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Harbin, China, near Siberia

It was late August, and it had already started snowing.

Anyu, the daughter of an outcast mother, sat on the bottom of a broken ladder near the train station, drawing on a sheaf of crumpled papers.

Alone in a corner, Anyu had been working on the straight lines of tracks with rail joints and fasteners for hours.

She was fifteen years old, a skilled artist, adept at her craft.

Drawing was her favorite pastime, and she would sit there and sketch all day if she could.

It wasn’t that she had something else to do, or other specific places to go.

The station, noisy as it was, was better than the windowless hovel she lived in, so after she finished her chores at home, she often came here, her very own public studio.

Today, she wanted to draw the snow-swept train tracks, their dark iron grooves, and their long stretches into the emptiness.

A train arrived, driving a flurry of ice and snow toward her, rending the silence she treasured.

She pulled her woolen cap lower and looked up.

In the far distance, the platform was packed with throngs of suitcase-toting travelers, rifle-bearing soldiers, and vendors peddling sugar-coated crab apples.

She watched their stabbing fingers, the frantic scurry of their feet, the sweeping arcs of their arms, and wished they would all vanish.

She was drawn to the hulking buildings and whirring machines, the shapes and angles of still objects, and the fading shadows of the sunset; people, not so much.

Her fingers grew cold; Anyu put down her pencil and rubbed her hands together for warmth.

As she shifted around, her pencil rolled off the paper and fell into the pile of snow at her feet.

Bending to pick it up, she spotted a strip of purple fabric.

Curious, she pulled it out and dusted off the snow.

It was a heavy velvet bag, tied with a shining black silk drawstring.

Loosening the drawstring, Anyu reached in and took out a golden box embossed with the image of a double-headed eagle.

The box was ornate and luxurious, fitting perfectly in her hand.

When she opened it, she saw inside was an exquisite egg-shaped ornament crafted from smooth crystalline shells, their surface engraved with luminescent, feathery filaments that sparkled despite the bleak wintry air.

Supporting the egg was a translucent rock-like gemstone, carved to resemble a glacier overflowing with rivulets of diamonds.

Awestruck, Anyu touched the diamonds and traced along the delicate tendrils on the eggshell.

Her fingers found a seam, imperceptible, and to her surprise, the egg unfolded to reveal an elegant trellis basket holding a bouquet of white flowers with gold stamens inlaid with gemstones.

Anyu gasped—this was an imperial Russian egg, one of the Romanov treasures.

She had seen them in paintings sold in the stalls in the Dali District, where many Russians lived.

She had never seen one of the actual eggs, let alone held it in her hand.

How did such a treasure end up in a snowdrift by the train station in Harbin, thousands of miles away from the imperial palace in Russia?

she wondered. It was undoubtedly priceless, encrusted with numerous diamonds and lustrous gems, but what enthralled her most was the egg’s ethereal beauty.

She had never imagined seeing something so vividly spectacular and ingeniously engineered.

She wished to know who had designed such an artifact and had the skill to craft it.

Anyu looked around. No one was nearby; on the main road to the station, not far away, a procession of carriages passed by carrying Japanese businessmen in suits who had just disembarked from the train.

Across the street, swarms of beggars and starving migrants with shifty eyes huddled around a caravan of carriages and horses, and her greedy landlord—who had raised the rent again—was picking at roasted sweet potatoes from a vendor’s barrel.

He mumbled something, turned his head toward her, and cast her a baleful look.

Anyu wondered what to do with the egg. She could keep it for herself—it was the most valuable object she had ever touched.

But the mere thought pierced her with shame.

Only a dishonest, dishonorable person would do such a thing; Anyu considered herself a person of unwavering morality and integrity.

She would return it to the owner, who must be desperate.

She looked at the platform again, crowded with people she tried to avoid.

It would be daunting to investigate who, among the mass of the crowd, might have lost this treasure.

She placed the egg back inside the velvet bag and tightened the drawstring.

With the bag in her hand and her pencil and paper safely in her pocket, she wiped the snowflakes from her face and headed to the platform.

