8. The Snow Maiden
The Snow Maiden
Louna leaned against the wall in the alley entrance of The Snow Maiden, her arms crossed against the early morning chill. She’d been there close to ten minutes already, but she was twenty minutes early for her appointment, so she wasn’t worried. She had to leave early, to keep from waking Tennyson.
He’d spent the night pacing on and off, checking the cameras, gazing out windows, and speaking in low tones she couldn’t overhear.
Louna, in turn, had alternated between sketching on her bed and pressing herself against her door to listen to Tennyson’s progress around the loft.
It was well after midnight by the time he finally settled down, and she gave him another hour before she risked opening her window and pulling in the backpack she’d stashed on the ledge.
She didn’t even know why she’d hidden it, besides a vague instinct toward concealment.
She’d been unpacking her suitcase earlier that afternoon and had just removed the two copies of her Anchises sketch from the hidden compartment, and when she came to the go bag, she meant to unpack it, too.
She wouldn’t need it here, after all. But when she’d tried, her fingers had stalled on the zipper and she’d been unable to go any further.
She had to have a go bag. Being without one meant cutting off an escape, and with Harlow after them, she couldn’t risk it.
So she’d shoved it out onto the ledge until Tennyson had had time to inspect the Nest to his satisfaction.
Once the bag was tucked safely under her bed—for now—she allowed herself a series of naps and woke early to run her errand.
Over the course of its construction, the Nest had been thoroughly soundproofed against squeaking floorboards, but the stairs were left to creak and squeal to alert anyone upstairs to unwelcome visitors.
On stockinged feet, Louna may have been able to slip past Tennyson in the open area of the loft, but she never would have made it down to the main level.
So she’d gone out the window.
Now, dressed in a navy blue sweater, jeans, and a dark wool coat, she waited for Professor Polina Chesnokov: the other reason Louna had come to Romania.
They hadn’t met yet, and had only exchanged a few emails over the last couple of days, but Louna was optimistic about the woman. She was a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg, and she’d been just as interested in Louna’s questions as Louna was in hearing the answers.
The click of a lock in the side door warned her before it opened, revealing a middle-aged woman with silvery blonde hair and solemn gray eyes. “Ms. Despereaux?” she asked in an airy voice.
Louna responded in Russian. “Please call me Louna.”
The woman smiled, extending a hand. “Polina. Please come in. I hope it isn’t too early for you.”
“Actually, it’s perfect,” Louna said.
“I’m glad. My sister lives above the shop, but she’s still asleep. The store doesn’t open for another hour.”
Her meaning—we will not be interrupted—went unspoken, and Louna appreciated both her secrecy and her tact.
The Snow Maiden was a tidy little tea shop, filled with shelves of tins and spices, sugars, honeys, and mugs. Every step brought a new scent to her, and Louna inhaled the smells of orange peel, mint, and rose hips before she was struck by the urge to sneeze.
“We can speak in the back,” Polina said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Oolong, please,” Louna said, allowing Polina to lead her to a bright little office behind the store counter.
Polina plucked a tin box from a shelf beneath the counter.
“May I suggest Russian Caravan? It’s a blend of oolong, keemun, and lapsang souchong—black teas from China.
Historically, when the tea was brought to Russia along the Siberian Route, the smoke from the traders’ camp fires infused with the leaves and introduced a unique flavor.
Nowadays it is added by smoking the leaves over pinewood fires, but I imagine what it must have been like on those long journeys.
” She opened the tin and offered it to Louna, and she inhaled the sweet, smoky scents with a smile.
“That would be wonderful,” she said. “Thank you.”
Returning the smile, Polina scooped loose-leaf tea into an infuser and filled an electric samovar with water, which she plugged into an outlet in the office before returning to the main shop. Louna picked a business card from the counter and held it up. “The Snow Maiden. From the opera?”
“Yes,” Polina said, sounding pleased. “Have you seen it?”
Louna shook her head, setting the card back in its holder. “I’ve never had the chance. Why did your sister choose the name for her store?”
“She loves the opera,” Polina said. “She met her husband at a showing of The Snow Maiden, and they spent hours afterwards discussing the performance. They married only a month later.”
Louna’s heart did an annoying somersault. “So soon? She wasn’t worried that she was rushing things?”
