Seeker of the Crown

by Ruth Lauren

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  Sasha shakes her head. “This is the least of our worries. Inessa knows.”

  It feels like the last fire inch-stick tossed onto a pile I can’t hope to keep balanced. “Let her know as much as she likes,” I say with a bravado I don’t feel.

  “I would,” says Sasha, “but what did she do when she realized we were lying to her?”

  “She ordered our parents to her side,” I say. I swallow. Inessa could have called us out on our lies, could have accused us, but she chose to do something else entirely. I feel sick.

  I open my mouth, but I can’t think of anything comforting to say. Father thinks the peace Queen Ana strove for so long to bring to Demidova is at risk. We’re no closer to finding Anastasia or Queen Ana. Instead of showing the new queen that Anatol is a trusted ally, we turned him into a wanted criminal, along with Feliks and Katia. My sister, who I swore to always protect, is tensed in pain, and there’s a guard outside our house.

  CHAPTER 12

  I wake up suddenly, the light to my left confusing me for a second before I realize I’m not in my bunk at Tyur’ma. It’s just dawn breaking outside my bedroom window. I didn’t hear Mother or Father come back last night, but in truth, I might not have heard anything had our house been set upon by ravenous wolves or an entire army of Peacekeepers.

  I slip out of bed and go to the window. A guard with a purple sash stands in the garden below. I can’t see her face—only the top of her ushanka and the braids snaking out beneath. She looks up, and I retreat and hurry straight to Sasha’s room.

  She’s lying with her ankle propped up on a cushion, and though her eyes are closed, she opens them the second I step into the room. She grimaces as she sits up.

  “The guard is still here,” I tell her. “Did Mother and Father come back?”

  Sasha rubs one hand over her face. “No. Inessa is keeping them busy at the palace, no doubt. She’s trying to show us we can do nothing while she goes right ahead and takes Queen Ana’s place.”

  Sasha sounds unusually bitter, so I try to lighten her mood. “As if we don’t have enough trouble with Princess Anastasia trying to do the very same thing.” I realize my mistake as soon as I say the words. There’s no joking about this.

  I sit carefully on the bed so as not to jostle Sasha’s ankle. It’s swollen, and the bruise has spread like a dark stain.

  “Sasha, I know what Mother said, and I don’t want to worry her, but … we can’t just leave the others out there.”

  “I know, but I can’t do anything today, even if we could get out of the house,” she says, dejection all over her face.

  I plump her cushion for her, and it comes to me in a flash, an idea darting like a winter hare in the snow. “No, you can’t leave the house. But you can still be all the use in the world.”

  I explain what I mean, then run off to my room to get ready. When I’m done, I stash my boots and furs by the back door and then run back to Sasha’s room.

  “Ready?”

  She is, so I help her up, and we make our way slowly along the landing and down the stairs. Sasha hisses and leans her weight on me, making my aching muscles protest. At the bottom of the stairs, I lower her to the floor.

  She gives me a nod, and I run up to the top of the stairs and fling a pair of Mother’s heavy leather riding boots down to the bottom. I rush after them as they thump on the steps, and Sasha lets out an ear-rending wail.

  “Help!” I shout, shoving the boots under the stairs. I run to the back door and swing it wide, but the guard is already there, her sword half drawn.

  “It’s my sister,” I pant. “She’s fallen.”

  The guard sheathes her sword, metal sliding on metal, and hurries after me into the house. I lead her to where Sasha lies on the floor, clasping her leg.

  The guard bends and frowns as she examines Sasha’s ankle. “When did this happen?”

  My heart kicks up. She’s not going to believe us.

  “Yesterday,” says Sasha at once. “I thought I could bear weight on it today, but I was wrong.”

  The guard nods, her frown clearing. Sasha widens her eyes at me.

  “I’ll fetch a doctor,” I say. “Unless you think it would be okay to leave your post? I’m sure we’d be quite safe if you did.”

  The guard narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not leaving my post. You go.”

  I take soft steps backward toward the door, then turn tail and run. As I snatch up my furs, I hear Sasha say loudly, “Oh, be careful. It hurts.”

