Chapter 28
XXVIII.
She locked the doors when the last maid left the room. She leaned back on them as if it might not be enough.
“Kaylay, they know.”
In my situation, there were a lot of things that a lot of people knew. That unidentified woman knew I was Mikhail. The caretaker and Drook knew, although I had never proven their theories correct, that I spoke. The tsarina, to whom I owed my situation, knew almost everything about it.
“Who are we talking about and what do they think they know?”
Alaina came away from the doors, glancing over her shoulder at them as if the tsarina might walk in and make an official accusation. She passed her chair by the hearth and instead took a seat on a cushion beside mine. She took my nearest hand and spoke to it instead of me.
“While at the countess’ salon today, one of the ladies brought up how resourceful I’ve been in making you my lover.”
I was unsurprised. Alaina, too, had to know that was coming. With feathers on her blankets, she could not avoid such talk.
“Of course, the others joined in. And the accusation came partnered with the usual insults,” she continued, “about ugly Altanians and no one wanting me. And how the only creature I could persuade to have me would be one who couldn’t say no.”
“They describe the tsarina, not you.”
“It matters not who they describe. The tsarina will hear about it.”
“What did you say when they made this accusation?”
“I laughed. They said it as a tease, of course, so that they could always say it was never truly meant if the tsarina’s ire should extend to them too for repeating such indecency. But I told them what perverted minds they had since it had never crossed mine to look at you in such a way.”
“Good.” I squeezed her hand. “That was the correct answer.”
“Was it?” She gazed up into my face. “Truly? I hate having to malign or diminish you to others. I feel like such a false friend.”
“Here, it is survival. Now, if we were in Altania, where you have the authority to raise me up or strike me down with a word, and you spoke of me with disparagement, I might then feel betrayed. Do not fret on my account here.”
“I cannot help it.”
“I have been doing my part while you’ve been gone,” I assured her. “I have made certain that the maids have found me sleeping on your bed. There are reasons for feathers on your blankets besides whatever salacious accusation sounds the most titillating at the time.”
“I just want to go home to Altania,” she said. “We would be safe there.”
“I probably shouldn’t sleep with you anymore.”
That pulled her from her consideration of Altania.
“Kaylay, no. Please.”
“I did not realize how the gossip might affect you.” Of course, she’d be horrified.
A friend who was a monstrous bird was bad enough, suggestive of her desperation for any connection.
But suggesting that same monstrous bird served other functions?
Utterly insupportable. “You should not be subject to the rumors that have occurred because of the tsarina. Just because she has unique proclivities does not mean you share in them.”
“I hate lying,” she said, turning her face away from me.
“It’s survi—”
“Yes, I know. But lying to you isn’t survival.”
“Oh.” I waited, but when she did not say anything else, I pried. “What have you lied to me about?”
“About not thinking of you like that. You told me you were not immune to wanting.” Her voice lowered to the barest whisper. “Neither am I. But I don’t want to be her.”
“You share her unique proclivities?”
“No!” She turned back to me and then cast her eyes down to our hands. “I mean, not in general? But yes, maybe?” She looked into my eyes, her brows quirked. “It’s not like I’ve spent my entire life wanting to bed a firebird. I never even considered it before.”
“Before?”
“Before you.” Her cheeks flooded with color. “I trust you, Kaylay. And you’re the only one I would trust like that.” She squeezed my hand. “That’s why the rumors bother me so, because they’re true, in spirit if not in deed. And I have to deny it, even when I would rather not.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
As a man, I had been accustomed to ladies vying for me and my attention, their intentions obvious, their goals clear.
I, as a person, had always been secondary to the title, the wealth, and the charm.
But even in a chicken costume, divested of title and wealth, the charm still presided, swaying ladies when I thought I had nothing.
As the tsarina’s firebird, when I could not openly be charming or claim the reputation that had once been mine, when my physical circumstances lowered me beyond that of any degraded man, I found someone who seemed to want me as I was, even if I did not have the energy for charm and devolved too often into moodiness, sharpness, and sarcasm.
The princess was not Irena, but the similarity of earning her interest without the pretenses that attracted others shone like a beacon.
