her from death by giving her a glass of striga blood.”
I thought back to the day in Yalta, the day that Dariya and I performed the play for everyone. Now Grand Duchess Miechen’s words made sense. Maman owed the striga her life. “And Maman’s been a blood drinker since I was born?” I asked.
Papa shook his head. “No, but she agreed to take the striga’s place when she died. A striga lives a long time, but is not immune to old age. I wish I’d been there, but your mother was delirious from the birth and from the loss of so much blood. I doubt she knew what she was agreeing to at the time.”
Petya looked angry. “So Maman willingly accepts this legacy from Madame Elektra and becomes a blood drinker? Are we in danger?”
“A striga only drinks the blood of other blood drinkers,” I said, remembering the rest of what Miechen had told me.
“How frightening for the St. Petersburg vampires,” Dariya said, laying a hand on my arm. “The Montenegrin veshtiza will not be happy.”
And neither would the empress, I thought unhappily. There was no way we’d be able to keep this a secret. What would the imperial family think? There was no hope now of Maman ever returning to the Light Court.
Dariya and I played cards until we thought we’d die of boredom. It was after midnight when Maman and Aunt Zina returned. I stood up to greet my mother but was met with a surge of intense, suffocating heat. She was causing everyone’s cold light to bend. Already, her new powers were frighteningly strong.
After saying their goodbyes, Aunt Zina and Dariya left. Petya and I kissed our mother goodnight on her cheek. But she stopped me. “Stay for a moment, Katiya. I must speak with you alone.”
“Yes?”
Maman took my hands in hers and squeezed them. The room was not quite so warm anymore, now that everyone else had left. There was only my own cold light for her to affect. “I wanted to apologize for not taking you with me tonight. I had no idea how violent the ceremony was going to be, and I did not want you to see it.”
There were tears in my mother’s eyes.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” I asked. “How could you have told me that blood drinkers did not exist anymore?”
“For all I knew, they had all been banished from Russia. And Elektra was not the same as the others.” She tucked one of my curls behind my ear, like she’d done a thousand times before. It seemed like such a normal action. Not something that a striga would do. “And she traveled to St. Petersburg so seldom.”
“What was the ceremony tonight like?” I asked.
Maman pursed her lips. “Dreadful. She was on her deathbed and gave me a glass of her own blood, mixed with that of an upyri. It didn’t taste bad, but it had a hint of rosemary. And after that delightful fennel salad at dinner … well, you just can’t have two strong herbs competing for your palate.”
“Where on earth did she find upyri blood?” I wanted to believe that the striga had found the primitive blood drinker somewhere far from St. Petersburg. But what if that was what she’d been hunting here in the city? Petya and the rest of the imperial guard would have to be warned.
“Who knows,” Maman said. “Now off to bed with you, dear. We’ve been invited to the ballet tomorrow and I think I shall let you attend with your aunt Alexandra. I have an atrocious headache, and I don’t see how it could possibly be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”
I was happy to hear that my father’s sister had returned to St. Petersburg from Kiev. She was much nicer than Aunt Zina. And much less ambitious. “Good night, then, Maman. Do you want me to send Anya in with some tea?” I stopped. “Or are you able to drink tea anymore?”
“Hmm? Oh, I’m sure it will be fine. Of course, Elektra preferred cocoa.” She kissed both my cheeks. “Just have her bring it to me in my room, dear.”
She no longer seemed as upset as she had when she’d first received Madame Elektra’s letter. I could have sworn I heard her humming a gypsy love song as I left the drawing room. It was as if turning into a striga had been no more traumatizing than changing one’s hairstyle. I sighed as I went upstairs to find Anya.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The next afternoon, my elderly but kind aunt Alexandra took me to the graduation ceremony of the Imperial Ballet School. Here, the dances were much more impressive than the ones Aurora and my other classmates had performed at the Smolny graduation. The imperial family was present, including the tsar and his eldest son. And Grand Duke George Alexandrovich. I marveled at my good fortune. He sat down next to his mother and brother in the row of chairs in front of me. I had a glorious view of the back of his neck.
Whispering to his brother after the first dance, he quietly stood up and changed seats so he could sit next to me. The empress never said a word to him, but I’m sure she noticed. “Katiya,” he whispered in a low voice. “We have much to discuss.”
“Do we?” I whispered back. Fortunately, Aunt Alexandra was too deaf to hear our conversation.
“Maman is rather displeased that you ruined her spell at the institute.”
I glanced nervously at the back of the empress’s head. She had even more reason to dislike me now that my mother had become a striga. What if Mother Dear chose me to be her heir? A blood drinker could not marry a Romanov. That was a conversation I was not willing to have with the grand duke just yet. “The empress’s spell set the ghost loose within the school. Still, I must apologize to her. I never meant to go against her will.”
“Somehow, I think that might make it worse. The night at Vorontsov, you brought the Koldun back from the dead. How is that possible? He is not a ghoul like the others.”
I sighed. I knew all along that eventually he would want to know everything about that night. There was only so much Danilo and Sucre had told the imperial investigators. They knew nothing about what had happened in the Graylands. “The Koldun was close to death when I found him, but he did not die. I think that is why he did not turn into a ghoul.”
George frowned at me. “Katiya, the Koldun’s body never vanished. He stopped breathing and his body grew cold. And then you were there, and he was breathing again.”
I looked at him in shock. “How could that be? I found him in the Graylands!” What had I done to the Koldun?
“No,” George whispered. “I know everything was chaotic that night, but the Koldun died. You brought him back to life.”
My head was swimming with a million questions. But who would have the answers? “Please forgive me. I could not leave him there. I know it was horribly wrong, but it would have been worse to leave him there with Konstantin and Sophia.”
The grand duke’s whole body stiffened. “The lich tsar? You saw him?”
“He cannot return without the throne. It must be destroyed. Along with the Talisman of Isis. Danilo took the talisman from the Koldun when he thought he was dead. He believed he could bring the lich tsar back and control him with the talisman.”
“The blood-drinking crown prince will die.”
I could feel the anger in the grand duke’s voice. It frightened me. “He will be punished by his own father for destroying the tsar’s trust. Won’t that be enough?”
“It is treason, Katiya. There is still much to sort out in the mess of the Order. That was one of the reasons I spent so much time in Paris, learning the secrets of Papus and Sucre. I am not sure the tsar will allow Uncle Vladimir to remain as the Koldun. I am not even certain the grand duke is well enough to resume those duties.”
It did not surprise me that a man who had returned from the dead was not up to fulfilling his previous obligations.
George laughed, hearing my thoughts. “Still, Katiya, you will be summoned to speak with the tsar about that night. You will be required to explain exactly what you did. And to tell him everything you learned about Konstantin Pavlovich.” He paused as the dancers onstage finished their pas de deux, and everyone clapped politely. “Katiya,
