Sophie grinned. “Volkonskys marry for love, though, Ivan. Not for money!”
His smile broadened. “It’s true,” he said. “Voy Volkonsky.”
Marianne and Delphine were waiting in the White Dining Room. Masha had given them glasses of tea, and sat staring at Delphine with something like awe. They jumped up when Sophie walked into the room.
Delphine seemed to be in shock. “I think you’re the first princess I’ve ever met,” she said.
“Masha has told us!” Marianne laughed. “Do we have to curtsey or something?”
“All day!” Sophie said. “Morning, noon, and night.”
“Do you think Miss Ellis has even noticed that we’re missing?” Delphine said. “She’ll get into terrible trouble once we tell our parents.”
“I’ll call mine from Saint Petersburg,” Marianne said. “Ivan says we can leave as soon as we are ready. And I know they will want me back in London.”
“My mother will cancel everything, and come and get me,” Delphine said. She looked at Sophie. “You know you can come and stay with us in Paris for the holiday.”
“Or with my family,” Marianne added. “My parents are always happy to have you. We’d better go,” she said, standing up.
“Will you let me say my good-byes first?” Sophie looked at her friends.
“Of course,” Marianne said. “It’s horrible leaving people behind without saying good-bye.”
Sophie slipped toward the door. “Masha,” she said, more enthusiastically than she felt, “before I say good-bye to your mother and yourbabushka, will you ask Dmitri to help me with something?”
She stood in front of the damaged portraits, one torn with bullet holes, the other a woman without a face. She reached out and touched the slashed canvas near the young woman’s neck. This was the first wolf princess. Sofya Volkonskaya. She had livedhere. Sophie had held those very diamonds, now just brushstrokes, in her hand. She wondered if the Customs Office would let her bring these destroyed portraits back to London. If Rosemary made a fuss, she could always put them under her bed.
She sighed as she thought about that chandelier drop, now at the bottom of the ice road … Could it really have been from the palace? If so, Rosemary might not be quite so keen as usual on decluttering when Sophie brought the paintings back to London.
Dmitri stood next to her. “We have found you …” he whispered. “We watched and waited and then you came.”
Sophie stared straight ahead; she wouldn’t risk looking at him because she would see the disappointment on his face, but she could see his scar twitching out of the corner of her eye.
“Why are you leaving?”
“I will come back,” Sophie said. She touched the frame of the painting and added, “I promise you I will come back as soon as I am able.” This promise was to the wolf princess as well as to Dmitri. She groaned. “Why do I have to be so young? Why does everyone have to treat me like a child?”
She slipped her hand into her pocket and found the photograph of herself at school in London. She pushed it behind the cobwebbed frame, but it stuck. There was something in the way. She felt around with her finger and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She opened it, but the words were just marks on old notepaper. She couldn’t read any of them.
“Dmitri” — she held the letter out — “do you know what this says?”
Dmitri took the paper and frowned as he murmured through the Russian words. “It’s a letter …” He turned it over. “But I don’t know who for …”
“There’s no name?”
“No … It just says … ‘To … my own’?”
“What else … what else does it say?”
Dmitri scanned the letter. “She doesn’t want to leave …” he said haltingly. “She is very sad … she sends words a very long way … across the sea … across the years … across … tears?”
“It’s from Sofya.”
Dmitri nodded.
Sophie gently took the letter from his hand. “This is hopeless.” Dmitri’s eyes clouded and he looked puzzled. “Don’t you see, Dmitri? This is the only letter I have, the only words I have from anyone in my family that are addressed … well, not to me, but to the me they hoped would happen!”
Dmitri nodded slowly. Sophie went on. “But the saddest thing is … I can’t understand any of it! Do you see? My father sang me the song, before he died. Perhaps he did sing the words to me and I forgot them. He didn’t live long enough to teach me Russian. My guardian despised him. She never told me anything … if she even knew herself.”
