Your parents are still allies of His Imperial Majesty, are they not? Who are the wizards working for?
He laughed again, filling me with frustration. “Like my sister, I still have my secrets, Katerina. Even after we are married, you will not be allowed to know everything.”
I was desperate and decided to ignore his last remark. Danilo, please warn the tsar. You must find a way to get word to the grand duke. Or help me find a way to break through the empress’s spell.
“As much as I love chatting with you, I must go, Katerina Alexandrovna.”
Danilo, please! I could not believe I was begging him for anything.
But he was gone. There was nothing left but the silence of my room, only the sound of the soft rustle of my bedcovers as I sat up. It frightened me to realize just how powerful the blood bond between us must be. I could not trust him to seek out the grand duke and deliver my warning. I would have to find another way.
“Mon Dieu! I cannot take it anymore!” Elena’s voice shouted over the stomping of her shoes.
The door to our room burst open, slamming into the dresser beside it. Elena rushed in and threw her books on her bed. She stopped and stared at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I was not feeling well. Must you shriek like that? The headmistress can probably hear you from her office.”
Elena sighed as she flopped down on her bed. “Princess Aurora drives me insane with the superior airs that she puts on! She got the highest mark on our French exam this morning, and Madame Tomilov gave her a bonbon!”
“And what is wrong with that?”
Elena lowered her voice. “And Alix is even worse.”
“She is just shy.”
Elena snorted. “No, she is a snob. Just because her grandmother is the queen of England. Bah! Katiya, you know as well as I do that the Hessian princess is … different. She will never be like us.”
I looked at Elena with disbelief. I hated it when she likened my powers to hers. “I don’t see that as a bad thing. Erzsebet and Augusta are not like us either.”
Elena stood up and paced back and forth. “But the Bavarians do not count. They are blissfully ignorant of the things that go on in the dark of St. Petersburg. They know nothing of vampires or faeries. They will live happy lives never aware of the creatures that live alongside of them.”
“And you are saying that Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt is one of these … creatures?”
Elena stopped pacing and sat down again on her cot. “I’m saying there is something not right about her. She is always watching me. Judging me, as if she knows my secrets. She knows and she is not afraid.”
“Are you certain?” It occurred to me now that Princess Alix had often looked at me in a similar fashion. “How could she know our secrets if she was not … unnatural as well?” I could not believe Elena had become my confidante.
Elena shrugged. “We must be on our guard around her. Perhaps we can find out more about her and her family.”
Besides the fact that she came from Germany and her sister was married to one of the tsar’s brothers, I knew little about Princess Alix. I’d been invited on an ice-skating outing with her and her sister and the imperial children last winter, but she’d been very shy. I knew she did not speak much French or Russian, but spoke fluent English. She was also secretly in love with the tsarevitch.
My own undead creature, Count Chermenensky, had called her a monster, I remembered. The memory of the day I’d met the undead count made me blink back angry tears. Why had he reacted so strangely to Princess Alix? She was not a ghoul like the count. Whatever she was, surely she was not a danger to any of us, trapped behind the empress’s spell.
I woke up that night to hear Elena restless and muttering in her sleep. Her moaning did not wake Aurora or Alix, thankfully. The silvery light of the full moon brightened up our room, and I snuggled down deeper in my blankets, glad that she was not able to turn into a moth. I worried, though, what would happen to her without a transformation. Would she still need to get blood in her human form? Would she seek it from one of her roommates?
“The veshtizas are not true vampires, as the Vladiki are.” Again, the crown prince’s thoughts floated into my head strong and clear. I wondered if it was due to the full moon that it was so much easier to hear him now.
What does that mean? I hated to encourage Danilo, but I wanted to know more about his sister’s powers.
“It is not necessary for her survival to drink blood. A veshtiza gains her magic powers from blood, which she can only gather at the full moon in moth form. But it does not harm her if she does not change.” Danilo’s laugh was low and velvety in my head.
“Of course, it does not make her a happy person when she does not get to change. The empress’s spell will make my sister a difficult person to live with.”
Does she know? How are you aware of the empress’s spell?
His laugh sickened my stomach. “Duchess, I know most of your secrets. We are bound, remember?”
I shuddered, wishing once again there was a way to remove the blood bond between us. I could not let the crown prince know all of my secrets. But how could I undo the fact that he had drunk my blood in order to complete his own ascension ritual? It had all been part of his parents’ plan to make him as powerful a blood drinker as his father, the Montenegrin king. The king had received his own powers from drinking the queen’s blood. Queen Milena had spent years searching for a necromancer bride for her eldest son. Unfortunately, the bride she had chosen was me.
“And no, Elena does not know of the empress’s spell.” Danilo’s thoughts continued to invade my head. “I would not tell her if I were you.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief. Thank you, Danilo.
He laughed again and I tried to ignore the way it made the hair on the back of my neck tingle. “Pleasant dreams, my love.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first full moon had come and gone and most of the students seemed unusually restless. Elena in particular. And the German princess as well. She seemed to spend more and more time in the library, and would glare at me if I tried to enter the room while she was there.
“Alix, what is wrong with you?” Aurora Demidova snarled the next morning as Alix stomped around trying to get dressed for breakfast.
Princess Alix glared at her but said nothing. I wanted to stay out of it. Elena was exceptionally grumpy that morning too. I followed them down to the dining room and ate my cold porridge in silence, trying to avoid the nasty looks my roommates were casting at each other throughout the meal.
The next night was even worse, as all three of my roommates were vicious and snapping at each other. Aurora accused Elena of stealing her favorite slippers. Alix accused Aurora of stealing her red hair ribbon. Everyone went to bed fuming, but no one slept. As the waning moon filled our dark room with its dim silvery light, I breathed a sigh of relief that the empress’s spell was keeping everyone safe from Elena’s blood thirst.
I tried to pay closer attention to Princess Alix in the coming days. I had not noticed anything besides her shy façade, but perhaps Elena had been right. The princess had seemed more agitated than usual in the past week. She still did not fit in with the rest of us. I laughed to myself, realizing that I did not really fit in here either.
The nights had continued to bring broken sleep, with loud howling noises that woke me up and then disappeared. I could not tell if it was a dream or something real. I noticed several other girls at the breakfast table were looking hollow-eyed and fatigued as well.
Erzsebet was whispering with the girls at her table, but suddenly stopped as Elena and I sat down. I caught Augusta sneaking glances at Elena several times during breakfast. Aurora took her plate and sat at the head of the table, close to the table where the headmistress and Madame Orbellani ate. Alix ate her food quietly and ignored everyone. She did not seem to be suffering quite as much as the rest of us.