She had only taken three steps when she heard a faint voice coming from a distance.

A man, carrying a black suitcase, was hurrying in her direction from behind the caravan of carriages, shouting something.

He was very tall, with a slightly stooped back, and was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and a black trench coat that reached his knees.

He didn’t have a hat; his golden hair, the color of fried rice, was tousled and speckled with snowflakes, and his eyes were gray, the shade of steel.

He halted in front of her, gasping for air—a figure sculpted by winds, drenched in snow, a man, paradoxically, of refinement and misery, of strength and fear. A Russian man.

Anyu didn’t feel like talking to him, a foreigner.

She had seen many Russians in her city, who arrived via China Eastern Railway, part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, a monstrous five-thousand-mile stretch that began in Moscow in the west and ended in Vladivostok in the east. They ensconced themselves along the Songhua River and stamped Harbin with the seal of their exotic culture, building towering cathedrals with onion domes, erecting statues in the vast squares, and lining streets with opulent Baroque buildings.

Anyu didn’t know any Russians personally.

She had heard some were good bakers, who filled the city with the tantalizing aroma of their delicious bread, khleb , sold in the corners of the city’s major thoroughfares, a rare treat for children, but she had also heard they were a churlish bunch who showed no care or respect for Chinese customs and often shamelessly sunbathed on the beach of the Songhua River.

The man was blocking her, his gaze fixed on her bag. It was too late to hide it.

“Are you lost? The train station is that way,” Anyu said.

“Train station? Oh no, no ...” He babbled in his poor Chinese laced with a thick Russian accent.

“Young lady. I hope it’s not too rude of me to speak to you in such an impetuous manner.

The bag you’re holding, it’s mine. I have been looking for it everywhere.

I’m not sure how I lost it. I was here this morning . .. May I please have it back?”

Anyu would have gladly tossed the bag to him and told him to get lost, but the egg was too valuable to give away without verifying. “It depends. You’ll have to answer my questions first. If this is yours, will you tell me what’s inside the bag?”

The man stiffened, the light of caution swimming in his gray eyes, but he didn’t reply.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Anyu asked again in Chinese. She should have spoken Russian, she realized, or English. Her knowledge of these foreign languages was decent, as a result of Mother’s diligent teaching.

The man nodded but said nothing. He was in his forties, his stubble graying around his jaw.

“Who are you?” Anyu stared at him.

The man raised his right hand to wipe his face, and Anyu couldn’t help but notice that his hand, bejeweled with a gold ring set with an opaque stone, was shaking.

“Do you know what’s inside or not?”

“I do, young lady. It’s an egg.”

“What does it look like?”

“I wish I could describe it to you, young lady. But I’m afraid I can’t. It’s a very special egg.”

His accent was terrible, but he had used polite phrasing in Chinese at least. “How did you get it?” Anyu asked.

From the platform came the train’s whistle, people calling out for their families. The man switched his suitcase to his right hand. “Please. My train is leaving. I have to go.”

“I can’t give it to you. You haven’t answered me.” She stepped away.

The man lurched forward as if he wanted to wrest the bag from her hands. “No! Please don’t run. Please. I’ll tell you. The tsarina bestowed it on me.”

“The empress of Russia?” At the train station, Anyu had seen incidents of robbery, kidnapping, and human trafficking and heard of many frightening, strange tales. This sounded unreal even compared to all that.

“Indeed. It was gifted to me by our tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna.”

She knew, as everyone did, what had happened to the empress of Russia.

Mother still talked about the bloody massacre in the cellar where the entire imperial family was executed, including the tsar, the empress, and their children.

It had happened years ago during the violent revolution that had gutted Russia. “But she’s dead.”

“She gave it to me before she was killed.”

“Why would the empress of Russia give such a treasure to you?”

The man was perspiring despite the snowflakes that fell on his pale face. Once again, he had a difficult time bringing himself to speak. His hand trembling, he glanced at the train station and then the caravan and vendors across the street.