Blood Spirits (43 page)

“Why?”

“For their film, they said. Gilles wouldn't give up. He followed the bishop around and kept begging, pleading, even tried to bribe him.”

“That doesn't make any sense. What possible use is showing pictures of a burned corpse, no matter whose it is?”

“I do not know.” Beka looked both ways again. “Here is what's important: my grandfather received a message late last night. Very disturbing. The bishop himself, after receiving my grandfather's request, checked the vault and sent to say that there were signs it had been tampered with. Probably at the very moment Gilles was pestering the bishop.”

“Dude!”

Beka drew in a breath. “I don't know how many conspiracies there are, at this point. Outside of our own, which at least I know is not intended to harm anyone. So I wished to warn you, be careful this evening.”

“You'll be there, right?”

“I will be there trying to guard Honoré, who insists on going.”

“What about the Vigilzhi, don't they usually do guard duty?”

She gave a quick nod. “Dmitros Trasyemova has seen to that. My job is to guard against—”

A door opened, Beka linked arms with me, and walked me back into the temple, which was mostly empty. “
Au revoir,
” she said, letting me go.

“
Au revoir,
” I repeated and hustled out, hoping I hadn't kept the Waleska contingent waiting. No, everyone was standing around chatting with friends as a snarl of wagons and sleighs slowly sorted itself out.

“You will get ready for the ball tonight?” Theresa asked and, on my nod, she sighed. “I would so like to go to a ball.”

“Not I.” Katrin wrinkled her nose. “Not if you cannot dance the round dances but must be partnered with a boy.”

“Don't like boys?” I asked.

“Most of them seem to be like my brothers.” Katrin made a gag face. “They would put spiders in my hair, or step on my hem, or belch tunes, and think it funny. I like the grand balls Miriam writes in her st—”

Theresa shushed her, and launched into a description of the perfect ball gown, reaching flights of fancy that Katrin, who apparently was an experienced seamstress, would shoot down as impractical or impossible.

“Theresa, a gown with a thousand diamonds and rubies would weigh so much the neckline would reach your knees the first time you tried standing up”—which caused a friendly argument, Miriam joining in once she had recovered from the horror of nearly being outed as a secret novelist.

Anna, who had stayed behind to start the supper, had taken delivery of my ball dress. The girls promptly insisted on seeing it. Tania followed us, but her expression was unreadable. I waited for her on the stairs. “Tania, what's the problem?”

She gave me a quick smile. “Nothing!”

“Want to go to the ball?”

She gave her head a shake. “I have nothing to wear, and the girls . . .” She clammed up.

We'd reached my room, where the two sixteen-year-olds were waiting for me to open my door. When I did, they went in and stood looking in awe at the gown hanging over the edge of the wardrobe door.

“Look but don't touch,” I said. “It's got to stay fresh, at least until I get there.”

I shut the door on them and pulled Tania out into the hall. “Tania, there's a problem. I can see it.”

Tania opened her thin hands. “I think I need a better place for experiments than my room,” she admitted.

I was about to exclaim
Why didn't you say so in the first place?
But I knew it would hurt her. She was scrupulously honest as well as careful. I had a responsibility for another person, for the first time in my life.

“What we really need is an office of our own, where we can experiment, and meet,” I said. “Or a classroom! Listen, if you don't know of a convenient room to rent, then go talk to Beka Ridotski. She might be able to set you up in a classroom over at the temple school, where nobody will ask nosy questions. Tell her that I sent you.”

Every word that established a possible line of communication had a visible effect, and I thought about how much we depend on knowing whether we're doing the right thing. In Tania's view, going to Beka on her own was wrong, but my asking her to go to Beka was right. Weird, that.

We went back into my room, to find Katrin bent all the way over so she could examine the stitchwork on the gown. She'd begun to lecture Theresa on satin stitches versus chain when Madam's voice boomed from below, “Theresa?”

