“You missed a beautiful ballet last month,” Aunt Zina said nervously. “The young ballerina Cornalba was superb.”
“I am sorry to have missed it,” Princess Cantacuzene said. “And what news do you have, Katerina? Are your wedding plans going well?”
I tried to swallow the piece of strawberry tart in my mouth, even though I had no appetite at the moment. “Yes, Your Highness.” I wondered if she still hoped I would murder the crown prince.
“Indeed,” Miechen said. She stirred her tea. If she was eager to get rid of Princess Cantacuzene and continue with the séance, she did not show it. She was so perfectly serene it was eerie. I had heard stories of the grand duchess in passionate yelling matches with the grand duke Vladimir during dinner parties but had never witnessed one. I hoped I never would.
Aunt Zina finally succumbed to her nerves. She stood up and announced it was time for us to return home. There would be no séance that afternoon. I glanced at the grand duchess, but her face gave no hint of what she was thinking. Dariya and I rose from our seats as well. We said our goodbyes to both her and the princess.
“Do come and visit me sometime, Katerina,” the princess said, her bony fingers cradling my chin. “We should have much to chat about.”
I tried not to shudder. “Of course,” I said.
As we were climbing into our carriage, Aunt Zina cried out, “Oh! My gloves!”
“I can retrieve them for you,” I said, hurrying back inside the palace. As I approached the parlor, I could hear the grand duchess and Princess Cantacuzene arguing.
“Ruxandra, you’ll do no such thing. They are not welcome here.”
“You cannot stop me. It is already in motion.”
“This is treason.”
Whatever Princess Cantacuzene said next was too low for me to hear in the hallway. But I heard the grand duchess’s reaction loud and clear.
Miechen’s voice was cold as steel. “Blood drinker, get out of my house. Do not ever threaten me or my family again.”
I heard Princess Cantacuzene’s laugh as she came closer to the door. I hurried back down the hallway so it would look as if I were just coming inside.
The princess’s face was inscrutable as I passed her. “Always remember, Katerina Alexandrovna. No one has allies in this city. There is no one to trust but yourself.”
I found Miechen sitting in her chair, looking a little paler than usual. “Are you all right, Your Imperial Highness? Can I do anything for you?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I thought you had left.”
“My aunt forgot her gloves.” I spotted them on the chair where Zina had been sitting. I hoped the grand duchess did not want to continue with the séance now that Cantacuzene was gone. “Are you quite sure you are well?”
The grand duchess’s smile was frosty. “You are very kind, Katerina Alexandrovna. But the princess was right. There are no allies in this city. It’s every creature for him- or herself. And you will stay alive much longer if you remember that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
No one attempted another séance after that. As the weeks passed and the days grew warmer, I heard no more about contacting the ancient Egyptian necromancer—which was perfectly agreeable to me. But I still worried about the growing threat to my brother and the rest of the members of the Order. Dariya did not believe me when I said there was nothing useful in A Necromancer’s Companion—though I had casually admitted to her that the book had been given to me by Princess Cantacuzene. Dariya had barely blinked an eye.
“Somehow the book must hold the key to stopping all of this madness,” Dariya said.
“If the princess is the one behind the undead army, then why would she give me a book that shows how to defeat them?”
Dariya looked back at the book. “What if she didn’t know what spells were in there? And how would she know you would be able to use any of them?”
I could not answer her question. My cousin was clever, and she was close to figuring out my secret. But I was afraid of losing her friendship once she knew. I took the book out of her hands and closed it. “Besides, the Companion is nothing but parlor tricks and ancient myths.” But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. The magic of the sheult spell was old, powerful magic. It felt old when the spell settled around me. It even tasted like old magic.
And it frightened me that I had mastered the spell easily when Dariya could not.
Tired of my cousin’s relentless prodding, I once again reread A Necromancer’s Companion and found a passage about Ankh-al-Sekhem. Well-known for his ability to raise an army of undead soldiers for his country’s protection during the thirteenth dynasty, he fell out of favor with the Egyptian court. He had attempted to bring a powerful but long-dead pharaoh back to life with an artifact called the Talisman of Isis. But when he released the dead pharaoh’s soul trapped within the talisman, the necromancer was killed.
It took twelve of the kingdom’s most powerful magicians to return the lich pharaoh to the land of the dead. There was a picture of the talisman, shaped like the goddess Isis holding a large black stone above her head, her wings stretched out on either side of her. I shuddered, thankful we’d not gone through with the séance.
There had to be another way to find the answers we needed. Once the Lenten fast and Easter were over, we had a visitor at Betskoi House: Anya’s brother Rudolf. He had completed his medical school training in Kiev and was about to begin his internship in St. Petersburg. He and Lyudmila were to be married that weekend. Maman and I helped Anya and Lyudmila with the wedding preparations. Papa kept Rudolf in his study for hours discussing the latest in medical breakthroughs.
Papa and Rudolf argued over the cause of infections in wounded soldiers. Papa believed it due to physicians not washing their hands between patients. Rudolf said it was caused by flies and other insects that crawled over the soldiers. I had to admit both scenarios seemed likely. I asked Rudolf if he had ever met Louis Pasteur, and he nodded.
“I heard the doctor deliver a lecture in Paris last year about bacteria in the blood. It was fascinating.”
I wanted to ask him if he’d ever seen corpses reanimate, but decided it was not proper dinner table conversation. It would have to wait, I thought sadly. Besides, Papa kept plying poor Rudolf with a million questions, inviting him to use his medical library anytime. He also issued Rudolf an invitation to join his institute for experimental medicine.
“I would be honored, Your Highness,” Rudolf said.
On the morning of the wedding, Lyudmila’s mother came to the house with a basket of fresh-baked wedding bread and other treats from their family bakery in Kiev. The quiet ceremony took place in the small St. Katerina Cathedral, with the young bride wearing a simple white gown with a lace collar and a lace veil that had belonged to her grandmother. Maman lent her a pair of diamond-and-pearl earrings, and I gave her my best pair of gloves.
Lyudmila’s little sisters looked sweet as pink-clad attendants strewing rose petals everywhere, and Anya was her maid of honor, crowned with a wreath of daisies in her hair. Anya cried harder than Lyudmila’s own mother during the ceremony.
A small party was held afterward in our garden. Lyudmila’s family had hired a Gypsy band to play, and we danced several folk dances, such as the matryoshka, in addition to a more formal polonaise and mazurka.
The food was simple as welclass="underline" fresh-baked breads and cold meats, fresh fruits and sorbets. Maman served a sweet spiced punch made with wine from her own family’s French vineyards.
Spring was coming to life in St. Petersburg. Everything was starting to awaken out of the cold, sleeping earth. Including things that should have remained deep asleep.