The Bavarian princesses were delighted that I’d returned. Erzsebet embraced me and spun me around before letting me go. “We will have so much fun this year! Augusta and I are finally old enough to attend the Smolny Ball in November!” I smiled at both of the curly blond princesses. At least there was the ball to look forward to. Perhaps George Alexandrovich would be back from Paris by then, and we would dance the mazurka as we had last year.
Elena did not show any surprise when I brought my things into our old room. I looked over at the empty cot where Dariya had slept. I would miss my cousin, even though I was glad she was now safe, far away from Elena. I wondered how my cousin liked being a lady-in-waiting for Grand Duchess Miechen.
A fourth cot stood in the far corner of our room, and I wondered if the Bavarian sisters were moving in with us from the younger girls’ room. It was rather crowded in their dormitory.
“I knew you would not leave us,” the Montenegrin princess said. “Too many wonderful things will be happening this year. Especially all the balls, where I will dance with the tsarevitch and you will dance with my brother!”
I could not tell her anything. I could not even mention the spell over the institute, since it was because of her that the spell had been cast in the first place. With a bit of malice, I wondered what the empress’s spell would do to her the first time Elena tried any of her dark-magic tricks or tried to sneak off the school grounds.
I decided not to offer any explanation for my change in plans. I couldn’t tell her the tsar wouldn’t let me leave the country because Konstantin Pavlovich might reappear. Nor could I tell her why this school was the safest place in St. Petersburg.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Excuse me, I believe this is my room?” A pretty young girl with dark-blond hair swept up in a neat bun entered.
I recognized her immediately. “Princess Alix?” It was the German princess, sister of the Grand Duchess Ella Feodorovna.
She smiled shyly, but said nothing.
An older girl brushed past her and sashayed in. “I was told this would be my room this year as well,” said Princess Aurora Demidova.
Elena rose regally from her cot. She was not happy to see Princess Alix. “I’m Elena of Montenegro. And I take it you already know Katerina of Oldenburg.”
Alix did not curtsy, but instead moved quickly to put away her things. “I am honored to be here.” She took a small black box out of her trunk and carefully slid it under her cot.
Aurora Demidova looked at all of us before turning her back to us and disdainfully examining the bed linens. “I’ve heard there are new rules this year because someone here was disobedient. Is it true we are not allowed to leave the school premises at all?”
No one knew of the empress’s spell, but the headmistress had mentioned that she would be very strict this year about permitting students to leave.
Elena looked at Princess Aurora warily. She did not approve of either of our new roommates. I had a sinking feeling that the school year was going to be very difficult. Elena did not like it when she was not the center of attention.
I sat down on Alix’s cot, careful not to disturb her neatly folded pile of white school uniforms. “And what has brought you here?”
Alix frowned. “My sister wanted me in St. Petersburg, closer to her. And my father wished for my education to be polished. He distrusted the English nanny my grandmother had sent to us.”
“A nanny? At our age?” Aurora Demidova snorted and turned back to her unpacking. Elena snickered, deciding to side with Aurora over the German princess. Aurora was no rival to Elena for the tsarevitch’s affections. But the tsar’s son had been extremely attentive to Princess Alix during her visit to St. Petersburg last year. I wondered which princess he would dance with at the upcoming Smolny Ball this year.
At that moment, the Bavarian princesses, Erzsebet and Augusta, burst in. “You’ll never guess what has happened! Madame Metcherskey has left! We don’t know why. But isn’t that wonderful?”
“Thank goodness,” Elena said as she poked through Aurora’s basket of hair ribbons. “That skulking bat was horrible. I know you must be ecstatic, Katiya. She was always scolding you for something.”
I said nothing, but smiled at Alix and shrugged. It was true that the pinch-faced Madame Metcherskey had made my life miserable last year. Despite the facts that I really wished to be somewhere else, that I was again sleeping in the same room with a bloodsucking witch, and that there were undead soldiers outside our front gates, the prospects for the coming school year suddenly became just a tiny bit brighter.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I did not mean to test the empress’s enchantment. The next afternoon, I was walking in the courtyard with the Bavarian princesses when they decided to race out to the cluster of birch trees by the front gates. The leaves had turned from deep green to blazing yellow and were beginning to fall to the ground. Augusta wanted to collect a few of the leaves to press inside her journal.
I had no idea the empress’s spell did not stretch across the entire school campus. We reached the boundaries of the spell before we could have left the courtyard.
My body reacted violently. I was repelled backward, with bone-jarring vibrations racking my limbs. My ears were ringing. I fell to the ground, out of breath and feeling bruised and sore all over.
My friends turned around and stared at me in fright. They had passed through the invisible barrier without noticing a thing. There was nothing unnatural about the Bavarian princesses.
“Mon Dieu, Katerina!” Augusta hurried back to me and helped me to stand.
“I must have tripped over a stone or something,” I said unsteadily. Every inch of my body throbbed. How powerful was the empress’s magic? Could it actually kill me?
“Did you twist your ankle?” Erzsebet asked with concern.
“I just … I think I need to go inside and lie down,” I said. I was shaking with both fright and anger. I hated the idea of being trapped. Even if it was for my own protection.
“If you aren’t feeling well by dinnertime, we’ll be happy to sneak some food to you,” Augusta said. “There will be mushroom soup tonight! And mutton pie!”
I thanked them, but by the time I reached our room, the effects of the spell were beginning to fade. I was still shaken and had a lingering headache, but I was otherwise unhurt. I really just needed a quiet, empty room in which to collect my thoughts, and I realized that my dormitory room, with Alix and Elena and Aurora all sniping at each other, would not be quiet enough.
I wandered the halls until I found myself in the library, which was nothing more than a drafty parlor with one small bookcase stacked with books. I’d read the hundred or so books over and over again in the years since I’d begun attending Smolny. It was not a large collection, but then, ladies of the aristocracy were not generally encouraged to read too much. Or to improve their minds. There were plenty of the classics here for Madame Tomilov to ensure we were exposed to fine literature, but that was enough for her.
I passed over the poems and stories of Alexander Pushkin, which I had read so often I could quote them by heart, and settled down in the chair with the tattered copy of Euripides’s plays to reread Iphigenia in Tauris. I wondered if Madame Orbellani could find a copy of the play in its original Greek for me. I was anxious to practice my Greek and Latin once more. Especially after meeting Dr. Bokova. I’d always known the medical courses would be difficult, but I did not want to be remiss in any of my preparations. And since I had a year to wait, I decided I was going to make the most of it.And steep in tears the mournful song,Notes, which to the dead belong;Dismal notes, attuned to woe,By Pluto in the realms below.