“We all worried,” Polina laughed. “But she said that her soul recognized his the moment they met. They’ve been together twelve years now.”
“That’s lovely,” Louna said.
She’d said it genuinely, but Polina tilted her head and shot her a secret smile. “Perhaps you are being more than generally curious?”
“No,” Louna said, too quickly.
Polina’s smile widened. She turned to take a silver tea tray from a shelf behind the front counter, keeping her back to Louna as she checked the contents of the sugar bowl.
Louna sighed. “Well…”
Mercifully, Polina continued her preparations without turning around. “Do you know the story of The Snow Maiden?”
“Only vaguely,” Louna answered.
Polina bent to open a small refrigerator beneath the shelf and withdrew a carton of milk.
“Snow Maiden longed to fall in love like the mortals who lived in the village near her home,” she began, “but her heart was made of ice. She begged her mother, Spring Beauty, to grant her the ability to love like the villagers.”
“And did she give it?” Louna asked.
Polina poured milk into a silver creamer. “She did. Snow Maiden fell in love, and the spell of winter that had gripped the land was broken. In the warmth of the sun, without her ice to protect her, Snow Maiden melted away.”
A chill threatened Louna’s spine—she could practically feel the defensive ice around her own heart growing thicker. “A cautionary tale, then?” she said.
Polina returned the milk to the refrigerator. “That is one interpretation. My sister sees it differently.” She straightened, and looked at Louna for the first time since they’d begun the conversation. “Love is a risk, she says. You must only pursue it if you are willing to melt.”
The water inside the samovar began to boil, sputtering tranquilly in the quiet. Was she willing to melt? There seemed to be very little incentive for doing so, from the Snow Maiden’s perspective—a moment of passion followed by destruction. Could that small moment be worth the ensuing pain?
For Louna, it never had been. She was no blushing maiden, and she considered flirting to be one of the greatest joys of life, but love? No. She had never let herself melt before.
She wasn’t even sure she could.
Polina offered another understanding smile, and Louna made an attempt to return it. “Come,” she said, taking the tray into the office. “The tea will be done soon. We can talk in here.”
Pushing her misgivings down—burying them under more layers of ice—Louna followed.
The office, small but tastefully decorated with dark woods and lace doilies, felt warm and welcoming after the chill of the alley, and Louna slipped her coat from her shoulders and draped it over one arm.
There was a tiny round table with two chairs tucked across from a wide, neat desk, and Polina gestured for Louna to take the chair facing the door.
“We brew tea the Russian way here,” Polina said, setting her tray on the desk.
She lifted a small metal teapot from the top of the samovar and filled it with water from the lower chamber, then set it back in its place.
“The tea in the pot brews very strong, very dark,” she explained, “and when you add it to your cup, you mix it with hot water from the lower chamber until it is to your liking.”
She handed Louna a cup from the silver tray and leaned against the desk. “Now,” she said. “Your emails were quite intriguing. Would you please tell me more about this ring you’ve found?”
Louna listened to the water steam within the samovar. “I haven’t found the ring. Just a picture of it.”
“But you think it has something to do with the Romanov family?” Polina pressed.
“I suspect it might,” Louna said, pulling up a picture she’d sketched and saved on her phone. “I recognized the family crest. An eagle signet with a crown, on a plain gold band.”
Polina leaned closer to the screen. “I assume you have a reason to believe the picture of the ring indicated its presence,” she said. “And if that’s the case, then you’ve made quite the discovery. This ring has been missing for over a hundred years.”
“Then it is a Romanov?”
“It’s the Romanov seal,” Polina said. “There are a number of signet rings belonging to the Romanov family, but this one in particular has a fascinating history. Do you see the way the crest sits behind the crown? Only one ring has such a placement, and it was lost during the Russian Revolution.”
A thrill stole over Louna’s skin. She knew this already, but hearing it confirmed felt like walking into an art gallery and seeing a deficiency in the security system.
“How was it lost?” Louna asked.
Polina rose to her test with gleaming eyes.
