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By Root 1167 0

questions, even though my knees wobbled and threatened to yield at any moment. But he swung around and walked away, never looking back, leaning into the wind with the desperate determination of a man with no secrets left, his chest flayed open and heart torn out for all to see. For a moment, I feared I would never see him again, but a new thought made me rush through the door, in wild hope that Eugenia would be there. A sudden realization descended like a piercing and merciless beam of light which cast the unpleasant reality in stark relief: the English played Prince Nicholas’ hatred not just to gather his help against the Chinese, but also to distract him—everyone—from the fact that English spies were looking for weaknesses in Russia. They watched the submarines, they had access to the engineering students at the university and to the offices of the Ministries.

I rushed into my apartment, to see Anastasia setting the table for supper and Aunt Eugenia reading the newspaper by the table.

“Aunt Genia,” I exhaled. “Aunt Genia! There’s going to be a war soon.”

I am firmly convinced that if my aunt could be persuaded to take on the problems of the world, we would be living in utopia. However, she preferred to concentrate on the domestic, and instead busied herself with making me raspberry tea and a slew of other old-fashioned remedies meant to lift my spirits and strengthen my obviously shaken constitution. Anastasia was sent out for valerian tincture and chamomile, and Eugenia made sure to loosen the laces of my corset to let me breathe better.

“I am all right,” I assured her. “I swear.”

“Just drink your tea,” she said. Her presence made my small living room more inviting somehow, more like home—she had adjusted the wick of the lamp so light fell only on the table and chairs around it; the rest of the room remained swathed in pleasant velvety shadows. She wrapped a plaid throw around me and made me comfortable in the best chair, situated on the border of light and dark. She brought my tea and pulled up a straight-backed chair to sit next to me. “Oh, Sasha. I forget how strenuous it is for you—you’ve never even been away from home before, and now you’re on your own, and your studies are difficult.”

“It’s not that,” I protested weakly, even though I did enjoy her attention. “The British are worried, their spies are everywhere. They are using the Chinese as a diversion.”

Eugenia stopped mopping at my brow with a cold towel and gave me a long, critical look. “I would think that you speak nonsense, Sasha,” she answered after a while, “but today I’m not willing to dismiss anything as nonsense. Something very strange is afoot, and I am a bit dismayed the emperor has decided to abandon those who have been loyal to him.”

I sat up straighter. “I told you they dragged me to Gorokhovaya as if I were a common criminal. I needed an Englishman to intervene.”

Eugenia nodded. “I spent all day sitting in waiting rooms, and no one would receive me. The entire government is either away or in meetings, the emperor has stopped giving audiences, and all the clerks are snooty upstarts who act as if they have never heard of our family.”

“That might be my fault,” I said, timidly. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong. If you didn’t stand up for your friends, I would have been disappointed. And if Constantine wishes to forget who his friends are . . . well then!” She huffed and rose to pace across the living room in her habitually large, unfeminine steps—two steps forward, two back. “I’m afraid you are right though—things are about to get much worse.”

“What can we do to make them better?” I asked.

Eugenia shrugged. “What can anyone do? I would tell the emperor he is not looking at the real danger, but will he listen?”

“To you, maybe,” I said. “I also think China would be a good ally against the British.”

Eugenia paused. “Perhaps. Only how would that be achieved?”

“Perhaps I can help,” I said. “The man who is, I think, in prison—Wong Jun—is of the ruling dynasty. And the others . . . they are from families of wealth and influence or they