Page 11
“Tatiana is the only one living,” she said.
“Her other daughter died young from the Spanish flu. She was the one with the talent. I hear Tatiana hasn’t got a smidge, but she married a water grigori, and he’s made a fortune creating irrigation systems. Tatiana comes to the school at least once a week. She’s devoted to Madame.”
“She must be, to go to this much trouble to please her,” I muttered. We had to go through the opening in the hedge, under an ornate iron arch, and up the walkway to the house. And we had to step smart.
Women were coming from every direction, some from parked cars, some from streetcars, some from cabs, some on foot. Young and old, they were dressed to the teeth.
I sighed heavily and set my jaw. “Do you know any of these flowering plants?” I asked. We were moving slowly toward the front doors. “I know the sage.”
“That’s lavender,” Felicia said, pointing. “And that’s agapanthus, we have some at the school. After that, I have no idea.”
I wanted to bend down to smell the lavender, but that might embarrass my sister. I could never have a garden like this in Texoma. Water was too scarce, the temperature too hot.
“Fenolla and Katerina will be here,” Felicia said. She was bouncy again.
“That will be nice. Your best friends from school.” I didn’t ask how Felicia knew they’d attend.
She used the telephone much more than I did, and when she’d come from the school to take residence at Veronika’s for the ball events, she’d started getting little notes from friends every day and writing them back.
Felicia nodded. “We missed them at the Japanese Friendship Garden. Katerina and her brother are both Listed this year. Paul’s older than her, but honestly… he’s not much good as a human being. And not much of a grigori.”
Eli had told me that some magic users had come to three, even four, Wizards’ Balls, had been Listed each time, and still had found no match. I didn’t even try to imagine that. “And Fenolla?” I asked, so Felicia would know I was listening.
“Her father is from England, and her mother is from Sudan. That’s in Africa,” Felicia added, so kindly that I wanted to spit. “They’re both magic practitioners, but from very different schools, of course.”
Of course .
“Katerina is from Los Angeles, and her family does pretty well there. Least, that’s what I hear.
Her mother is… I don’t much like her. Her father is fun, but he hardly ever comes around with Katerina.
He’s always working. He does something with the movie industry.
Set design, I think. He’s the grigori; her mom has no magic ability at all. Maybe that’s why Paul is such a dud.”
Felicia sounded so old as she said this.
I couldn’t imagine what it had been like, to transform herself from a slum kid to this powerful, attractive young woman.
She’d polished herself all the way, cramming knowledge into her head as fast as she could acquire it.
I couldn’t see the dusty, hungry kid in her anymore. It made me proud and sad.
We went up the steps to the… well, it was a mansion. There were lots of women of all ages entering at the same time, so our progress was slow. It was just like trying to enter the reception room last night.
I had plenty of time to look around at the other guests.
Some of them were students from the school, bright and young and wearing dresses that were probably very up to date.
All the young things were accompanied by at least one older woman—a mother, a sister, a grandmother—also in their most proper outfits.
Though white was the skin color of the majority, there was a scattering of Asian, Black, South American… and some I could not identify.
By the time it was our turn to enter the open front door, I was already bored.
But my eyes opened wide at the huge flower arrangement on a shining round table in the foyer.
I’d never seen so many flowers inside a house.
Felicia gave me a sidelong look, and I could tell from the way she bit the inside of her mouth that she was trying not to tell me to stop gawking.
I made my face flatten out, and she relaxed.
I knew the drill, having been coached by Veronika, Eli, and everyone else I’d met since I’d gotten to the Holy Russian Empire. First, we had to locate our hostess. That was not too hard, since she was the woman standing with a long line of females waiting to speak to her.
Somewhere in her fifties, Tatiana was still striking, with dark hair and a kind of hawklike face.
Her skin was as white as the magnolias I’d seen in Dixie.
Did she ever go outside to walk on her beautiful lawn?
I couldn’t imagine her coming out of Madame, who now resembled a grasshopper more than anything.
We shuffled forward until it was our turn.
Tatiana looked sharply at Felicia after my sister introduced herself.
“You are Isabella’s niece,” Tatiana said.
That comment put Felicia aback. Not too many people cared to mention the Dominguezes to my sister. “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “Dear Aunt Isabella.”
“You’re a Dominguez.” Tatiana sounded as though that was a wonderful thing to be.
