Tsarina Read online

  My eyes widened. “Absolutely not.”

  Leo gave me a dismissive look. “You’ll blend in better with them—”

  “I’m not wearing one,” I said, voice hard, uncompromising. “I’d rather get discovered.” Emilia shifted and didn’t look like she entirely agreed with me, but kept silent. Leo folded his arms.

  “Fine. Then at least take your hair down. Only the nobility wears it up like that.”

  My jaw tightened. It was just hair, I knew, but the Reds already had so much. I wasn’t giving them this too. I couldn’t find the words to say this aloud without sounding every bit as mad as the rioters; luckily, Emilia spoke up.

  “I think we’re as disguised as we can be, Leo,” she said authoritatively.

  Leo made a grim face, but shook his head and walked out the front door. We followed him out to the waiting carriage. As we each took Leo’s rough hand and climbed into the back, Emilia gave me a serious look, one that asked: Are we really doing this?

  I nodded at her. She looked sick for a moment, then swallowed, forced a smile across her lips.

  “Leo?” I asked as we started away from the house. Madame Ashund was waving at the gate.

  “Yes, Lady Kutepova?” he called back. I inhaled, leaned forward.

  “Would you be so kind as to take us to the Winter Palace before we go to the station?”

  Leo sat up straighter, looked over his shoulder; the wind tousled his hair into his eyes, but I could still see the surprise there. “The Winter Palace?”

  “There’s something I need to get.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Leo took us west, past the Tsarskoye Selo station, then toward the Fontanka River. Emilia and I moved closer together—we could see the Winter Palace in the distance, where the road ended. The pale red color of the palace looked less inviting and more like blood than I cared to reflect on. I tried to look only at the road just ahead, tried to think that each cobblestone passed, each rotation of the wheels got me closer to the moment this would all be over.

  The Fontanka was hemmed in with stone walls, just like the canals. People were in the streets all around us, many of them wearing red armbands, others surveying the damage with slack jaws and watery eyes. Even among the Reds we passed, there seemed to be a sort of sorrow, like they couldn’t quite pinpoint how things had gone so wrong.

  We started across the river, over a stone bridge with iron railings. At each of the bridge’s four corners were statues of bare-chested men taming horses: great frozen beasts rearing, prancing, and thrashing their tails, their bronze nostrils flared and angry. Three of the statues looked promising—like the bronze man was moments from breaking the horse, but there was one where the man had fallen, and the horse looked a heartbeat away from stomping on him. I stared at this man, the black canal water behind him, gray skies beyond that even the brightest of Saint Petersburg’s buildings couldn’t combat, and I questioned the taming of wild things.

  “Natalya?” Emilia whispered. “They’re looking at you.”

  I jumped, turned away from the statue. Emilia was right—people were looking. Not staring, but looking in a way far too intense for my comfort. I sunk into the back of the carriage, pressed against Emilia and bowed my head, staring at the nearly stripped fur blanket instead. Emilia rested her head against my shoulder, but I could feel her trembling.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered.

  “We’ll be all right. The Reds destroy buildings because they know it’s impossible to destroy a Russian’s heart.”

  “I fear you overestimate my heart,” Emilia said. I exhaled just as Leo glanced over his shoulder and caught my eye.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “We’ll be fine,” I answered. “Eventually, anyhow.”

  He nodded and turned back to driving the horses. We drew closer to the palace, the road lined in tall, connected buildings witn shattered windows and broken doors. The bakery I often went to boasted the worst damage. Everything inside that could be shattered was. The shelves were picked bare, the tables overturned. The windows and door weren’t merely broken, but gone entirely, like a missing tooth in the smile of the street. Suddenly, Emilia lifted her chin, sucked in a hard breath—I looked over to see what she was staring at: the Winter Palace.

