After a few moments, the door opened just a crack, and I had never been happier to be in hiding. The housekeeper had never liked me to begin with and had probably danced when she heard of my disappearance and supposed demise. Her eyes narrowed at Casper, and she looked him up and down with an air of superiority that had been cultivated at my mother’s right hand. I couldn’t hear what was said between them, and I held my breath. It was the royal housekeeper’s right to absorb local servants at her request, and I could only hope she found him good enough to dispense information to and shabby enough to send away.
He finally bowed, the door slamming inches from the top of his hat.
“Well?” I said, and he grinned.
“She’s living with a daughter-in-law on Belila Avenue, running a groomery. Do I even want to know what that is?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Come along.”
Moments later, we stood before a grand storefront filled with ribbons and giant wheels of soap. I could smell the lavender and clementines and cloves even from the street, the familiar work of the Tsarina’s former maid. A bell tinkled over the door as we entered, and a young girl in a fancy dress minced forward to meet me.
“My lady, welcome. Have you an appointment?” She looked Keen over with professional disdain, probably calculating what it would take to make the child presentable.
“I have a standing appointment with Verusha. Please tell her the pup has returned.”
Her nose wrinkled up in confusion, but she knew better than to contradict a customer, which was a wise practice in a city as big and small as Muscovy. She curtsied and scurried through a filmy curtain and into the back room, and I smiled to see her hair done in the fancy braids that I remembered from my own childhood at Verusha’s patient but implacable claws.
“What is this? Who dares to come into my groomery and claim—!”
She pushed the curtain aside and stopped mid-rant. I put back my veil. She looked me up and down before holding out her arms, dripping with suds, her eyes rimmed with blud tears.
“My little ermine pup, you are returned?”
I threw myself into her embrace. She had always been shorter than me and twice as wide, and it was like hugging a boulder.
She pulled away and caught a twisted claw in my curls. “Oh, tut, darleenk! Your hair. What have you done?”
“I think you know a disguise when you see it. I need your help.”
She drew back to inspect me and murmured, “Oh, I see that you do. Much help. But come back into the parlor for a dram, and we will discuss. Do they need grooming, those two?” She stared skeptically at Casper and Keen and clicked her tongue. Keen put a hand on her hip as if daring the old Bludwoman to say anything else, and Verusha barked out a laugh. “That one needs to be dipped for fleas, I think, maybe left under a bit too long, eh?”
We laughed together, the wild laugh of Bludmen, and the world began to turn as it should. I was home, I was understood, and now I had a friend.
We didn’t talk of important things at first, of course. That would have been terribly impolite. Against her protests, I handed Keen off to Verusha’s daughter-in-law for a good grooming, but Casper I kept with me. My excuse was that he was actually capable of keeping himself clean and relatively dapper, but in reality, I wanted him close. And I hoped Verusha would break the news to him that I myself had been dreading.
Verusha put a chunk of bread in Casper’s hands and patted him on top of his hat. He couldn’t eat it, of course, but he thanked her with tolerant bemusement. I could only imagine how Keen would react to the treatment of Freesia’s Bludmen toward a messy and rebellious servant. If she wasn’t careful, she would find herself trussed up and dangling upside down while they shaved her head for nits.
I sat in one of the indulgently cushioned chairs that Verusha had always favored, glad to sink back into the embroidered pillows. She put a dainty teacup in my hands, the porcelain so thin that it glowed pink with the blood within.
Sitting across from me and settled likewise with her matching cup, she took a sip and said, “Now, darleenk, my pup, tell old Verusha what you have done.”
“What I’ve done?” I resisted the urge to throw the cup at her head like the spoiled child I’d been when last under her care. “I’m the victim here, old woman! I was kidnapped, nearly drained, and shipped all over Sang in a used valise.”
She nodded slowly and said, “There were suspicions, of course. Your sister, too?”
My head dropped. “I found her in London. Her head, at least. We were both shipped to the same destination, but she actually arrived there.”
“And you?” She sipped her tea as if I hadn’t just announced Olgha’s murder.
“I woke up in a blud bar because of him.” I nodded at Casper.
Verusha’s sharp eyes narrowed at Casper, who was busily turning the bread over and over in his hands as if trying to remember its purpose.
“You were the one who found the lost . . .” She cleared her throat. “Young lady?”
