“It’s you!” she gasped. “You’re alive!”
And as if he had understood, the wolf whimpered. He nudged Sophie’s foot with his nose and then, in a languorous motion, he pressed his head into her thigh, closing his eyes. A sigh shuddered through his body.
The rest of the pack now trotted toward her, arranging themselves around her in the snow. She gasped as one leaped up and knocked her against the door in his enthusiasm. A wolf cub climbed onto her lap and licked her face. He was warm, even though the pads of his feet were covered in ice. She buried her hands in his fur.
The sound of metal grating against metal. The key in a lock. Bolts being dragged back. The old wolf put his head up and snarled. Sophie felt a rush of gratitude toward the creature; he would protect her, she realized, or die in the attempt.
“Sophie?”
“Dmitri!”
“Stand still. Don’t show fear. You know they will not hurt you. I have meat to feed them so they will not hurt me, either.” She heard him kick the door in frustration, then he burst through. The bucket in his hand slopped blood and entrails onto the snow. He dropped it and the wolves ran to it, yelping in delight.
He threw his arms around her. “I wanted you to be Volkonsky!” he cried. “I knew it the moment I saw you. But I could not let myself believe it!”
“That’s what you said to me!Voy Volkonsky!When I first arrived. If only I’d understood. Except it would have seemed incredible. Impossible.” She was laughing, but crying, too.
They stepped back from each other, suddenly embarrassed. Some of the wolves came back to her, leaning into her and unbalancing her. It was like wearing a long, full skirt made out of a tangle of white fur.
Dmitri steadied her. “The wolves knew. They always knew,” he said, laughing.
“Dmitri … we must get Delphine and Marianne! They’ve been locked up!”
He nodded, but pulled her through the door. “But they safe behind bars! And Masha coming! She help them!” He held her arm tightly. “That woman leaving! We must hurry! We must rescue Volkonsky diamonds!”
Sophie, Dmitri, and the wolves ran through the blighted, candlelit corridors of the Winter Palace. Sophie could hear the rhythmic panting of the animals, the way their claws scratched on the floor. It made her heart beat faster. It felt as if they were running with this pack, had become wolves themselves. Dmitri held her hand to run up stairs or across echoing rooms, through parts of the palace she had never seen, and as the wolves seethed around them, she felt a wave of gratitude toward this boy.
At the front door, the wolves clustered around Sophie and Dmitri, eager to be outside after months of captivity in the courtyard. It was as if the emptiness of the forest had filled their bodies and made them crazed to be free.
Sophie turned the enormous handle and pulled the door open to let in a sliver of twilight. The wolves howled excitedly.
“Careful!” Dmitri cried. “They will scare Viflyanka!”
She could see the princess and the general already in thevozok,which was laden with paintings, rugs, and silver. They were surely about to leave any second. Ivan ran toward them from the stable yard, yelling furiously. He pulled the silversamovaroff the heap of stolen treasures and hurled it into the snow. The general reached for his pistol as Ivan tugged at the handle of a suitcase. It sprang open and clocks, plates, cutlery spewed out onto the snow. Anna Feodorovna, furious, stood in thevozokand screamed abuse.
But she stopped as she saw Sophie in the doorway. She looked shocked, then frightened, as she shook the general’s arm and pointed.
“Go!” roared the general. “We have the diamonds!”
Dmitri ran to calm Viflyanka, who, terrified of the wolves in the doorway, tried to rear up. The weight of thevozokwould not allow it. Sophie could see the animal would break his back if he wasn’t freed. But the wolves did not immediately leap out into the snow. They seemed to be waiting for a signal from her.
“Poshawwwl!”Anna Feodorovna screamed as she grabbed the reins and the whip.Crack!The whip snapped across Viflyanka’s sweating neck, catching Dmitri’s face. The boy staggered back, clutching his cheek, and in that instant, Viflyanka leaped forward. The general took aim and fired at the doorway, but the erratic lurch of thevozokmeant that his aim was off. Sophie heard the bullet whiz close to her head.
“Don’t you dare!” Ivan yelled as he leaped up at the man. He tried to swipe the pistol from the general’s hand and they struggled awkwardly as thevozokmoved forward. The general roared again. The pistol flew over Ivan’s head into the snow, and Ivan was kicked and shoved until he fell back off thevozok.
“She will kill herself,” he cried as he lay in the snow behind the now fast-moving sleigh. “There is too much in thevozok— it is too heavy for the ice road.”
Sophie had been holding on to the thick fur of the old wolf in the doorway, so the pack had stayed with her. But as she ran forward to help Ivan, the wolves took this as their cue and they ran forward, too. It was as if they wanted the general and the princess gone once and for all as they gave chase to thevozok, harassing Viflyanka, snapping at his heels. The bells on his harness jangled insanely, and thevozokswung erratically behind the terrified horse. They saw Anna Feodorovna — no longer the princess, Sophie thought — standing up now, yanking ineffectively on the too-long reins, cracking her whip at the wolves.
“We have to stop her!” Sophie looked at Ivan. He was motionless, watching thevozokas it lurched toward the sunken ice road. “Ivan! How do we stop her?”
Dmitri was already running after them, calling the name of his horse in despair. Sophie could hear the tears that rent his voice: The animal was spooked now, and would gallop until he dropped dead or was shot.
But Anna Feodorovna didn’t seem to think the furious pace was fast enough, and cracked the whip once more, the sound like a rifle shot. The wolves veered away from thevozok.Sophie heard her laugh.
Viflyanka strained for even more speed and flew down the bank. Just before thevozokdisappeared, it careered and tipped to one side.
There was a huge crash. Silver cutlery flew up into the twilight in an arc; a small urn bounced across the ice, chased by a silver tray.
