Olga finished her letter to Mitya, blotting the ink dry before folding it into an envelope. She’d described her visit to the seer in as much detail as she could muster, pleased to have something to relay to him beyond the monotonous details of her days at the Annexe. Most evenings, she wrote to Mitya, and his letters back brought to life his days at the front: the towns he passed through; the men in his regiment. She was sure that he glossed over many of the darker aspects of soldiering, but he gave her enough to fix in her mind an image of him kneeling in the snow, using the broad of his thigh to write to her.
She finished addressing the envelope and consulted the clock on the mantel: it was nearly teatime, and Tatiana would be coming home from her shift soon. She left the envelope on her desk, propped up so that her maid would notice it and take it down to post.
Though he’d been gone for months, Mitya was still foremost in her mind—foremost of all the men she’d nursed back to health; foremost of all the men she’d ever felt for. When the war was over, would she even be able to see him? She recalled Mamma’s airy dismissal at Prince Carol’s state dinner: a distraction; a wartime diversion. Despite Olga’s fiery retort, she knew that Mamma was right in one thing: Olga had been chosen, by God, to serve Russia, to put the country’s interests before her own. She still believed that above all else. It was the life she was born to.
For a moment though, Olga allowed the life she desired to blossom in her mind: Mitya by her side; two sons in her arms. She would give up the trappings of her position if doing so allowed her to remain in Russia, with Mitya. They would live in a farmhouse, tending to their small flock of animals; Olga would learn how to boil water, how to bake bread. Every evening, she would fall asleep in the arms of the man she loved.
She reached the bottom of the staircase, allowing herself to feel the heaviness of the tears she couldn’t afford to shed. Whatever else, it was a lovely dream.
She could hear the commotion in the Mauve Room before she reached it, Mamma’s voice echoing down the hall.
“You dare to question your brother’s judgment—my judgment?”
“I question your counsel!” Olga looked in; Mamma and Papa were seated by the fireplace, watching as Aunt Olga paced before them. She’d changed out of her nursing uniform: her black shawl trailed along the floor as she walked, a ruby glittering in the hollow of her high-necked dress. “He is compromising our family—leading the dynasty to ruin. I know I’m not the only one to raise such concerns, Nicky, if you’d only listen—”
“Listen to your conspiracies?” Mamma looked at Aunt Olga, her blue eyes as hard as chips of ice; beside her, Papa stared, stone-faced, into the fire. “First your mother’s meddling, then Sandro, sending his poisoned letters... I see how it is! Your family never loved me—never trusted me. You’ve never believed in Nicky’s ability to lead, and you always thought you’d be the ones to make his decisions. You can’t stand the fact that you’re no longer relevant in this court, can you? You can’t stand the fact that we’ve got better advisors, more trusted advisors, who know the will of the people, the will of God—”
Aunt Olga snorted. “It’s the will of the people, is it, to have uncertainty in their ministers? To have no food in their stomachs; no bullets in their guns? You’ve never understood us, Alix, and you never tried to. You’ve only cared about power—it’s the only thing you have, given the glaring lack of affection you’ve cultivated in anyone but your children. What a pity you’ve given it all up to a khlyst.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying,” Mamma breathed. She reached for Papa’s hand and he took it in both of his, covering her wedding ring as he closed his fingers around hers.
Aunt Olga exhaled. “I can’t know what you don’t tell me,” she said, “but I can see there’s no further point in discussing this with you.” She turned to Papa, her hands clasped with businesslike tact. “If you cannot remove Rasputin from your wife’s influence, you must at least protect yourself from it,” she said. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but someone has to be. If you continue to ally yourself with him, it will be to the ruin of us all.”
Papa didn’t look Aunt Olga in the eye as he got to his feet. “I’m sorry it’s come to this,” he said quietly. “I don’t believe this conversation is to anyone’s benefit any longer. I wouldn’t want you to say anything else you might regret.”
Aunt Olga’s expression crumbled as she stared at her brother. “I see. And you have nothing more to say on the matter?”
“I’m afraid not.”
A deep flush rose in Aunt Olga’s face as she gathered her shawl around her shoulders. “Very well. I suppose—I suppose I will take my leave.” She curtsied deeply before turning on her heel. “Nicky, please know that I love you. We all love you.”
