The grand duchess’s black eyes narrowed. “I have come, actually, with a warning for you, necromancer. Konstantin is very close to returning. The wizards who seek his return also seek an artifact in Egypt. With this artifact, the lich tsar will be able to command a horde of supernatural warriors.”
“And why would you tell me this?” I asked. There was no way I could ever trust the grand duchess.
“The fate of everyone you and I care for is at stake.”
“You’ve come home just in time, Katiya!” Maman said, returning to the room before Militza could say any more. “Your cousin was about to show me the new deck of cards she found on her latest trip to Egypt!”
Militza had stiffened upon Maman’s return, and her hands shook ever so slightly as she beckoned to me. “Do sit down, Katerina,” the grand duchess said. “Let us discover your fortune.” The grand duchess was sitting in Maman’s favorite chair with a deck of tarot cards in her hand. She wore a very fashionable black walking gown that looked like it had come from Paris.
She also looked terribly warm. Militza was stubbornly trying to prove she was not afraid of St. Petersburg’s new striga. Whether the striga noticed it or not.
“I have no desire to know what the cards say,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Maman said, pulling me toward the settee with her. “It’s all great fun. And the cards are simply beautiful. Look at the artwork on the major arcana!”
I was not going to be allowed to escape the blood drinker’s parlor game. I sat down next to Maman, folding my hands in my lap.
“Shall we begin?” Militza asked, shuffling her cards with the grace of an expert.
“I shall go first!” my mother said, leaning forward eagerly. Her jeweled fingers selected one of the cards from the deck in the grand duchess’s outstretched hand. Turning it over, she turned toward me. “I dare not look.”
“Maman, you know that Papa detests it when you dabble in the occult,” I warned.
“But it’s so very amusing,” my mother said. “And your father knows it’s harmless. Did the cards not save Petya from buying that lame horse last month? The cards do not lie.”
“Indeed not,” Militza said with a vicious smile. “You have selected the Empress card.”
Maman’s mouth gaped open most impolitely. “Her Imperial Majesty is coming to see me?”
I rolled my eyes, which was not a polite thing to do either. “You are going to see her at the charity luncheon tomorrow,” I reminded Maman.
“Perhaps,” Militza said. “Or perhaps the empress will have a request for you.” She shuffled the card back into the deck and handed them to me. “Shuffle these in turn, my dear cousin. The deck needs to feel your energies to give you a proper read.”
The artwork was indeed beautiful. Hand-painted drawings of swords, cups, wands, and coins with an Eastern influence. Byzantine.
I shuddered, wondering why Militza had chosen this deck. It reminded me of the cave nestled deep in the Crimea, where I’d learned how to travel to the Graylands. I handed the cards back to her.
“You must pick one, my dear,” she said.
Sighing, I turned the top card over and laid it on the table. The Queen of Swords.
Militza’s eyes lit up. “Secret hostility.”
“Or not so secret,” I said, my eyes meeting hers.
She laughed. “My dear Katerina. I am not your enemy. I believe you are in for a long journey.”
“Mon Dieu,” Maman said, gripping my wrist. “Not Zurich? I had hoped you’d given up that foolish notion.”
Militza shook her head. “The cards do not say. But the Queen of Swords is leading your Katerina to a faraway land.”
I patted my mother’s hand and said quietly, “The tsar will not allow me to go to Zurich, Maman. Or anywhere else, for that matter.” She had nothing to worry about.
“Perhaps not Zurich, my cousin,” the grand duchess said, shuffling her deck once again. “But you will soon be traveling far from home. After all,” she added with a wicked smile, “the cards do not lie.”
3
“Honestly, Katiya, why must you be so hostile to your cousin?” Maman fussed after Militza left.
“And why can you not see she’s dangerous?” I countered. “She fears you and she is jealous of your power as the striga.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Maman said. “I have no intention of interfering with her rule.” She sighed. “Despite what the Dark and Light Court queens want.”
A chill passed over my heart. Never in my life had my mother mentioned the faerie courts. Had she always known about St. Petersburg’s supernatural underworld? How much had she learned since becoming one of their own?
“Has the empress asked you to take over the St. Petersburg vampires?” I asked cautiously.
Maman nodded as if we were talking of the latest opera scandal. “Of course she has. And Miechen has as well. She was positively gleeful when she heard I’d become the heir to the striga. I don’t think the grand duchess likes Militza at all.” She put her own deck of tarot cards back in their wooden box. “Still, it’s nice when they present themselves to me, and since Militza accompanies me everywhere, they’ll soon see there are no feuds between us.”
“Do you have to meet all of the blood drinkers in the city?” I asked, shuddering.
“No, but they generally seek me out.”
I remembered a pale young hussar and his wife who had politely approached Maman at the opera several weeks earlier. How many blood drinkers remained in St. Petersburg? How many of them would remain loyal to Militza?
“I don’t see any of the upyri, of course,” Maman was saying. “They generally aren’t the fashionable sort.” The upyri were the feral blood drinkers who lived far from the city, in the ancient forests. It was rare to see one of their kind anywhere near St. Petersburg.
Maman’s calm way of handling her situation made me want to giggle—and beat my head against the wall. She had no notion of how dangerous her position was and how many dangerous creatures in the city now wanted that position. Especially Grand Duchess Militza.
“Now, the Montenegrins aren’t so bad,” Maman continued, fussing with the flowers in the vase on the table, “as far as blood drinkers go. The crown prince is a perfectly well-mannered gentleman. Oh, I do wish you hadn’t broken off the engagement.”
“M-Maman!” I sputtered. “He and his sisters kidnapped me! They drugged me and forced me to—” I stopped. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I’d done in Cetinje.
My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating, partly from being so close to Maman and partly from coming dangerously close to revealing my secrets. It might have devastated her to know the truth years ago. What would she say now if she knew her daughter could raise the dead? Would she condemn me? I didn’t believe she had that right anymore. She’d drunk the blood of monsters. And become one herself.
And yet I still loved her. She was the same kind and generous, if not slightly frivolous, woman I’d grown up with.
“What has Miechen said?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “About you? As the striga?”
Maman sighed. “Oh, she thinks I should make the vampires swear loyalty to her as the head of the Dark Court. Which means I would have to swear my loyalty to her as well.”
I looked at her in surprise. “What about the empress?”