Reserved for the Cat

night. Master Ciccolini was proving a better instructor than he thought he was, for his eye was very good and caught all the little places where her balance could be improved, a turn could be made more beautiful, a line more graceful—and what was more, he knew how to position her to get those things. They were working on the choreography for the big production of Escape from the Harem in this way, bar by bar, trial and error. What she could not lift wholesale from other ballets, that is. It was hard work and she needed the good food. She had never felt better, healthier, happier in her life.

Ailse glanced once or twice at her with curiosity, but was too good a servant to ask anything. “Food,” Ninette said into the silence, “is a kind of art. Like all arts, it can be simple, or it can be complex, but one always knows when the artist who created it is great. And great art deserves respect and attention.” She smiled. “It goes without saying that our hostess is an artist in her own kitchen. Everything she makes is as perfect as it can be.”

“ ’Tis uncommon good, aye, m’amselle,” Ailse ventured, winning another smile from Ninette. And there was another thing. Although she had a heavy accent, and her conversation was unexpectedly sprinkled with Russian phrases, her English mysteriously improved each night. Was that the cat’s doing? It must be. She could not imagine any other way in which it could be happening so quickly.

In short, life was wonderful, even without a rich old man to shower gifts and fine living on her. She was beginning to wonder if she really needed such a man after all. . . .

But as Ninette went to bed, she wondered something else; what about the crowd in her dressing room had made Jonathon Hightower look so annoyed?

Nigel’s Air Sprites fled from his office without warning, so he was not entirely surprised to see Jonathon come in wearing an expression like a thunderstorm. Nigel went on counting the receipts. “Good house tonight,” he remarked.

“Full of idiots,” Jonathon growled. “But I suppose that is just as well. Easier to deceive idiots.”

“They seemed to appreciate your act.”

Jonathon frowned. “I wish she would show a little less leg.”

It seemed a non-sequitur, but Nigel was tolerably familiar with the way that Jonathon thought. Aha. That is the way the wind blows, is it? Nigel coughed. “If I recall correctly, your last female assistant wore tights and a Merry Widow—and not much more—”

“My last assistant was a trollop,” Jonathon all but spat. “This dancer of yours needs to be more careful. Some people seem to think that showing your legs on the stage means they’ll get to see more of those legs up close if they just bring enough flowers.”

Ah Jonathon—the magician, so far as Nigel was aware, had been notoriously indifferent to his assistants, although it was quietly understood that being his assistant on stage meant sharing living quarters for the tour offstage. And if they objected to that, they were replaced. To Nigel’s knowledge only one or two ever had been, at least in mid-tour, and not for that reason. Jonathon’s relentless drive and his acid wit, however, had driven more than one of them to quit at the end of a season. He was rather a hard taskmaster, and his sense of humor, as Nina had discovered, was just a trifle cruel. Nigel was actually proud that she had stood up to him over that one incident. Jonathon didn’t care for shrinking violets. He respected her now.

Respects her enough to not care for a dressing room full of potential rivals . . .

“She’s a ballet dancer. They spend most of their lives half-naked. I doubt she thinks anything of it, no more than you think of spending half your life with false hair plastered on your face.” He decided to obliquely change the subject. “Has anything turned up looking to harm her?”

Jonathon frowned at that. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. My sentries are uneasy. There is definitely something in the wind, but whatever it is, they haven’t been able to exactly find it. You know they have some limited ability to see into the future?”

Nigel nodded. Fire Spirits and Water Spirits were particularly good at that, Air Spirits could, but tended to be so flighty they had trouble concentrating, and Earth Spirits were . . . well . . . very dense when it came to the future, keeping all their attention solidly in the present.

“There is threat to her. And the origin of that threat is here, in this country. That is all they can say.” Jonathon’s frown deepened. “Do you suppose that whatever or whoever it is knows that she is being guarded?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Nigel countered. “We daren’t underestimate this foe. Her father was powerful enough to create Thomas, and yet he lost out to this person—or persons. For all we know, there could be more than one enemy. And if there is, and they have separated, that could also cause confusion for your spirits.”

“Curse it, you’re right,” Jonathon growled. “And curse them, too.”

“Indeed,” Nigel replied dryly. “How dare villainous cads be as clever as the heroes?”

Jonathon looked at him in shock for a moment... and then they both laughed.

Once her rage cooled—and the journey to this “Blackpool” place was accomplished, not by uncomfortable train, but by luxurious steam yacht, giving her plenty of time for her temper to cool—Nina, the real Nina, had gone from livid to calculating. And she realized that there was a very good reason, an excellent reason why the imposter had chosen her identity to steal. In the girl’s place, she might have done the same.

Eastern Europe, and the Russian Empire, were a very, very long way from England. The English knew only what came to them, visiting their shores from out of those remote climes—Pavlova, Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Stravinsky—and did not care to learn anything more. No one there had seen Nina dance. A few balletomanes would have heard of her name, that she was a great prima with the Imperial Ballet, but aside from a few sketches or blurred photographs, which could have been of virtually any ballerina, there was nothing to tell the imposter from the real thing. “Nina Tchereslavsky” was the perfect person to impersonate.

And aside from those few balletomanes, no one would know who, or even what, she was. The imposter was already on the metaphorical high ground, having established herself as “Nina Tchereslavsky.” Any challenger would have an uphill fight against someone who had fans, adherents, and the backing of an impresario. Claimants to a throne already being held usually did not fare well.

Perhaps an oblique approach, at least at first.

So, rather than sail that very expensive steam yacht directly into the harbor at Blackpool and excite all manner of interest among those who might wonder who was aboard, Nina ordered it put in to the harbor at Southport, then hired a motorcar and spent a leisurely and very private journey up the Liverpool Road to Preston, eating at the best establishments, sleeping at the best hotels, crossing a river known (she thought rather hilariously) as the “Ribble”, and from thence to Blackpool itself. She took lodgings in a fine little hotel under the name of “Anna Vronsky,” another joke, since she rather doubted any of the insular and culturally illiterate English would ever recognize the names of Tolstoy’s famous hero and heroine of the great master-work, Anna Karenina.

Nor did they. And generous payment in advance practically guaranteed discreet silence about the mysterious Russian lady, though according to her servants, rumors flew about the dining room that she was a duchess, even a grand duchess, or at least a countess.

Having established a headquarters, she went about obscuring her magical existence, for a very brief foray into the Elemental realms told her that the imposter was somehow involved with both a Fire Master and an Air Master. Discretion was definitely in order, and caution, and a great deal of covering her tracks. She had plenty of practice in that. There was not an Elemental Master on the planet that would be happy about one of the Elementals achieving what she had done in escaping her bonds. They would be even less happy if they knew how she was sustaining herself outside the Earth Realm. Dangerous. Very dangerous.

That took several days. One more thing was needed; knowledge. This was not her land, nor her language, nor were any of those she had absorbed familiar with England, much less this particular city. She sent out her maid one night to find and bring back someone who would not be missed.

It took only a moment to absorb the ragged street urchin, who gave her a street-urchin’s command of the English language, and a street-urchin’s knowledge of the city. Only then was she prepared to go and have a look at her imposter.