The Gathering Storm

I had to get a message to the grand duke George. He most assuredly already knew about Demidov, but I wanted to tell him about the Dekebristi.

I suspected they were behind these attacks on the Order. According to Grand Duchess Miechen, the Romanov family was certain the Dekebristi had been eradicated. If they had indeed returned, I needed to find out where they were hiding.

Elena was not at school. I breathed a sigh of relief, not eager to face her.

Dariya was helping a grieving Aurora Demidova pack her things. Her family was coming to take her home later that day for her cousin's funeral.

The princess did not expect to return to school for some time.

Erzsebet and Augusta walked with me in the snow-covered gardens of the school, discussing the ball et of the previous weekend. They wanted to know what plans I'd already made for the wedding. I sighed. Maman would not let me say anything publicly about my broken engagement just yet. So I merely said something vague about flowers. And cake.

"Ooh! Our cousin Princess Sophia had a lemon cake at her wedding that was twenty feet high!"

"It was not!" Erzsebet said. "It only looked like that to you, because you were only five years old."

"Maman said it was twenty feet," Augusta said, pouting.

The princesses' chattering was giving me a headache, and I wished I could go for a walk in the woods alone. The attack on Prince Demidov frightened me, however, and soon enough Madame Tomilov would learn of it and forbid anyone from leaving the school grounds.

"Is your handsome brother coming to visit you soon?" Augusta asked.

"He always brings his handsome friends with him."

I winced, remembering Demidov's last breath. And Count Chermenensky's swagger. No more of the tsar's knights would die if I could do anything about it.

"Did you know your brother's friend told us about their scary school? The count said that there is an enormous portrait of Tsar Pyotr the Great in the Great Hall of the Corps des Pages, and the portrait comes alive and walks the palace at night."

"It wasn't Pyotr the Great," Erzsebet said. "It was Pavel."

"Or was it Alexander the First?" Augusta asked. She was arranging rocks in a pretty pattern in the snow. A heart.

I stopped walking. It was definitely Tsar Pavel. My brother had mentioned the portrait before. And if the tsar walked the Great Hall at night, I needed to speak with him. I stopped in my tracks. "I've forgotten something important," I said as I turned to head back to the school. "I must send a message to my brother."

"Oh, do ask him to come," Erzsebet said. She and Augusta giggled as they skipped along behind me.

I needed to see the portrait of the tsar in the palace of the Corps des Pages. Women were not allowed in the palace, but I wouldn't let that stop me. I could borrow my brother's clothes and disguise myself as a boy to get past the guards.

Never had I wanted to speak with the dead, raise the dead, touch the dead, or even think about the dead. But it was imperative that I speak with the tsar's ghost. He could tell me how to protect the Romanovs from the Dekebristi.

I returned to my room to compose my letter. Elena was there, waiting for me. She was not angry, as I had expected, but was very upset.

"Oh, Katerina! How could you?" There were large tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

I sighed as she rushed forward and embraced me. "I'm so sorry," I told her. "As much as I admire your brother, I don't believe we could be happy together."

"But you were happy!" she said. "Did he say something to upset you?

Tell me and I will make him apologize."

I shook my head. "He cannot apologize for being who he is." An arrogant and dangerous soon-to-be blood drinker.

Hastily, I added, "He is the crown prince and needs to have a bride who will be a proper consort for him. I'm afraid I am not the right choice."

"But who wouldn't want to become a queen?" Elena demanded. She looked sincerely puzzled. It was her only ambition in life to become a queen or a tsarina herself.

"Me." I smiled sadly.

Elena sighed. "I do not understand you, Katerina. I think you will change your mind when you realize how much you love Danilo." My cousin walked in as Elena left. They had been cool toward each other ever since Dariya had returned from the hospital. Her father and stepmother had wanted to withdraw her from Smolny, but Dariya had wanted to come back. "Who else is going to look after you?" she had asked me. I was glad to have her here, but I still worried. We had no way of proving Elena had done anything wrong. And what was to prevent her from poisoning Dariya again?

Dariya's stepmother, Countess Zina, was as fond of seances and tarot cards as Maman, and had given Dariya her own card deck for Christmas.

Dariya had thought the occult was merely a fashionable hobby until she met the Montenegrins. Now she knew better.

I told my cousin about the ghost in Vorontsov Palace.

She agreed that we should try to speak with the ghost. "The opera is this Friday night," she said. "We could sneak away from the performance." My cousin was devilishly clever sometimes.

Dariya came home to Betskoi House with me for the weekend. We sneaked into my brother's room after dinner and I opened up his wardrobe.

"Help me find an outfit to wear."

My cousin shook her head. "Katiya, dressing as your brother to get into the palace might work, but there is something else you can do that would be far more stylish."

Mon Dieu. My cousin always had her own priorities. She was so much like my mother.

Dariya pulled a small torn book from behind her. "Your mother told me I could borrow any book I found in the library, and I picked this one up, thinking it was a new Marie Corel i novel."

I took the book from her and shivered as I read the cover. A Necromancer's Companion. How could she have possibly thought it was a romance? And how had it ended up in the library? Maybe one of the maids had found it under my bed and placed it on the shelf, thinking that was where it belonged.

I opened the Companion and began leafing through the pages, but Dariya stopped me. "There are things in this book that we probably shouldn't know, Katiya," she said. "Talismans, incantations, rituals for terrible things."

I wanted to tell her that Princess Cantacuzene had given the book to me, but then I would have to tell my cousin everything. About me. I dreaded how she might react. And I believed she was safer not knowing. For the moment, at least.

Then Dariya smiled mischievously. "But there is a spell for creating a shadow around oneself. Wouldn't that make a clever disguise? Of course, you're no necromancer, but what if it works anyway? We could use it to sneak into Vorontsov Palace!"

We hurried back to my room. Dariya rang for Lyudmila and opened the door to my closet. "We shal dress for the opera and go with your mother.

We can slip out during the first act and take the carriage to the palace." I nodded, scanning through the pages of the book. There was a spell for a sheult, which was Egyptian for "shadow." There were incantations to Egyptian gods and goddesses. Drawings of talismans and sigils. A ritual for letting the dead rest in peace. My heart stopped as I looked up at Dariya.

I couldn't tell her about the count. But there was a ritual in the book that might be able to help him. I berated myself for not consulting it sooner.

"Where on earth did your mother find the Companion, Katiya?" my cousin asked. "Should I ask her tonight at the theater?" I swallowed in alarm. I couldn't allow Dariya to mention the book to Maman. "I don't even know if she's seen it," I said, trying to sound casual.

"Princess Cantacuzene gave the book to me, though I certainly can't imagine why. I had forgotten all about it."

My cousin shrugged nonchalantly as Lyudmila entered and started to fix Dariya's hair. "I found a drawing in there of something called the Talisman of Isis," Dariya said. "Don't you think that would make a wonderful title for a romance novel?"

I rolled my eyes and flipped through the book again. Something had been written in the margin of one of the pages. I had no way of knowing if it was Princess Cantacuzene's handwriting.

You must always, always return from the darkness. Always return to the light.