  I smiled. I didn’t mean to, but it happened, because the palace was still beautiful. Still strong, still standing, still the crown of Saint Petersburg, the place I knew. I found myself questioning Leo’s sources—it certainly didn’t look like the Reds had taken the building. It was still dusty red, the white columns gleaming, windows glinting when bits of sunlight broke through the clouds and smoke and hit the glass just right. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I could even hear the music and see the lights. I tried very hard to pretend Emilia and I were merely off for lunch with the grand duchesses, after which I’d sneak away to meet Alexei in the tsarina’s garden.

  My game of pretend didn’t last long. Emilia choked down a sob beside me.

  “Oh, Natalya. It looks awful,” she whispered.

  “What? I don’t think it looks so—”

  And then I realized that hope was blinding me to the truth. While the palace was still red, the pillars still gleaming, I now saw that there were bits of windowsills missing. Holes in the stonework, great chunks of the columns gone. The courtyard was filled with torn clothing, fallen signs, spent liquor bottles, and bits and pieces from all the buildings the Reds had torn apart on their way here. Every now and then, in a place where the cobblestones dipped low, I could see blood pooling in the cracks.

  I grimaced, looked to the palace gates—thick iron gates that always seemed strong, seemed heavy, seemed enough. They still stood, hung between a series of solid white columns, though the gates were flung open and unguarded. Worse, the golden double-eagle, the symbol of the Romanov family that had perched atop the gates for three hundred years, was missing. I couldn’t bear to look at the vacant spot, so I turned my head to the side and unintentionally laid my eyes on something more frightening.

  “What’s the Aurora doing here?”

  My voice was dead as I asked because truthfully, I knew. I knew exactly what the Aurora, one of our grandest battleships, was doing in the Neva. I eyed its three great smokestacks, the guns that lined its side. I remembered seeing her fire those guns in Bangkok when we went to celebrate the King of Siam’s coronation. We drank champagne and ate spicy foods, wore pearls and beaded dresses at a party that lasted for days. A party that seemed so far away from this world. The Aurora now floated perfectly still on the Neva River, silent, a pawn in a game heavier than the ship could ever hope to be.

  I knew why the Aurora was here—this was just like the mutiny in Odessa, years ago. The Aurora had surely been seized by the Reds, used to fire on the palace. My eyes ran between the shell marks on the Winter Palace’s walls and then to the the guns on the Aurora accusingly. The ships were supposed to protect us, were supposed to keep Russia safe. We weren’t supposed to fear them. They were ours.

  “They used it to signal the attack,” Leo said. “They took it long before they took the palace.”

  “What time?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure—around nine, I think. That’s when things got hectic.”

  I closed my eyes, collected myself. Nine o’clock. I heard the cannon fire. I thought it was the Whites firing into the crowd, protecting us. I thought it was the sound of our success. I rubbed my eyes, tried to force the memories away, but it was difficult as Leo drove the carriage straight for the palace gates. There were no guards, no soldiers, nothing but the eyes of the statues that stood at the edge of the palace’s roof—Athena, Demeter, Zeus, muses and lions watched us silently, useless guardians that they were. Thick white columns lined the entryway and arched over our heads. The entrance used to glow, used to beckon me closer. Now it felt like we were willingly descending into a monster’s t
hroat.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure,” Leo said, stopping the carriage. He jumped out swiftly. “I suspect the Reds raided the palace before realizing there isn’t much they can do until Lenin gets here.”

  “Lenin is returning?” I said, shaking my head. The Reds’ leader, the man the tsar exiled rather than executed. What a way to show thanks for Tsar Nicholas’s mercy.

  “That’s the rumor,” Leo said as he looped the horse’s reins around a pillar. I reached for his hand so he could help me out—how many times had I descended from a carriage on this very spot? I remembered the music, the smell of perfume, the way new shoes pinched my feet and the polished feeling of fine clothing. I turned, looked up at the soaring facade, the gold lion heads above the windows. When Leo released my hand to help Emilia, I felt adrift, horribly dreamlike for a moment.

  “Ready?” Emilia asked quietly once she was on the ground beside me.

  “I have to be,” I said, breathing slow, even.

  “Paris,” she said, looking up at the palace. “We’ll be in Paris soon.”

