Hope leaps within me, bright and wild. “Oh, thank you!” My first impulse is to hug him, but I manage to hold back.
Dad smiles as he folds the remnants of the Firebird back in the lace hanky. “My pleasure, Your Imperial Highness. Always a pleasure to help you.”
“You’ll never know what it means to me.” Is it possible I’ll actually get out of this?
“I understand,” is all he says, but in those two words I hear his love for my mother, and the depth of what he’d do for her memory.
Not even my father is such a genius that he can instantly repair a complicated device he’s never seen before. Nor can he create more hours in the day. Christmastime is the heart of the season here in St. Petersburg, which means virtually every night involves another dinner, or a dance, or a social gathering. My dad is exempt from few of these occasions; I am exempt from none. Azarenko is still in Moscow, and without that time machine Mom never got around to inventing, I can’t make New Year’s come around any faster.
For the time being, I have to make myself at home.
I start with the basics. I memorize as much of that Royal List as I can. A calendar of my appointments turns up in my desk, so I’m able to figure out what I should be doing next, and I find a map of the Winter Palace that helps me learn my way around. (If I get lost in my own house, that’s probably going to tip them off that something’s up.)
The strangest part is how strange it isn’t. After a few days, it feels completely ordinary to wear floor-length dresses every day, and wear my hair piled atop my head in a complicated wreath of braids. My palate gets used to the taste of briny caviar, the pickled flavor of borscht, and the strength of Russian tea. I can read and speak English, French, and Russian without any difficulty switching between them—and I make sure to practice a lot, hoping to carry a little of the French and Russian back home with me.
Each morning, the servants prepare me for my day, doing everything I need, from slipping the stockings over each of my legs to polishing my earrings before screwing them tightly upon my earlobes. (No pierced ears for a grand duchess: in this dimension, at least in St. Petersburg, any kind of body piercing is as good as wearing a T-shirt that says, PROSTITUTE HERE, ASK ME ABOUT MY HOURLY RATES.) They even take care of everything when, on my fourth morning here, my period starts. It’s a huge hassle, involving this contraption like a garter belt but not one bit sexy, and actual cloth towels folded between my legs. I have to stand there, blushing so hot I must be turning purple, while they change it every few hours and take the towels away to be hand-washed by some unlucky individual. Why couldn’t I have had my period in the dimension where I lived in a futuristic London? They probably had, like, miracle space tampons or something. But the servants don’t seem to think anything of it, so I try to endure it without giving away how completely freaked out I am.
Each day, I go to the schoolroom and study French, economics, geography, and anything else I can talk Dad into reviewing. He responds to my greater curiosity, introducing more science lessons about the innovations of the day, like the race to develop airplanes. (They’ve already been invented here, but only just, and planes are still cloth-and-propeller jobs. The longest flight in history, so far, lasted about twenty minutes.) Peter loves it, asking so many questions that I wonder whether he inherited Mom’s scientific curiosity; Katya pouts about the additional homework, but I can tell she’s intrigued despite herself.
Seeing my father again never gets easier, but I’m glad even for the pain. To have this one last chance to spend time with him is a gift I could never take for granted.
And Paul is always near me. Always with me. If he’s not in the room with me, he is outside the door.
At first the reassurance I take from having him near is simple. As long as Paul is nearby, I can make sure he stays safe. I can believe we’ll get his Firebird back or my dad will fix mine so that I’ll be able to remind Paul of himself—and then I’ll be sure that we can get home.
Another grand ball is scheduled, only one of more than a dozen leading up to Christmas. I won’t be able to fake another fainting spell to get out of this one. Unfortunately, the kind of dancing they have at grand balls is not the kind I know how to do. Waltzing seems to play a major role.
I have no idea how to waltz. If the tsar’s daughter goes out on the dance floor and makes a total fool of herself, people are going to wonder what’s wrong with me.
That afternoon, when Paul and I go to the library, I don’t even bother sitting at my desk. Instead, as soon as Paul closes the tall doors behind us, I say, “Lieutenant Markov, I would like to learn how to waltz.”