Here! Here! Safety, acceptance, and authenticity!
Here, you could be loved! False hope because I did not think anything could come of it.
But her candor met me like an embrace all the same.
“I don’t expect anything of you,” she continued.
“I would never. I don’t want you to withdraw from me because you think I’m like her.
Even admitting it to you feels like I’ve transgressed because I don’t want it to alter what we have.
You’ve been my dearest friend in Ilyichia.
I am safe with you in a way I am with no one else.
And maybe it would be wiser not to sleep together, but I don’t want to give that up when it brings me so much comfort. ”
“Me too,” I confessed.
She leaned her head against my shoulder and stared into the fire.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
It was a good question. I was not much of a strategist. I hated court games. But here we were, needing strategy.
“I will maintain my innocence, of course,” she said. “And I think I will loudly be upset with you for sleeping on my bed.”
All wise courses of action.
“We need to get out of Ilyichia,” Alaina added, “the sooner, the better.”
Also wise, if it could be managed, but I did not have much hope.
“What about you?” she asked.
The tsarina hadn’t summoned me yet to interrogate me about Alaina having me escort her to events.
But she would at some point. And then, provided that she continued to leave me loose and did not keep me chained at the foot of her bed as had happened the last few times, maybe I could sneak off to fulfill my curiosity.
That meant playing the tsarina more daringly than Alaina had to know about.
“I am going to ask for help,” I told Alaina, “from The Kind and Fair.”
“It matters not what you are,” the tsarina said as she entered the room. “You will always be the greatest thorn in my side.”
I hadn’t done anything. Not this time. Not that I could think of.
Not yet. Had that woman gone to the tsarina and told her that she knew I was Mikhail?
Surely not. Surely, that was madness. But maybe there were rumors if the woman had told someone who then told someone else who then told others.
Then, viola! I was found out. The tsarina would have to execute a lot of people, and I would probably be muzzled for the rest of my natural life.
She stopped six steps into the room when she finally deigned to look at me. I expected her to order me off her bed, where I had settled once the guards brought me in. But she didn’t say anything, not right away.
There had been talk. More talk. Alaina relayed it to me each day.
Of course, the same murmurs had gone around about the tsarina when she first started sporting feathers on her undergarments, but it had not lasted because it was the tsarina.
But with Alaina, the gossip would endure because she did not have the power to silence it.
And the tsarina would hear about that gossip because it wasn’t about her.
“I heard you’ve been spending time in beds,” the tsarina said.
“Floors are cold.”
“Is that all? The servants speak of more.”
“The servants always speak of more.” I flopped back onto the bed, my wings splayed.
Although Alaina and I agreed on our story for consistency, Alaina did not know that I too spoke to the tsarina.
As a result, my personal course of action took a more reckless approach, if only to keep attention off the princess.
“If she’s not there, there’s no point in wasting a perfectly good bed with a fire nearby. And it annoys her when I misbehave.”
“What about when she takes you out of her apartments?” The tsarina approached her bed and sat on the edge of it. She stared down at me. “You behave for her then.”
“Of course, I behave then. I’m bored otherwise.” I pitched a whine in my voice. “You rarely have time for me.”
“I am busy.”
“And so I am entitled to get my amusements when and how I see fit. And if I must play to the princess to get my small reprieves, then what of it?” I stretched out my arm and settled my hand over hers. “So long as I am available when you are, I do not see why it should matter that I use her.”
“You’re using her?”
“Do you think I enjoy spending time with that horrid little Altanian?” I scoffed. “You insult me.”
“And you surprise me.”
“Did you think that I had forgotten how court works?”
“Sometimes,” she said. The pinched creases of her mouth smoothed out and then twisted into a smile. “Are you using me, my dear?”
“I would if I could,” I said, “but I don’t think you could be used by me.
You’re the only person who knows who I am.
You’re the only one with whom I can truly be myself.
” I shifted onto my side, folding my wing under me.
I propped myself up on my elbow. “I know you don’t think I fully appreciate that, but I do. ”
She continued to stare at me. She was trying to read me, to see what my motives were, to see if she could trust my words. But there was no obvious gain.