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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was the height of the St. Petersburg winter season, and most of the girls bemoaned the balls and ballets we were missing. Pepita’s staging of the ballet The Sleeping Beauty had debuted at the Mariinsky Theater. It was said even the tsar liked it, although his comments were not effusive enough to please its composer, Tchaikovsky. There was a much-talked-about ball, given by Grand Duchess Ella, where everyone wore emeralds. Elena sulked and obsessed over whom the tsarevitch had danced with. Alix sulked too, in her own dark corner of our room.
It was also the full moon, and I contemplated how much of an effect on my roommates that had.
I sat on my cot and sulked myself, wondering what George Alexandrovich was up to in Paris. I wondered exactly what dark magic he was learning.
“The Black Lily has great plans for him.”
I sighed and rubbed my temples. Danilo, do not tease me if you are not going to tell me everything you know.
His laugh filled my head. “They are waiting for an auspicious time to hold their great ritual. And then George will be initiated into their Inner Circle.”
Their Inner Circle? Are they organized in a similar fashion as the Order of St. John?
“Very similar. As are most occult orders these days.”
Danilo, you wouldn’t know who the current Koldun is for the Order of St. John, would you?
He laughed again. “Your precious George would not tell you?”
I was a little mad at myself for not thinking to ask George when I saw him.
“I do not know who the Koldun is, Duchess. That is one of their most closely guarded secrets.”
I sighed. The crown prince was no help at all. It did concern me, though, that he knew George would one day become the next Koldun, and what would Danilo do with that information? What could he do?
Alix and Elena were both deeply absorbed in either their own thoughts or their geography books. I couldn’t tell which. I didn’t dare disturb them to say I was going to the library.
“Watch out for the ghost, Duchess.” Danilo was still listening to my thoughts.
Thank you kindly for your concern, but I must learn who she is.
“Why? There is nothing you can do about the ghost while you are safe behind the empress’s spell.”
There has to be something, Your Highness. I can’t let her hurt anyone else.
There was no answer, which surprised me. Only silence in my head. Where had the crown prince gone?
It was nice having my thoughts to myself again as I hurried to the library. It seemed as if Danilo had been in my head more and more often over the past few weeks. I was getting tired of his interruptions at the most inopportune times.
A frightened girl from the Blue Form came running out of the library. “There’s something horrible in there!” she cried, grabbing my arms. I hugged her to me, trying to calm her down.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing, but something is still in there! I’m not crazy! I heard it laugh!”
I pulled away from her to look at her closely. “Did anything hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Please don’t tell the headmistress! I don’t want her to think I’m crazy!”
“You are not crazy. Run down to the kitchen and see if the cook has something warm and sweet for you to munch on.”
“Do you think he’d let me?”
“Tell him that Katerina Alexandrovna sent you,” I said, smiling kindly.
She started downstairs, but turned back. “You’re not going in there, are you?”
“Just to get a book. I’ll be right back out.”