  There’s a recurve bow in the cupboard, along with a set of Mother’s gloves, and once I’ve pulled on my furs, I grab both. This bow’s not my favorite. It’s a good-enough weapon, but it’s not from my own set. My crossbows and bolts were a gift from my mother when I started my apprenticeship, and I lost both of them—the first when I got arrested and sent to Tyur’ma, and the second when we were captured and put on the ship. It hurts my heart—they were such beauties, and I don’t know how I’m going to explain my only remaining set’s absence if Mother notices.

  As I ease the door shut, I glance around quickly and then run full-tilt away from the house, stopping in at the doctor’s house to send her to Sasha, then taking the most direct route into the city and back to Feliks, Katia, and Anatol. Inessa will no doubt find out what I’ve done, but I have to do it.

  I pause when I reach the marketplace, stepping to the side of the busy thoroughfare to let shoppers pass. A maid from a grand house running errands hurries past carrying a basket, and she pauses too. Inessa’s guards are stationed around the market and the square beyond, their unfamiliar purple sashes standing out. There are no musicians, no performers, no people out just to see the spectacle of the festival in the city. There is no festival. The maid and I lock eyes for a second, and I see the wary look on her face before she presses her lips together and moves away.

  I pull my hood low and keep my head down as I pass two guards. The swords at their sides are shorter than those Queen Ana’s Guard wears. They seem less … ceremonial, somehow. I wind through the cobbled pathways, wondering if the traders’ calls are more muted, if the people really are casting furtive glances at the guards, or if it’s just my jumping nerves.

  I settle a little once the streets grow quieter. I’m almost at the alley when someone grabs my arm and pulls me into a narrow space between two buildings. I wrench away, swinging my hand over my shoulder to grab my bow.

  “Stop! Not again,” the stranger whispers furiously. He flings back the hood of his cloak.

  I drop my hand to my side. “Nicolai? I was coming to find the others. We didn’t know what had happened to you. I—are you in disguise?” He’s not wearing his Guard uniform, clad instead in an entirely different set of clothes than he had on yesterday—old, coarsely made, dull in color.

  “There are guards everywhere,” he says. “And not the ones I work with. Queen Ana’s Guard has been told to stay in the barracks and wait for orders, and apprentices have all been sent home. Anatol sent a message to me, though, telling me where he was. You didn’t come back to him, so we were trying to get to the Great Library, but when the square filled up with guards, I told Feliks and Katia to keep Anatol out of sight. I’ve been trying to find a way to get to you.”

  “You haven’t gotten very far,” I say.

  Nicolai looks taken aback.

  “Sorry, I mean, where are Katia and Feliks, then? And Anatol?”

  He blows into his cupped hands. His mittens are thin, and his face is flushed darker by the cold. “At the library already. Feliks wanted to sneak in and find out for Sasha how Queen Ana could possibly vanish the way she did. And,” he adds hurriedly, “for you and Prince Anatol, and the whole realm, of course. Katia said he wasn’t going alone, and Anatol refused to take orders from either of them and stay put, so … here I am, trying to get to you.”

  He bites his lip. “You’re right, though—I wasn’t doing a very good job. I’m used to being one of th
e Guard, not hiding from them.” He looks anxious, unsure of himself. “I always thought it was black and white whose side I was on. Now there are two queens …” He shakes his head.

  I touch his arm. “Come on,” I say. “We have to get to the library, and that’s all there is to it. Follow me. I’ll take you there.”

  He pulls his hood into place and we slip onto the streets, keeping our heads down and blending into the crowd of shoppers and workers and palace servants moving through the city. I keep Nicolai behind me whenever I see Inessa’s guards’ distinctive tunics anywhere near us.

  When we reach the library, we skirt around the guards standing watch outside and head to the back entrance that Sasha showed us.

  I heave my weight against the door, but it doesn’t give. Nicolai joins in. But this door is locked now. “We’ll find another way,” I say with confidence I don’t feel.