Olga stood away from the door, panicking—but before she could hide in the next room, Aunt Olga came out. Red-faced and red-eyed, Olga could see the toll the conversation had taken on her aunt; quietly, she stepped forward to fuss with Olga’s necklace, which had turned clasp-down. “The double-eagle clasp... Fabergé, I suppose? I remember my own papa giving me my first set of Romanov pearls... You know, your father and I used to say that if the clasp fell to the front, it meant someone was thinking of us.” She looked up, her smile falling just short of convincing. “I hope that means someone’s thinking of you, my dear.”
Olga glanced down. “I hope so, too,” she responded. “Aunt Olga...is everything all right?”
Aunt Olga sighed. “I suppose you heard it all, didn’t you? Well, I’m sorry it’s come to this. That man is a charlatan and a liar, and your parents must know the truth.” She kissed Olga on the cheek, a lingering embrace that felt, in Olga’s reeling mind, somehow final. “I love you, my dear. Please take care of your sisters.”
When Olga entered the Mauve Room, the color was still high in Mamma’s cheeks as she worked at embroidering a pillowcase; Papa held a book open in his lap, but his eyes didn’t move as he stared down at the page.
“Was that Aunt Olga I saw just now?” Olga asked carefully.
Papa looked up; behind him, a fire crackled in the grate. “Hm? Yes, it was. She came to ask me for permission to divorce her husband.” He looked back down at the book, running his thumb along the page edges. “I granted it.”
Olga sat down, glancing at the half-drunk wineglass next to her seat, a smear of lipstick visible on the rim. “What a pity,” she replied. “But she’ll be able to marry again, won’t she? One day?”
Papa nodded. “One day,” he muttered, getting up to put a fresh log on the fire.
“You would think she’d be grateful for it, instead of throwing our generosity back in our faces,” Mamma remarked, stabbing her needle and thread into the fabric.
“That wasn’t the only reason she came, though, was it?” Olga said as Papa, knocking ash from his hands, circled to Mamma’s dainty secretary desk. “Only, I heard through the door...”
“She has no idea what she asks of us, the stupid woman,” Mamma muttered. She threw the pillowcase down in her lap, pressing her fingers against her temples. “She has no clue—”
“Then why not tell her?” At the secretary, Papa pulled out Mamma’s bottle of veronal and dropped a pinch of the crystals into a glass of water. He stirred the water cloudy before passing it to Mamma. “Alicky, perhaps it is time to send him away.”
Mamma gripped the glass, appalled. “And leave our son in peril? You know what he has foreseen.”
Papa sank onto the cushion beside her, his lined face slack. He looked impossibly worn-out, as if he regretted returning from Stavka; as if he’d had this argument too many times before. Without his name even being mentioned, Father Grigori’s presence in the room was palpable, the power he held over Mamma absolute. Saint, satyr, khlyst...which truth lay at the heart of the man?
“Mamma,” Olga whispered as Mamma downed the veronal. “Mamma, please. What has he told you?”
“What do you think, Olga?” Mamma whispered. “He’s the only one who can heal Alexei. You’ve seen for yourself the miracles he’s capable of. If he’s removed from court, it will mean Alexei’s ruin. The end of the tsarevich; the death of my son.”
“He’s said this?” Olga asked, looking to Papa for confirmation.
Mamma’s glassy eyes filled with tears. “You don’t think I know what Alexei’s disease can do to a family—to a dynasty?” She bowed her head, firelight glinting in her blond curls. “He’s the heir to your throne, Nicky—and Father Grigori is the only one standing between us and chaos. My darling, the vultures are circling. Any sign of weakness and they will strike.”
Olga’s heart plummeted. So that was it: the reason for Mamma’s angst. Fear for Alexei; fear for Russia’s future. Father Grigori was holding Alexei’s illness over Mamma’s head, wielding her fears as surely as a blade, his logic ruthlessly simple: without him, Alexei would die. Father Grigori had foreseen it; Mamma believed it, as clearly as she believed right from wrong. Olga thought back to the first time she’d met Father Grigori: Mamma’s desperation, her knuckles curled white over the hem of his cassock. Had it been his goal from the start, to tie himself so closely to the tsarevich that no man could cut him loose?
Mamma opened her eyes, fixing Papa with glassy desperation. He lifted his arm and Mamma leaned into his chest. “You mustn’t pass a broken throne on to Alexei; you mustn’t give the Duma the fodder it needs to bleed more power from your crown. Father Grigori understands this. He understands, better than anyone else, the importance of what we must achieve.
“Alexei needs him; I need him,” Mamma whispered, and it was clear in Papa’s tortured face that he would never send Father Grigori away; that Aunt Olga had lost the fight before it had ever begun. “You must understand, Nicky. You must trust in Our Friend, over everything else.”