Theresa's hands flew to her mouth. “The apples! I am supposed to peel and core the apples for the
gibanica!
”

“I'll help,” Katrin said as they started out. “We have to get it done, or we'll never get a good place in the crowd.”

“Miriam promised to save space. . . .”

I shut the door on their chatter. “Tania, I just thought of something else. Something small.”

I held my breath as an intense, visceral memory seized me: the brush of Alec's fingers, the scent of his soap, and the fabric of his Vigilzhi formal tunic as he set his mother's diamond necklace around my neck.

I wondered how many charms that thing had on it.

“I didn't bring any jewelry, and I'm about to go to this ball in a few hours. I would like you to take my cash and get me something that will go with this dress. You choose. I like your taste—I saw that when you were dealing with customers in the lens shop. Bring me something I can wear, and put your best charms on it. I have a feeling that I'm going to need it.”

She whisked herself out, her body language full of purpose. I shut the door and slumped onto the bed, whooshing my breath out.

Then I thought in disgust, I still didn't know what “Esplumoir” was.

TWENTY-SIX

H
ERE'S THE THING about long hair. Yeah, it's a hassle to wash, dry, and comb out, but if you want an elegant do in about two minutes flat, all you need is to pull it on top of your head, coil the locks around in twists, and skewer them with a pretty hairclip. Instant elaborate hair style.

Then I dug out the makeup my mom had bought for me in London. Usually I only wore it when dancing on stage. Well, I thought, as I painted in the eyeliner, this is a dance, and I am going on stage.

As I slithered at last into the dress, I thought about going alone. I'm so not Party Girl. That is, I like parties, but nobody thinks of me when they count up those charismatic personalities that turn a disparate gathering into a good time for all.

When I stepped back, my spirits lifted. Maybe Madame Celine was about as Parisian as I was, but one thing for sure, she and her team were awesome dressmakers. The gown was as dramatic as the one Ginger wore while waltzing with Fred up and down that fantastic staircase in
Swing Time
.

I studied my reflection, turning this way and that. Decked out like this I could totally take my place among those grand portraits of my ancestors and their relatives. I tried my smile—the crooked smile with the single dimple that was so rakish on Tony, whimsical and rare on Honoré, cool and sophisticated on Phaedra, and supercilious on the duchess. On my mother, it was utterly charming, which was interesting, because Mom and the duchess were doppelgangers, same as Ruli and me. Yet you couldn't find two women who were more different in all other ways.

I wondered what would happen if the two of them were ever to meet.

Then I took a last look from my pale hair down to the perfect black shoes. All that was needed was something sparkly.

Tania returned as I sat down in the dining room to a cup of soup and a piece of bread, with a tablecloth swathed around me in case I slopped. She sat across from me with a decided air of triumph as she handed me a handkerchief-wrapped item.

The necklace was very simple—a crystal pendant on a thin silver chain—but the pendant had been exquisitely shaped and faceted so that it shone like a diamond. In the center glimmered a five-petaled star. Looking into it caused sparkles to glimmer at the edges of my vision, and I rocked unsteadily, fighting that sense of being drawn down into it. I caught images of an old woman's hand closing around it, a carved box with marquetry done in Old Norse knotwork, an intent gaze from a pair of black eyes in the face of a child.

Dizziness threatened to overwhelm me, and I shut my eyes to steady myself.

“The charm on it is very old,” Tania said. “Renewed by a Salfmatta every time it comes to a new person.”

“Where did you get it?”

She handed me the money I'd given her. “Domnu Petrov gave it to me. He would not take money. It was his mother's.”

“I'll have to thank him in person,” I said. “But right now I'd better get going. Everyone going to that ball will be wanting an inkri, and I don't want to walk in this outfit.”

Tania smiled. “People are lining the streets to watch the arrivals. That is why the girls wanted to leave early, to gain a good place.”

I bent my head, fixed the necklace on, and watched the sparkling crystal drop against my breastbone, framed by the V neck of my gown.