  We sneak along the rear of the building, keeping tight to the great blocks of stone, peering in every window, pulling back when we see librarians or one of the few scholars who have received special permission to be here since the queen disappeared.

  “There!” In the sixth window, I catch sight of furs and a pale braid, barely visible behind a tall stack of books teetering between two thick shelves. “Katia.”

  At least, I hope it’s her as I tap on the window, quietly at first, then growing more insistent until it jars the bones in my hand.

  Feliks pops his head around the books, and his eyes go wide. He hurries over to the window and pulls it open, Katia helping him tug on the huge frame. I give Nicolai a leg up and then scramble after him, dropping snow and a couple of arrows from my quiver onto the floor in the process.

  Katia puts a finger to her lips, and I snatch up the arrows and kick the snow away. The four of us hurry silently back to the fortress of books where Feliks, Katia, and Anatol are hiding.

  “Have you found anything?” I ask them.

  Anatol shakes his head. His lip is bruised around the dark cut, and he looks just as tired as yesterday. In fact, they all look tired.

  “I think it has to be somewhere on the ground floor,” says Feliks.

  “And I say it could be anywhere, but we have no idea unless Anatol can tell us. After all, he knows best,” says Katia. Her legs are folded awkwardly under her like a foal’s, and she flicks one braid over her shoulder.

  I look between the three of them. Anatol and Katia don’t look back at me. I frown at Feliks. He rubs a hand up and down the back of his head as if he’s angry with his hair. “Prince Anatol sent a message to Nicolai last night.”

  “I know,” I say. “Nicolai told me. And?”

  “And he had to send a message,” says Feliks. “Never mind whether it risked the network or not. Couldn’t do without his manservant for one night. Mila was furious when she found out.”

  Nicolai stiffens at my side. “I am not a manservant. I’m a Queen’s Guard,” he says hotly.

  “Are you?” asks Katia, looking his threadbare clothes up and down. “Because it doesn’t look like it to me.”

  “I had no intention of risking the network. That’s not what I meant to do at all.” Anatol sits stiffly on the floor, but his tone tells me he’s said this repeatedly, probably since last night.

  Feliks opens his mouth again but I hold out my hand, wishing fervently that my sister was here. I have no idea how to sort out what’s going on, but I do know we can’t do this here and now.

  “We really need to hurry,” I say. “And Katia’s right—we can’t find what we’re looking for if Anatol can’t help us.” I nod at him and try to summon up a reassuring smile that doesn’t start Feliks off again.

  Anatol looks around, frowning. “I’ve been here so many times that … well, I don’t think there’s any part of the library that I haven’t been to,” he says.

  “Think harder,” I say. “You might have been everywhere, but it would have to have been a time when Anastasia and Queen Ana were here too.”

  “Where’s Sasha?” asks Feliks. “She’s the best person for this.”

  I explain why she’s at home and watch concern crease Feliks’s expression. Anatol remains deep in thought.

  The prince’s hand shoots up. “Genealogy!”

  Feliks’s mouth hangs open a little, and I suppress a sudden, inappropriate laugh. He looks like a quizzical puppy.

  “It’s where they keep all the records of my family. Royal births, marriages, deaths, coronations. It’s right at the top of the library. We had to spend hours there learning our family history, and then Mother took Anastasia off for a few minutes while my tutor had me copy out a list of every allegiance and advantageous marriage every prince of Demidova has made since saints know when. I remember wondering at the time what Mother and Anastasia were doing.”

  “That sounds promising,” Katia says. Her eyes are hard, though, when she looks at Anatol.

  I nod. “Let’s go.”

  I lead the way and peek out the door. The library is full of large open spaces and tiny rooms, staircases with wooden banisters, and recesses filled with great tomes and small pocket books. I always favored the map room whenever I was dragged here by my sister—at least the maps are useful—but I still know my way around the place pretty well from all the times I’d had enough and searched through it in growing frustration to find Sasha.

  Anatol pulls his hood up and we put Nicolai behind him. Then I swing the door wide and stride out into a corridor and up a little-used flight of wooden stairs as though we all belong here. We pass a scholar clutching dusty scrolls who turns to look after us, but I keep my head high and hope she doesn’t check with a librarian to see whether we’re supposed to be here.