My sister’s polite smile vanished. Storm clouds gathered across her forehead.
Uh-oh.
“I knew your mother,” Tatiana said, smiling. “I stayed with your family when I visited Mexico many years ago.”
Felicia froze. She had no memories of her mother at all.
This was not the place for her to hear another woman’s memories.
But it was Felicia’s choice to turn away or stand and listen, and she stayed. “You met my mother,” Felicia said, her voice empty. Her face was a blank mask.
“Valentina was a beautiful woman, inside and out, you know.”
It really bothered me that this Tatiana was going on like this was a normal conversation, completely not reading my sister’s reaction.
“No, I did not know that.” Felicia’s face was like stone.
I had to do something to get that awful look off her face. People were beginning to notice.
“This isn’t a good time or place to talk about something so private,” I said, not really trying to sound like a nice person. “Maybe you can meet Felicia another day and share memories that Felicia doesn’t have.”
Tatiana gave me a very unfriendly look. “And you are? I didn’t quite catch your name a minute ago.”
Going for the insult. But I didn’t bite. “I’m Princess Lizbeth Rose Savarova, wife of Prince Eli,” I said, as sweetly as I could manage. (Not very.) “I’m Felicia’s sister.”
By then Felicia had recovered a bit. “I’d be interested to hear your memories,” Felicia said. “But my sister is right, this is not the right time.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was treading on tender ground,” Tatiana said, and she did seem to regret her words. “Please enjoy yourselves in my home.”
We made way for the next guests—on my part, with huge relief.
I could feel Felicia twanging like a bow so without speaking we began to stroll through the large rooms, all decorated with flowers and little tables of what they called finger food and little stations of maids ready to serve tea or coffee.
Two rooms over, we came upon Madame Semyonova, who looked even more like a corpse than she had in the Japanese Friendship Garden.
Both of us said respectful things. She remembered Felicia, but not me, which was fine.
Callista, the ever-present nurse, gave us a big smile.
Callista and Felicia had become fond of each other when Felicia had been in the infirmary for her hurt feet when the Spanish flu had hit San Diego.
Felicia had recovered in time to help the swamped Callista with the afflicted children.
Felicia was completely restored to her new self when she spotted Fenolla and Katerina across the wide hallway in a room that looked like a library. “I’m just going to talk to Fen and Kat; you stay here,” she said. “You’re close enough to watch us like an owl.”
“Our girls have ditched us,” said a pleasant voice.
I turned to see a very pretty woman.
“I’m Samaah Gregory,” she said.
“I’m Lizbeth Savarova, Felicia’s big sister. Now I see where Fenolla got her looks.”
“Too kind of you. Felicia is a remarkable girl.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I said.
“They are all handfuls at this age, aren’t they? I don’t know if you’ve met Irina, Katerina’s mother?” Samaah turned to the woman next to her.
Irina was as plain as Samaah was beautiful.
In the next few minutes I learned Irina was also as slow and dull as Samaah was quick and amusing.
Samaah told a funny story about how she’d met her English husband, Matthew, and how surprised she’d been by some of his English customs.
Irina talked about nothing else besides how outstanding her children were, though actually saying little about Katerina. Her son, Paul, was clearly her favorite.
I was bored senseless after two minutes.
When Samaah Gregory saw someone she knew across the room and excused herself, trying hard to conceal her relief, Irina was almost as glad to see her go as Samaah was to leave. Irina made it clear she was uncomfortable talking to a woman who looked so different from herself.
After a couple of minutes alone with me, Irina also invented someone else to talk to and stomped away. I guess I made her uncomfortable, too.
Now that I didn’t have to respond to stupid chitchat, I could keep a better eye on my sister. She and her friends weren’t in the library any longer, so I began scouting around.
When I got back to the entry door and the receiving line, I spotted a woman I’d figured I’d never see again: Harriet Ritter, an agent of Iron Hand, the best security firm on the continent. She was ushering in an Asian girl with straight black hair, a girl who was even better dressed than Harriet.
Though we weren’t always on good terms or even on the same side, today Harriet felt like an old friend. While her charge greeted Madame Semyonova and then Tatiana, Harriet was doing a room scan, same as me. When her eyes met mine, her face brightened.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11 (Reading here)
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
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- Page 32
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- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41