The Unfailing Light

On the first sunny day, Madame Tomilov allowed Sister Anna to take our class out for a walk in the courtyard. The sister had argued that we needed fresh air and exercise to keep us strong and healthy during the winter months, and the headmistress had agreed. She sent along a picnic basket full of Sucre's apple and cinnamon muffins.

Elena seemed to be acting more like her normal wicked and conniving self, however. She grabbed my arm and we hung back behind the others, allowing Aurora and the rest of the girls to hurry ahead.

"What is it?" I whispered. "They'll never let us out again if you do something horrible."

"I just wanted to speak with you, Katerina Alexandrovna. Without Alix listening. I found something mysterious under her bed last night."

"What were you up to?"

Elena shrugged. "I needed to put something there. I did not expect to see witchcraft already in place."

"Witchcraft?"

"The box she keeps tucked under her bed. It has a red ribbon coiled up inside."

"And what makes you think that it is witchcraft? You had no right to search the princess's things, Elena."

"There was a protective symbol scratched inside the box's lid. A German hex symbol."

"How do you know?" But I already could guess. I shook my head. "Never mind. Your sisters."

Elena smiled. "They are extremely well educated, Katerina. Not only did they finish at the tops of their classes here at Smolny, they also were tutored during the summers at home in Greek and Persian. We have quite a large occult library at home in Cetinje."

Briefly, I regretted missing out on this library when I was in Montenegro last spring. "Perhaps it is something a superstitious servant gave her."

"Anyway, I wonder what the ribbon is for."

I looked at Elena. "And I wonder what you were planning on putting under her bed."

Elena took my arm in hers as she looked up at the sky and smiled. "Oh, just a little something to keep her from looking her best."

I shook my head again and sighed. I realized nothing magical would work under the empress's spell, so Alix was safe for the moment from Elena's creepy trinkets. But whatever magic was in that box would not be able to work either. What was the German princess hiding?

I wished that Alix and I had become closer friends during the school year, but she kept mostly to herself. She definitely had her own strange secrets.

"What is that?" Elena asked, stopping just before we reached the archway leading to the outer courtyard. In the snow, under a barren hedge, there was a pile of dark cloth. Just beyond the empress's enchanted barrier.

Aurora and the Bavarian princesses were walking back to join us. They spotted the cloth at the same time. Aurora reached out and picked it up, shaking the snow off.

Her hands passed easily through the empress's wards. It was good to know I had one roommate with no supernatural abilities.

"It looks like a woman's shawl," I said. "Someone must be very cold."

Aurora held it up. The black wool was fringed and dotted with tiny pearls. "It's beautiful. I'm keeping it."

"It's dirty," I said. "Not only has it been lying here in the snow, it also looks valuable. Someone will be looking for it."

Aurora wrapped herself up in it and spun around. "Ugh, it smells horrible!" She unwrapped it and threw it toward me, but it fell to the ground.

I sighed and picked it back up, folding it carefully. "We should give it to Sister Anna. Maybe she can clean it up and find its owner."

The shawl did have a peculiar smell to it. An earthy smell of decay. My heart pounded in my ears and I felt dizzy. It smelled of a tomb.

"Katerina?" Elena was staring at me.

I took a deep breath. There was a logical explanation. I was certainly mistaken. The shawl had probably been lying under that shrub all winter. It probably just smelled because it had been outside in the damp for so long, not because a dead person had been wearing it.

"Katerina Alexandrovna! What is wrong with you? You look pale as a ghost!"

I looked at Elena and tried to shrug nonchalantly. "I just felt a chill all of a sudden. Let's hurry and catch up with the others."

"Should we take the shawl or not?" Elena looked doubtful.

I sighed and hesitated. "It would be the right thing to do."

"Well, come on, then. I'm starting to lose feeling in my hands out here."

"Perhaps the cook will make hot cocoa for us when we return," Augusta said hopefully.

Elena grinned. "He's very handsome, for a cook, is he not? Aurora says he can't be more than twenty, but I think he's much older."

I held my tongue. It was the glamour that made him appear so young. He looked to me like a man in his late thirties or early forties, but as a member of the fae, he could have been over a hundred years old. "Leave him alone, Elena." I started walking, leaving her behind.

Her laughter followed me as I hurried to catch up with the others, the shawl bundled up in my arms.

Sister Anna, who had not even noticed our absence, took the shawl disdainfully. "One would certainly hope the woman who lost her shawl was not in the habit of losing her clothing in the woods frequently."

Elena giggled and whispered to me, "Perhaps we should tell her we found a pair of drawers in the woods as well."

I rolled my eyes but grinned. Poor Sister Anna.

Alix sat in the dining hall by herself that evening, apparently deep in thought. I worried about her, even without Elena being able to cast any charms on her. I left Elena chatting with Erzsebet and approached Alix.

She looked up but said nothing.

"Were the winters at Hesse-Darmstadt as cold as the winters here in St. Petersburg?"

She shrugged and looked intently into her cup of cocoa.

"I guess it is difficult to adjust to living away from home for the first time. Do you hear often from your family?"

Alix finally looked up at me. "What do you want, Katerina Alexandrovna? I'd like to be left in peace."

"Why must you be so mysterious?" I asked, growing impatient with her. "You know about the ghost. Don't you wish to help get rid of her? And protect the students?"

"She is not harming anyone," the princess said stubbornly.

"But she has before, and I'm certain it won't be long before someone else gets hurt. Please help me, Alix. You know something that you're not telling me."

"Why? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

She didn't cry, but looked as if she might. Without another word, she stood up and left.

Disappointed and just a little bit puzzled, I rejoined Elena and Erzsebet. I had learned nothing about Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was almost as much of a mystery as the Smolny ghost.