“Yes, very well,” I grumbled as we left the room. “I just hate smelling like him.”
Konstantin came to an abrupt halt and shoved me back into the room. “Change and shower. I'll meet you at Lady Milana's quarters.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After searching Lady Milana's bedchambers for over an hour, I was ready to give up. No secret stash had been found, nor anything else that was useful to our investigation.
Then Konstantin got frustrated, and his frustration was a bit more . . . aggressive than mine.
He'd been searching the Lady's wardrobe—a standing armoire, similar to the path to Narnia. And just like that wardrobe of human fantasy, this one had a false back. It didn't lead to another world, but when Kon smacked his fist on it in annoyance, it opened to reveal something nearly as exciting.
“You found it!” I rushed over to him and peered into the space beyond the open panel.
Konstantin removed several boxes of jewelry, a stack of letters, and a book. He passed everything to me, and I took them to the bed, spreading them on the comforter as he continued to feel around in the space for anything he could have missed.
“That's it,” he said. “Oh, wait.” He pulled one last thing out and scowled at it. “Do you think this was deliberately hidden or accidentally shed?” He lifted the item for me to see it—a white feather.
“She'd have to be in swan form to shed it, and I doubt she was hiding things as a swan.” Something tickled my mind, something about that feather, but I couldn't place it.
“Huh.” Konstantin squished his face at the feather as he stepped over to the bed and took a seat across the hoard from me, then set it down beside the other items. “What have we got?”
I had immediately opened the book, hoping it was the birth records that Timofey had stolen, but although it was full of handwriting, there were no births recorded. “There are times and dates recorded in this, but they're not birth records. I'm not sure what this is.” I set the book down. “I suppose Milana could have been killed for her jewels, but that doesn't tie in with the other murders. You want to search the book or the letters?”
“I'll take the book since you're already baffled by it.”
I stuck my tongue out at him as I handed over the book.
“Don't point that thing at me unless you're going to use it,” he teased.
Then we got to work. As Konstantin flipped through the leather-bound volume, I untied the ribbon that held the letters together and started reading. Within a single paragraph, it became clear what type of letters they were.
I set the stack down after flipping through them. “Love letters. All signed with the initial S.”
“So, she wasn't sleeping with Timofey,” Kon said absently.
“Apparently not. Anything useful in there?” I nodded toward the book.
“I'm not sure. It's a military log.”
“A military log?”
“A record of the castle guard.” He flipped to the front page and read, “Larch Castle Security Log, 1988.”
I grimaced at myself for not catching that. Then I realized what he'd said. “1988?”
“Yes, why?”
“That was the year I was brought here. The year my village was attacked.”
Konstantin went still, staring at me intensely before flipping the book open again. “What was the name of your village?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know where you were born?”
“I was four, Kon. And I never asked Niko. Neither of us wanted to talk about it.”
“Mikhail, there is only one page bookmarked in this log.” He pulled out a ribbon and turned the book to face me. “May 7th, 1988. Look at this.” He pointed to an entry.