“Before the Romanovs were imprisoned in 1917, Emperor Nicholas and his family entrusted a nun with some pieces of their treasure, hoping to return and reclaim it after the uprising. The nun dutifully kept their secret, but when the Bolsheviks continued their raids, she realized she needed help keeping the treasure safe, so she enlisted the help of a friend, a fisherman, to move it. The fisherman helped her transfer the treasure into his tanks, but the Bolsheviks found out about it and raided his property. Before they confiscated the treasure, the fisherman was able to hide a few pieces, including a ring with the signet of the Romanov crest to prove the treasure’s authenticity.
” Polina’s expression turned conspiratorial, and she leaned forward and lowered her voice as though someone might overhear.
“The fisherman’s identity has never been discovered, and the treasure has been lost. Could it be possible that you have uncovered it? ”
Not her—Ilya. Or, specifically, Ilya’s great-grandfather, the fisherman.
And now Bastian Harlow.
“I only saw a picture of the ring,” Louna said carefully. “I don’t know about the rest of the treasure. Is it known which pieces were recovered from the fisherman and the nun?”
Polina lifted the teapot and poured some of the concentrated tea into Louna’s cup. “I would have to look into it. Will you be in Bucharest long?”
“It seems I might be,” Louna said, filling the rest of her cup with hot water. “I could meet you again, when you find information.”
“I will call you,” Polina promised.
She poured her own cup, adding milk and a sugar cube as the conversation turned to Russian art, for which, thanks to Ilya, Louna harbored a deep appreciation.
When their tea was finished and they’d exchanged phone numbers in place of email addresses, Louna was reluctant to leave.
But, since she didn’t want to alarm anyone at the Nest with her absence, she stood and held out her hand.
“I look forward to our next meeting,” Louna said truthfully, cleaning up the empty mugs and following Polina into the shop.
Polina unlocked the front door for her. “Please feel free to stop by any time,” she said, smiling. “I would be happy to continue our discussion—about history or the opera.”
A flush crawled up Louna’s neck, but Polina pretended not to notice.
Or maybe it was hidden under Louna’s coat collar—she could not tell, and she was unused to feeling so transparent.
She waved and turned away, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she walked and turning her mind away from thoughts of the Snow Maiden.
After a few blocks, she checked her phone for messages from any of the boys, and, finding none, made her way to a nearby cafe for four coffees.
These she carried back to the garage in rising spirits, her misgivings dismissed as she inhaled the steam from her cardboard drink carrier.
She did not have to worry about her icy heart now.
There was coffee to drink, a trial to plan, injustice to thwart.
Later, perhaps, she would examine her feelings more closely.
Much, much later.
She entered the garage from a side door and climbed the secret stairs to the loft, the coffee held carefully in one hand. When she reached the top, she found Jean-Claude in the kitchen and Philippe staring drowsily out the window near the surveillance screens.
She frowned at the empty couch. “Where’s Tennyson?”
“He was gone when I woke up,” Jean-Claude said. “I assumed you were out together.”
A prickle of unease went through her. If Tennyson was gone, he would have had to notice that she had gone as well. He he left to look for her? Why not just call, or text?
Philippe turned toward her and perked up noticeably at the sight of the coffee. “Perhaps he went for a walk. Even with the cameras, he feels better when he does perimeter checks himself.”
Louna handed him a coffee and set the rest on the counter where Jean-Claude could reach. “I have some bread in the oven,” he said cheerfully. “That will keep for when Tenny gets back. Would you like some jam?”
“In a moment,” Louna said. She crossed to the screens, where Philippe had collected their earbuds in a little dish on the desk. One was missing—Tennyson’s—and Louna picked up one of the others and slipped it into her ear.
For a long moment, she heard nothing. Then, quietly, “Security could use some extra drills. You’re a gunnery sergeant, right? Shouldn’t you be training them?”
Security. At the embassy? Was he checking out the crime scene? Louna eased the earbud free and glanced back at the Verdiers. “He’s scouting.”
“Is he still talking to Lindsey?” Philippe asked through a yawn.
Louna blinked at him, and he took a drink and rubbed his eyes. “I checked the comms when I woke up, and Tenny was talking about boot camp.”
“Has Lindsey answered?” Louna asked.
Philippe shrugged one shoulder. “I stopped listening. I didn’t want to eavesdrop.”
Curiosity burned through her, but she kept the earbud in her palm. “Then I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Please call me out when the bread is done.”
Jean-Claude waved a jar of jam, and she retreated to the privacy of her room to plan.