“He knows who I am, Verusha.”
“Tut, darleenk! Will you tell all the world your secrets?”
“Not all the world. Just him. And the other one, the girl. They brought me here, all the way from London.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “And what are they wanting as a reward, eh?”
“When I am queen, Casper will be court composer.” I took a slow sip, feeling the strength of the blood seep in, daring Verusha to contradict me.
She cackled, just as she had when I had been small and made wild assertions about riding a bludbear or running away to join the caravan.
“And what a miracle that will take, my pup! That Ravenna, she is a demon.” She turned her head, gathering her cheeks to spit blood. When she couldn’t find a square inch of her own floor not dominated by expensive carpets, she cleared her throat and swallowed it back down. “Your poor mother and father, executed. My little Alex, ensorcelled. The barons thrown out and hungry as the humans riot in my old home.” She rose and came to me, taking my empty cup and setting it on a table. Holding both of my hands in her twisted talons, she looked square into my eyes and said, “Darleenk, you are our only hope.”
“I was hoping you would say that. But I need your help.”
She smiled, showing sharp teeth. “I was hoping you would say that. What can Verusha do for you, princess?”
“I must kill Ravenna. At the Sugar Snow Ball. It’s our only chance. Casper will go with me. We must blend in completely with the nobles. And when she begins the dance, I’ll take her.”
“A bold plan, my pup, a bold plan.” She sat back down, leaning deep into the pillows, with a crafty look on her face. “My invitation to the ball is yours, of course. But there is one other problem, and well you know it.” She pointed one claw at Casper.
“I’m the problem?” Casper asked, setting the bread down to lean forward in warning.
“In many ways, I think.” She jabbed a claw at him knowingly. “Pinkies are not allowed at the Sugar Snow Ball, not unless they are on the table. And I suspect that she is not so ready to give you up.”
I swallowed and took back my cup, gazing into the streaks of blood swirling around the porcelain. She was all too sharp, my old nursemaid.
Verusha stood, not that she was much taller standing. Walking close to Casper, she put her cheek almost against his forehead and inhaled deeply. When she exhaled again, it came out as a growl.
“You would take an abomination to the most holy and secret rite of your people? I raised you better than that, Ahnastasia!” She sat, trembling with fury. “How dare you put royal blud in the veins of a . . . a . . . whatever he is!” This time, she did spit, and it left a splatter of red on the cream-colored carpet, almost blending in with the woven roses.
“Don’t blame her. She didn’t do this. I did this to myself in ignorance, and believe me when I say I regret it more every day,” he said quietly.
“At least you have the good sense to be ashamed,” she snapped. “But do not lie to me. I know the smell of her lineage, and it sings to me from your skin.”
“What would happen if I went to the ball?” he asked. “Would they notice?”
“Without the fetters of Pinky clothes, younger noses and sharper teeth would notice, my boy, and you would quickly become the scapegrace for everyone’s fury. Staked out at four points and eaten whole by the company of dancers. It would be a long, slow death and not one that would help my poor pup regain her throne.”
The silence was ungainly, and they both looked to me. For once, I didn’t feel bold. I sipped at the distasteful dregs of my cup, keeping my face carefully blank.
“Then what do we do?” Casper finally asked.
“She can’t go alone. We must find another patriot to accompany her. One of my sons might have a friend who can be trusted.” Casper bristled, his posture changing subtly to indicate a threat.
“Or?” he asked.
“Or you ascend to a grander life, my boy. You’re halfway there already. One might think it would be a relief, after the blud madness.”
Casper went still with rage. “So I either send her into danger with another man, or I give up my humanity completely?”
“Exactly that, yes,” Verusha said, settling back into the cushions to sip her blood thoughtfully. “Is not so bad, eh?”
“I can’t imagine how it could be worse,” he growled.
“Easy, little snack. The Sugar Snow Ball is in two days. So there is enough time to decide.”
“Two days,” he said to himself.
I shifted against the cushion, dress suddenly feeling too tight, and his head snapped to me.
“Did you know?” he asked simply. “Ahna, did you know all along?”
“I . . .”
“Well?”
“I had suspicions.”
“And yet you never mentioned it?”
“I didn’t see the point in worrying you unduly. It would end the same either way. The future is no more uncertain than the present.”