“Thank you, Tania. It's perfect.”

She flushed with pleasure. “You look beautiful, Mam'zelle.”

“Kim,” I said. “We're co-workers now.” I almost said co-conspirators. She gave me a quick, shy grin. Wednesday Addams triumphant.

I got up to fetch my long black velvet cloak but froze when everyone in the dining room turned toward the street windows, where golden lights shimmered and swung. The young Waleska cousin with the wannabe mustache called, “You must see this!”

The family and patrons stopped what they were doing and crowded around the window. I peered over shoulders at the fantastic sleigh that waited out in the street. It must have been designed by someone like Lalique, with art nouveau ironwork runners that curved up in the front like swans. The body was a combination of steam-era cool and Cinderella, with a canopy hung with fairy lamps made of glassed-in candles with mirror insets that reflected and refracted the light.

The driver looked just as fantastic, wearing a white wig à la the eighteenth century and a black livery complete to a skirted coat, knee pants, white stockings, and diamond shoe buckles.

He walked to the door and called into the total silence, “Mademoiselle Dsaret?”

Zip!
You could practically hear the swivel of every head turning my way.

“Me?”

I recognized that driver. It was Jerzy von Mecklundburg. He bowed suavely, his lopsided smile almost a grin. “Count Robert promised to provide the appropriate carriage, and I volunteered,” he began in French, then shifted back to Dobreni, in an appropriately grand manner. “Shall we depart, my lady?”

A minute later he was settling an enormous, brocaded carriage rug around me—kind of like a down-filled quilt. There was a footrest that must have had hot coals inside, because it was nice and warm. So even though the sleigh was open to the air, between the carriage rug, the heated footrest, and my beautiful new silk-lined cloak, I was toasty, except for my face. But the ride wouldn't be long.

“Comfortable?” Jerzy asked as he climbed onto the driver's seat, and took up the reins.

Up front was a matched pair of huge horses, their manes decorated with black and white ribbons.

“Very,” I said, feeling a tad silly sitting all alone at the back of a sleigh large enough to comfortably seat ten. “This was a very nice gesture, but I can take an inkri if the family needs this sleigh.”

Jerzy glanced back over his shoulder as the horses pulled us into the middle of the street, harnesses jingling. “The family is already there. Some have been all day, busy at their tasks. Mine is to serve as chauffeur tonight.” He sounded like a Frenchman, unlike the rest of the family, who had the faintest trace of Dobreni accent.

“You're not attending the gala?”

He laughed. “I'm not supposed to be in the country at all. I was wild as a youth, and they banned me. I'm content to play roles now. Behold me, am I not fine?” He flicked his wig with an insouciant air that brought Tony to mind.

“Very fine. And so is this sleigh.”

“It's been in the family for six generations. I'm surprised the Russians didn't break it up for firewood.”

“That would have been a shame. It's lovely.” I leaned forward. “Shall I come sit beside you? I feel silly, sitting back here all by myself.”

“No, no. We must play our roles. The crowd expects it. I can hear you, and I shall turn my head, so, and you will hear me.”

I raised my hand to block the halo around the swinging lights, and discovered people standing in the remains of the most recent snowfall, watching as we glided by. Some wore elaborate masks, others didn't. Many were talking, laughing, and drinking.

“Tell me about your mother,” he asked. His half-sister. Weird.

“What do you want to know?”

“Has she ever been to Dobrenica?”

“No.”

“Has she plans to visit? Perhaps she might wish to stop in Paris on her way here.”

“Here?” I said witlessly.

“You sound surprised. Will she not want to visit the land of her mother's birth? Parents' births?”

“She never said so. But you have to remember, she didn't know where her mother came from until four months ago.”

“So she is not curious? I was.” He flashed that smile over his shoulder.

“All my mother knew was that her father was shot down during the war, which was a very distant sort of thing in Los Angeles. She was more interested in the present, like becoming a pastry chef, than in the past.”