palace.
The second car with Winifred, Julian, and another guard zipped up behind them a moment later, skidding to a stop in a similar state of disarray. Winifred all but rode out of the automobile on a wave of her own fury, bellowing, “Those beasts!”
Julian was close behind, looking far less angry and far grayer in the face. He raised his brows in Etta’s direction. Bumpy ride? he mouthed.
Etta’s brow creased as she looked away, back toward Henry, who had deigned to let Jenkins brush the remaining pieces of glass from his coat. Then an elderly man was at her side, clucking and cooing at her, bowing in a way that made Etta take a startled step back. The Russian came too fast and furious for her to find the three words in the language she actually knew.
The whirling activity seemed to still somewhat as Henry stepped up behind her and followed her gaze upward. His face softened, the stern line of his mouth relaxing, as if seeing an old friend.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Winter Palace.”
NICHOLAS COULD NOT FIND THE words to ask the woman to repeat herself, but she did it regardless, that same girlish laughter riding the ends of her words.
“Dare I ask the obvious question,” Sophia said, oddly calm, “of why?”
“It’s not your place to ask questions,” the Belladonna said, never taking her eyes off Nicholas. “Only to obey. If you value your life, that is.”
Nicholas’s feet were rooted to the floor, but he felt his soul release and swing about the room, banging at the walls. In his life, he’d been made to feel the burn of humiliation and impotent rage many times, in many ways, by the world. But this—this. Unyielding anger choked him now. If he could have compelled himself to move, he would have slammed his fists against her great metal desk until he cracked it.
Around his neck, the thin leather cord that held Etta’s earring felt like a wreath of bricks.
“What do you mean by that?” Sophia demanded. “Stop talking in riddles!”
She stormed forward, only to be brought up short by Selene.
And still, the Belladonna was watching him. Waiting for him.
“You…” he began, when his mind began to work again. “You expect me to kill my own kin? Can you begin to fathom what you’re asking of me?”
He couldn’t kill Ironwood. Desire and rational thought were at odds. Of course, he’d dreamt of it a thousand times, by a thousand different means, and woken less satisfied than he might have imagined, considering the tortures to which the man had subjected every person Nicholas loved. But when it was all distilled down—the torment, the fury, the desperation—the truth of the matter was laid bare: killing the old man would stain his soul and irrevocably bind them together, until Nicholas met his own reward and was forced to answer for it.
It was one thing to do violence in self-defense, but this was murder. Assassination. The thought alone left a taste like rust in his mouth.
“It’s him or yourself,” the Belladonna said. She snapped her fingers and the boy stopped pretending to sweep the same pile of glass and dried-out insects while eavesdropping. Nicholas turned just as he scampered back through the passage. “You’ll come to find that I am the only one who can remove that ring, and the longer it stays on your finger, the more the poison inlaid in it will sap at your strength.”
“I’ll cut it off, then—cut the whole bloody hand off if I have to,” he told her, reaching for the knife at his belt.
“Do it,” she encouraged. “In fact, you may as well cut your wrists. Your weakened body will only absorb the poison more quickly. But of course, you’re welcome to test the theory. It just strikes me that there’s someone you wish to find first?”
She knows of Etta’s existence. His blood seemed to turn to bile. The wave of nausea stole over him so quickly he was sure he was not going to be able to stay upright. She knows of Etta.
Witch. Witch. The illusions, the deceit, the cunning, and now…poison.
; “Come now,” she said, “would it be so terrible? Have you forgotten that he kept you as property? That you are the issue of a vile man who forced himself upon a helpless woman? That he sold your mother to a man in Georgia who used her, who beat her, until the sickness finally freed her?”
Nicholas pressed a fist against his mouth, and would have turned his back to her to collect himself, had he trusted her not to stick a dagger through his back.
“He resides in the old house of your childhood,” she said. “You haven’t much time. He travels soon. I imagine I will see you back here soon as well.”
“Madam,” he said, “I will see you in hell.”
There was a tugging on his arm, and he did not realize he was moving toward the passage until Sophia dug her nails through his shirt, into his skin. “Don’t look back at her,” she muttered, “don’t give her that.”
He did not. He held his breath as they stepped through the passage, and then released his scream into its thunder. The smell of the air changed as they emerged on the other side. That same stench of wet earth her clothing seemed to breathe out as she moved.
“Carter—wait—damn—!” She had to catch his arm to stop his path, swing him around to prompt his gaze. Nicholas had the oddest feeling that he was back on his deathbed, a fever wracking his brain. There was a haze about her, an unreal quality.
Fool—bloody fool! Christ!
Rose Linden had led him like a lamb to the slaughter, but he’d only himself to blame. He’d been rash, hadn’t thought his calculations through, and now he was—
A slap across the face snapped his head to the left. Sophia raised her hand again, prepared to issue another blow.
“You looked like you were going to pass out,” she explained. “And you’re too bloody big for me to drag you.”