  Up and up we go, but I don’t slow until we reach the closed, carved doors of the genealogy room. I hesitate. This area isn’t open to the public except by special consent.

  “Let’s not hang around,” hisses Feliks.

  Anatol steps around me. “Here. It’s my family; I should be able to go in there whenever I want, even if I am an outlaw now.” He pulls on the polished knobs, and the doors glide open. We all slip inside, and a draft wafts into my face as the prince swiftly closes the doors behind us.

  In front of us stretches a huge room, its walls covered with thick drapes and gilt-framed portraits. Carved wood and marble lecterns hold huge gold-leaf-edged books in rows all along either side of the room, and in the center is an aisle of glass cases filled with jewels and kokoshniks and scepters that rival and even surpass Queen Ana’s.

  Feliks’s eyes are as round as two gold coins.

  Anatol nips out of an alcove containing a bronze bust on a marble pillar and into one displaying brightly bejeweled eggs. “Come on!” he says, breaking the spell. His voice echoes off the high arch of the ceiling. Katia and I exchange a glance and a nod. She goes left, and I go right. We lift drapes and peer behind bookcases. Feliks drops to the floor and looks under the thick rugs, while Anatol paces the room, frowning and occasionally reaching out to touch a globe or staring at one of the books that lie open to a page of his family history. Nicolai sticks close to the prince, his hand occasionally moving to touch the hilt of a sword that’s no longer there. I glance at him now and then—he looks certain and steadfast with his duty laid out plainly in front of him.

  After an hour, we’ve covered every inch of the room, crossing one another’s paths and checking everything someone else has previously looked at.

  “I’ve already opened that,” I call to Katia as she pulls at the front of a great glass clock. All the brass workings are on show, bright cogs and levers at work behind a sparkling etched-glass case. It would be big enough for a person to stand inside if the clock’s innards were removed. I opened it only with the same dwindling hope that Katia’s obviously feeling too.

  “It’s not here,” says Feliks. “Anatol, are you sure this is the right place?”

  We all wander into the middle of the room. Anatol shakes his head. There are two bright spots of color on
his cheeks—just like those his sister has when she gets angry. Except I don’t think he’s angry. I think he’s embarrassed.

  I know what it’s like to feel out of place, like I did in Tyur’ma, like I did at the Magadanskyan palace too, after being a prisoner. Anatol’s never been anywhere but the palace. Being taken to that house and being rescued only to find that he had to hide with the thieves’ network can’t be easy for him.

  “What use is he if he can’t remember anything?” demands Feliks.

  “Can’t get us pardons either,” mutters Katia in a sullen voice I haven’t heard since our time in Tyur’ma.

  Nicolai draws himself up to his full height. “Don’t speak to Prince Anatol that way.”

  “Stop it!” I try to think of the best way to put it so Feliks will understand, but how can I tell him what one night with the thieves might have been like for Anatol when he and Katia have spent a month with them just to try to help us all? When this is Feliks’s life?

  Anatol almost stamps his foot, but stops himself. “I can’t remember anything else!”

  “We’re doing something wrong, then.” I use my calmest tone, the way Sasha would, and try to think the way Sasha would, but my mind doesn’t bend into the same shapes hers does. I look around the room. There’s nothing we haven’t examined or moved, prodded or pulled. Where can it be hidden?

  “This is pointless. It’s too hard,” says Feliks.

  I freeze. “No—it’s not hard enough.”

  Feliks looks at me blankly.

  “Maybe it’s not hidden at all. Maybe the answer’s right in front of us.”

  I look around the room again. The book atop one lectern is closed. Every other book is open. I run over to the closed book, and the others follow.

  I open the book, and something clicks. All five of us twist our heads toward the sound. The others’ faces are expectant, bright with hope.

  I run back across the room. “Here!” The glass clock case stands a fraction ajar, and when I wedge my fingers into the gap, the whole thing swings open. Behind it a steep stone staircase spirals away into the dark.