“You have to get the Firebird,” he says, slow and careful with each word, as if he doesn’t trust himself to force them out. “You have to use it to bring me back.”
“How do I find that guy again?” How do I do anything in this dimension? My hands are shaking, and the diamond choker around my neck feels like a noose. “Oh God, oh God, he had that big beard, and a monocle—”
“Colonel Azarenko,” Paul says absently.
I stare at him. “What?”
He looks at me as though he hadn’t seen me before. Then he straightens, pulling out of my hands. “Your Imperial Highness.”
This is not my Paul any longer. This is Lieutenant Markov.
He continues, “Forgive me, Your Imperial Highness. I can’t think why—I don’t remember how I came to be here. Was I taken ill?”
“You . . . became lightheaded.” I cover as best I can. “I wasn’t feeling well either. So you were to take me to my room, so I could rest.”
“Very well, my lady.” He bows his head and begins walking briskly through the corridor, his shining boots dark against the red velvet carpet. In something of a daze, I trail along behind.
At least one of us knows where my room is.
Paul and I are trapped here. With no idea how to contact Theo, if I even can. All I have to go on is the name “Colonel Azarenko.”
Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll be able to ask about him tomorrow, have him brought to me, and get Paul’s Firebird back.
If I can’t—
—but no. I can’t think about that right now. Instead I straighten the tiara on my head and pretend I know what the hell I’m doing.
11
LATER THAT EVENING, AFTER MY MAIDS (I HAVE THREE) have dressed me in a loose nightgown and settled me into my bed, I lay the pieces of my Firebird on my embroidered coverlet. This enormous bed of carved wood is high above the floor, every blanket and sheet pristinely white, so it feels a bit as though I’m considering my options while resting on a cloud.
With a sigh, I flop onto the soft pillows piled at the head of my bed. The room surrounding me isn’t that large, nor is the decor gaudy, and yet there’s no mistaking the wealth and elegance that created it. The walls and high ceiling are painted the cool, soft green of aged copper. A writing desk in the corner is scrolled with vines of inlaid wood, as if it were being reclaimed by the forest leaf by leaf. Across from my bed, a broad fireplace set with enameled tiles glows with the fire that warms my room.
My jewels are back in their velvet boxes, along with all the others.
At least this version of me has books, several of which are strewn around me right now. Many of them are in Russian . . . but I can read that here, and speak it too. Apparently that kind of memory is hardwired into the mind differently than emotions and experiences.
From what I can tell from the books I’ve scanned, just as technology had developed slightly faster in the London dimension, here it has developed far more slowly. My surroundings seem to belong in the year 1900 more than in the twenty-first century. Although some elements of this world are more or less advanced than my dimension was at this point, the overall feel is like stepping back a century in time. In this world, the twenty-first century simply looks very different. People travel by railroad or steamship, or even sometimes on horseback or in sleighs. Telephones exist but are so new we only have a few in the palace, and they’re only for official use; nobody has even thought of telephoning a friend merely to chat. The internet hasn’t even been dreamed of. Instead, people write letters. I can see a stack of creamy stationery waiting on my desk.
The United States of America exists but is thought of as remote and provincial. (I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but everyone here in St. Petersburg would agree.) Royalty still reigns throughout Europe, including of course the House of Romanov. The man everyone thinks is my father is Tsar Alexander V, emperor and autocrat of all the Russias. So far as I can tell, this dimension doesn’t yet contain the equivalent of a Lenin or a Trotsky. This is good, as I have zero interest in pulling an Anastasia—getting shot to death in a basement and then having every crazy woman in Europe pretending to be me for the next fifty years.
A set of leatherbound encyclopedias on a lower shelf has an entry about the House of Romanov. There, in plain text stark on the page, I learn that Tsar Alexander married a young noblewoman named Sophia Kovalenka. With her he had four children: the Tsarevich Vladimir, Grand Duchess Margarita (i.e., yours truly), Grand Duchess Yekaterina (a very fancy name for the brat who stuck her tongue out at me), and finally Grand Duke Piotr.
My mother died giving birth to her fourth child.
Mom and Dad always said pregnancy was “difficult” for her; I never realized that meant “dangerous.” They stopped after me and Josie, for the sake of her health. Here, I realize, the Tsar never stopped demanding more children, pressuring her into pregnancy after pregnancy until, finally, she died while in labor with her younger son.