11

“Tea? Wine?” Margarethe offered, clasping her perfectly manicured hands. I had returned with Cobie to the freinnen’s room, trying to shake off Perrault’s grim pronouncement.

“Tea for both of us, please,” I said, nodding at Cobie. We’d agreed on tea.

Margarethe’s eyes brightened in her thin face. I wouldn’t have known her first smile was false if this one wasn’t so genuinely relieved.

When the tea came, I was already in my pajamas, curled beneath my covers. I didn’t want to spend another night on top of a dusty bedspread, and they’d notice if I moved later. I thanked the girl who passed me my cup and saucer—one of the twins, Hannelore, they’d called her—and pretended to take a long drink. Pretended I didn’t feel them watching me like a pack of wolves.

We’d chosen tea over wine partly because the teacups were opaque, the better to fool them.

After that first sip, the sisters seemed to relax. They drifted around the room, talking to one another, rummaging through their wardrobes. When I was sure none of them were watching me, I poured a little of the tea out onto a black shift I’d left on the floor beside my bed.

We’d also chosen tea because it wouldn’t leave behind a telltale smell, as alcohol would.

After that, I pretended to get sleepy. I yawned, wriggling beneath my covers.

“Tired already?” Leirauh asked, drawing up her legs beneath her ugly, oversized dress. Her blue eyes were reluctant, almost guilty.

She ought to feel guilty. I wanted to smack the look off her face.

Instead, I nodded, and let my eyes sink closed.

I could have sworn I heard the exact moment Cobie followed me in feigning sleep. The whole room seemed to still, then burst into a flurry of excited whispers.

The freinnen kept quiet awhile, but their voices soon rose, careless and eager alongside the rattle of hangers in their wardrobes, the clank of hair tongs on the fire. I wondered at their bravery—or foolhardiness—at speaking old Deutsch when the tsarytsya’s language was meant to reign supreme within her Imperiya. I wondered what it could possibly mean.

I peered at them through my lashes, beneath my arm.

Hannelore stood behind her twin sister, Ingrid—or maybe Hannelore was the one sitting?—wrapping her hair around a curling iron and chattering relentlessly. Two other sisters, Greta and Johanna, daubed cream on their faces before one of the mirrors, debating the merits of a pink satin evening dress. Both girls were soft-figured and pretty, with light brown hair like Margarethe’s and high cheekbones like Ursula’s; the gown would have suited either of them.

Nearest me, Margarethe and Ursula had cornered Leirauh in front of a mirror. Margarethe seemed to be threatening Leirauh with a pair of sashes, one indigo, one violet, as Ursula rattled jewelry around in a box.

I watched on tenterhooks. I fought to keep my breathing even as the freinnen finished dressing, then walked toward my end of the room, past the foot of my bed, and beyond the edge of my vision.

What were they doing? I tried furiously to remember what lay behind me—a few broken-down dress forms, I thought, and the privy, but nothing more. I couldn’t see the girls, but I could feel them, clustered together just out of view. My heart raced, fearful, anticipating what they might do next.

There was the scrape of wood against wood, and the click of keys and tumblers in a lock, and the creak of hinges. And then, with a soft clack of high-heeled shoes against flagstones, the room went silent.

I kept still for ten long breaths, ten shuddering heartbeats, afraid to move. And then Cobie sat up, swearing. “Where did they go?”