  There was an entrance to the family’s apartments to the right; those doors, I was relieved to find, were locked. Instead we went through the state entrance—no guards, no eyes, no sentries, no signs of life at all, the wrongness made chill-bumps rise and stay on my arms. The familiar foyer was massive, with a soaring ceiling and deep red rugs running along a grand staircase that went up a dozen steps, then turned off to both right and left. A Romanov crest once hung on the staircase landing; it was torn down, crushed, lying like a carcass on the floor. Everything was trimmed in bright yellow gold, but despite this and the wide windows, the room was darker than I remembered. I realized after a moment that it was because no one was here to turn on the massive chandelier above me—

  “I hear someone,” I snapped, grabbing Emilia’s hand. I pulled her behind a pillar; Leo jumped to join us. Voices, several of them, grew louder and echoed up to the gilded ceiling. I couldn’t make out the words, but they were becoming louder, faster, nearer.

  Movement on the far side of the foyer as a door burst open. A group of men—seven, maybe eight—spilled out. They were in peasant clothes, dirty and wearing heavily patched coats with telltale red armbands. They looked wrong in the palace, in the grandeur: dull browns and grays against silvers and golds and creams. Emilia and I pressed tighter against the pillar as they started toward us—for a moment, I was certain we’d been spotted, but I quickly realized the men were far too drunk to see much of anything. One tripped over the edge of the grand staircase and tumbled, his face slapping against the inlaid wood floors. The others laughed; one spit on the floor, held a bottle of red wine above his head, toasting his clumsy friend.

  “Is that—” Emilia whispered.

  “Yes,” I answered, rolling my eyes at the men. It was a bottle of Chateau de Calme, one of the tsar’s favorites and more expensive than all my jewelry combined.

  “Fancy wine?” Leo asked, raising an eyebrow at us.

  “Incredibly,” Emilia said. “It was made before my father was born.”

  “I suspect that’s a fact looters don’t appreciate,” Leo answered, hunching down lower as the group stumbled toward us. They clapped one another on the back, staggered forward, then vanished through a door on the far side of the grand staircase, singing some manner of Red song horribly off-key. I grimaced as I heard one retch just as the door slammed shut.

  “Well,” Leo said, stepping out from the column. “Where to, Lady Kutepova?”

  “I . . .” I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the image of Reds—drunk Reds—in the Winter Palace. “I think we need to go back to the Nicholas Hall,” I said. “I can find the room fastest from there.”

  “All right,” Leo said grimly, “Let’s just hope everyone we encounter is drunk on old wine.”

  The only route to the Nicholas Hall I knew was through the doors the Reds had just used; luckily, Leo knew another way. He led us through several closets, pantries, coatrooms that still smelled like perfume and cigars, until we appeared in a kitchen. I froze—I recognized it. This was the kitchen Alexei led me through at the last ball: our hearts pounding, cooks giving looks both kind and disapproving, the music from the party loud in our ears. Before I saw the Constellation Egg, before he went away, when our love was a thing we held and touched instead of something we locked up and observed.

  Leo didn’t notice my hesitation. He walked to the opposite side of the kitchen, his shoulders knocking into some pans on the way. He cringed at the noise, then, hearing no reaction, inched the far door open. He poked his head out cautiously.

  “Come on,” he called back to us. “There’s no one in here.”

  I didn’t need to see the Nicholas Hall to retrace my steps—now that we were in the kitchen, I was fairly sure I knew the way. But I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t surface from the memories that swirled around my head and threatened to drown me. I walked forward, brushed past Leo; he jumped back, allowed me to lean out the door and suck in a deep breath.

  The room hadn’t been touched by the riots, but it was still nearly unrecognizable. The chandeliers were there, the grand staircase, the golden columns and elegant balcony level. But there were hospital beds—dozens and dozens of them—lining the walls. I knew that the Romanov family allowed the palace to be used as a hospital for fallen soldiers, but had never seen it in person. Crisp white sheets on metal frames, neatly folded blankets, and stiff-looking pillows.

