“So why are you here?”
“The princess invited us.”
This answer seemed to puzzle the boy. “But why? Why three girls from England? What does she want with you?”
Sophie tried to hold the Russian words in her mind. “Volky?Is that something to do with wolf? Ivan told us that Volkonsky means wolf …”
The boy nodded, smiling for the first time. “I can tell you these words in English,” he said slowly, “but I do not understand their true meaning …”
“Tell me anyway,” Sophie said. Something in the rhythm of the language had delighted her. It seemed to capture beauty and sadness even though she had no idea what the words meant. And it was so lovely to sit here, in the candlelight, listening to Dmitri’s voice speaking Russian. She realized that when people spoke English, she was never aware of their voices, only what they said. But in not understanding anything, instead she had listened intently tohowDmitri spoke.
“In the depths of evening,” Dmitri whispered, “snow falls like diamonds. Wolves sing in the moonlight. We part.”
“That’s beautiful,” she said. “But it’s sad, too. Everything here seems to have so much sadness in it.”
“Is words from poem, from old song said to calm even wolves,” Dmitri said, smiling for the first time. And then, simply and beautifully, he began to sing. His voice, sweeter than Sophie could have imagined, caught on the end of the first phrase. He breathed in, pushed off again. He could have been skating over the notes.
She knew this song! Her father had sung it to her, in the dream of the forest. Hadn’t he? She laid her head against the rope of crystals and looked into the petals of light on the floor as Dmitri sang, his voice weaving itself around the chandelier. She saw their faces reflected hundreds of times over. And she realized that she was fooling herself. She must be wrong. How likely was it that her father would know the same song as Dmitri? She sighed, and watched as the reflection of her face in the crystals tipped to one side. She might not know if this was her father’s song or just an echo of some other melody, but what she did know was that she felt more at home in the ropes of crystals and the sad comfort of Dmitri’s voice than she had felt for years.
“You are so lucky to have a place like this to hide,” Sophie whispered when he had finished. “I don’t think I’ve been in such a beautiful hiding place in my life.”
“But even inlyustra, you can’t hide from time.” He picked up a dirty rag. “And I have to clean thislyustra.”
“I was trying to find the gallery,” Sophie said. “Ivan told us about Prince Vladimir. I wanted to see where …”
“When she arrived, the woman locked up the gallery,” Dmitri said. “She found the keys to many rooms and locked them.” He was silent for a moment. “But at night, I hear her. She walks through the palace. She is looking for something.”
“But what?”
“Many things were lost.”
“Maybe the diamonds,” Sophie said. “She said there was a diamond necklace that she would show us, if she found it.”
Dmitri looked at her. “She will never find the Volkonsky diamonds. They are hidden.”
Then before she could ask him what he meant, he pushed the loop of rope toward her, and she put her foot through and took hold of the rope. And then she was dropping down through the crystals, through the dancing flakes of light.
Before she left the ballroom, she turned back to Dmitri, still suspended in the chandelier. He waved his cloth at her, slowly, and his graveness and the way he watched her made her want him to be her friend. She would make him her friend. She would forget what the princess had said about him.
She walked slowly along the dim corridors, navigating herself by staircases and statues. She could hear voices: Delphine’s shriek of laughter, Marianne crying, “Geronimo!” What was going on? She ran toward the noise, the happy, carefree voices of her friends.
Ivan stood by a door. He looked relieved as she ran toward him. “We came to find you,” he said. As she came closer, he pulled her to one side. “Please. While you are in the Winter Palace, the princess wishes you to stay with your friends.”
“Come on, Sophe!” Delphine called.
Puzzled by Ivan’s words, Sophie looked into a large room dominated by an enormous mahogany slide. At the top was Delphine, waving enthusiastically. “Have a go at this! It’s so funny!” She lay down, facing backward, and slid, headfirst.
“It is where the Volkonsky children would take their exercise when the storms were too wild to play in the forest.” Ivan smiled as Marianne shot past.
“Together! Holding hands!” Marianne laughed, climbing up the stairs after Delphine. “Let’s wait for Sophie!”
Delphine, beaming, held out her hand.
And Sophie, suddenly realizing how much she adored these two girls, ran happily to join them.
Delphine hugged her. “Friends?” she said. “Even though I was a fool? I don’t know what came over me.”
“Always,” Sophie laughed.
