“Are you all right?”
Etta hadn’t realized Henry was speaking to her until he gripped her shoulder, almost to the point of pain, and turned her toward him to begin inspecting her. There was a small cut above his left brow, but he seemed otherwise fine.
“My God,” he was saying, “I’ll kill them myself.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Etta insisted. A cold wind blew up the back of her exposed neck through the opening in her window. “What was that all about?”
“Protestors,” Jenkins said. “Damn it all! We should never have taken Nvesky Prospeckt. But the palace assured us it would be safe. Sir, believe me—”
“The people on the roof—” she tried to say.
Henry held up his hand, still breathing hard as the car rolled through a gate and came to a slow, shuddering stop.
Several figures in suits and nondescript uniforms flowed out of a nearby building’s arched entryway. With a start, Etta opened the door and let herself out on unsteady feet, the glass spilling out around her feet, disappearing into the light smattering of snow. Her breath heated the air milk-white as she slowly tipped her face up.
They’d arrived at a building that was beyond imposing—ornate couldn’t begin to capture its presence. It was almost Baroque, the way the pale green fa˚ade was trimmed with gold. The building itself was massive, stretching on as far as her eyes could see in both directions. Statues of women and saints watched from the roof above, dusted with the same sooty snow. It had to be the palace.
The second car with Winifred, Julian, and another guard zipped up behind them a moment later, skidding to a stop in a similar state of disarray. Winifred all but rode out of the automobile on a wave of her own fury, bellowing, “Those beasts!”
Julian was close behind, looking far less angry and far grayer in the face. He raised his brows in Etta’s direction. Bumpy ride? he mouthed.
Etta’s brow creased as she looked away, back toward Henry, who had deigned to let Jenkins brush the remaining pieces of glass from his coat. Then an elderly man was at her side, clucking and cooing at her, bowing in a way that made Etta take a startled step back. The Russian came too fast and furious for her to find the three words in the language she actually knew.
The whirling activity seemed to still somewhat as Henry stepped up behind her and followed her gaze upward. His face softened, the stern line of his mouth relaxing, as if seeing an old friend.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Winter Palace.”
NICHOLAS COULD NOT FIND THE words to ask the woman to repeat herself, but she did it regardless, that same girlish laughter riding the ends of her words.
“Dare I ask the obvious question,” Sophia said, oddly calm, “of why?”
“It’s not your place to ask questions,” the Belladonna said, never taking her eyes off Nicholas. “Only to obey. If you value your life, that is.”
Nicholas’s feet were rooted to the floor, but he felt his soul release and swing about the room, banging at the walls. In his life, he’d been made to feel the burn of humiliation and impotent rage many times, in many ways, by the world. But this—this. Unyielding anger choked him now. If he could have compelled himself to move, he would have slammed his fists against her great metal desk until he cracked it.
Around his neck, the thin leather cord that held Etta’s earring felt like a wreath of bricks.
“What do you mean by that?” Sophia demanded. “Stop talking in riddles!”
She stormed forward, only to be brought up short by Selene.
And still, the Belladonna was watching him. Waiting for him.
“You…” he began, when his mind began to work again. “You expect me to kill my own kin? Can you begin to fathom what you’re asking of me?”
He couldn’t kill Ironwood. Desire and rational thought were at odds. Of course, he’d dreamt of it a thousand times, by a thousand different means, and woken less satisfied than he might have imagined, considering the tortures to which the man had subjected every person Nicholas loved. But when it was all distilled down—the torment, the fury, the desperation—the truth of the matter was laid bare: killing the old man would stain his soul and irrevocably bind them together, until Nicholas met his own reward and was forced to answer for it.
It was one thing to do violence in self-defense, but this was murder. Assassination. The thought alone left a taste like rust in his mouth.
“It’s him or yourself,” the Belladonna said. She snapped her fingers and the boy stopped pretending to sweep the same pile of glass and dried-out insects while eavesdropping. Nicholas turned just as he scampered back through the passage. “You’ll come to find that I am the only one who can remove that ring, and the longer it stays on your finger, the more the poison inlaid in it will sap at your strength.”
“I’ll cut it off, then—cut the whole bloody hand off if I have to,” he told her, reaching for the knife at his belt.
“Do it,” she encouraged. “In fact, you may as well cut your wrists. Your weakened body will only absorb the poison more quickly. But of course, you’re welcome to test the theory. It just strikes me that there’s someone you wish to find first?”
She knows of Etta’s existence. His blood seemed to turn to bile. The wave of nausea stole over him so quickly he was sure he was not going to be able to stay upright. She knows of Etta.
Witch. Witch. The illusions, the deceit, the cunning, and now…poison.