  “Look at this,” Emilia said, sounding awestruck as she peered around me.

  I meant to say something, but all that escaped my lips was a sigh. Something about the contrast of the hospital beds and the gold was right in all the ways that the contrast of the drunks in the other hall was wrong—it was beautiful. I found myself wishing photos of this had made it into the newspapers, that people knew what the tsar was doing for his men. I stepped out into the hall, turning, looking at the ceiling as the scent of antiseptic mingled with the oils used on the wooden floors. How has this place changed so much, and I feel like I’ve been trapped, frozen since the moment I was here last?

  “Can you find your way now?” Leo asked, sounding bothered and interrupting my thoughts. I lowered my eyes to him.

  “I . . . yes,” I said, letting my hand trail along the nearest bed. I wanted to be left alone with my memories, but memories wouldn’t help Alexei now. I pivoted, for a minute pretending I was merely mid-waltz, and walked back through the doorway. Emilia and Leo followed me.

  I paused in the hallways, Alexei’s voice in my head, laughing, calling me Natashenka, his fingers on mine. I was certain Leo, Emilia and I would be stopped—by a guard, by a Red, by someone. But we rushed through the palace, across the garden without seeing another soul, as if everyone had vanished in the night. When we reached the doors to the royal family’s apartments, I glanced back at the others.

  “Through here,” I said as I pushed open the door that, if memory served, led to the breakfast room.

  My heart fell so steeply I thought I might faint.

  The tapestries on the wall were shredded, threads hanging and piled on the floors. The mahogany table still gleamed, freshly polished, but there were now deep knife gouges in the wood. Shattered china was everywhere, chairs were tipped over and broken, and the room smelled like wine and urine. I gingerly stepped into the room and a plate with eagles painted around the edges cracked under my boot. Tears slipped down my cheeks.

  “Fools,” Leo said, shaking his head as he looked around. “These people weren’t Reds. They were just rioters and drunks.”

  Emilia and I picked our way through the room, delicately as if we were stepping over bodies. Leo had more trouble, looking like a draft horse as he balanced and wobbled around, trying not to crush things under his heavy feet. He gave us an apologetic look as he knocked a chair with his foot.


  “I think . . . I can’t remember exactly,” I whispered, now opening the door that led to the tsar’s salon. It was equally as horrifying: the dozens of photographs along the walls were sliced through, everything upturned, even the carpets bunched up and charred. I couldn’t look at the photos, knowing I’d see Alexei’s face on them, his eyes. If I saw his eyes, I would stop, be forced to stare, and if I stopped, I feared I might never move again. Furniture painted a rich silver color was cracked, revealing its pale wooden bones. The blue velvet curtains were at an angle, torn from the wall so that bits of the plaster were in chunks on the floor. Still, I exhaled in relief when I saw the bookshelf. Many of the books were tossed off, shredded, but the secret door was sealed shut. I walked over to it.

  “What are you doing?” Leo asked.

  “This is the way,” I said simply, and grabbed for the Pushkin book. I tugged it forward; the secret door opened up obediently, easily as it had when Alexei did it. Emilia gasped behind me; Leo chuckled under his breath at the ingenuity. I shook out my arms and curved my body around the bookcase to step inside.

  “Oh.”

  Such a stupid word—hardly a word even, but it was all I could get out. All my mouth remembered how to form, because after everything that had happened, I couldn’t possibly articulate anything more elegant. The room, the secret room—it was perfect. It was completely untouched. The carpets were still pristine, the framed photos still lined up perfectly, the furniture righted and polished.

  But the Constellation Egg was gone.

  “Natalya?” Emilia whispered urgently. “Is this . . . where is it?”

  I couldn’t answer; I merely lifted a finger, pointed to the empty pedestal, to the spot where it was before. Blue glass and quartz and crystal, Alexei’s egg, Alexei’s saving grace—and it was gone, along with the cloth it had rested upon.

  “Lady Kutepova?” Leo asked, his voice now sounding frantic. “Is this the place? You’re sure?”