“Breaking and entering isn’t going to win us any brownie points,” Elio mumbles while gusting warm air into his palms.
“There will be no breaking,” I assure him, mostly to ease his nerves. “I’m notthatdreadful at spellcasting.”
After painting my sigil, I slip inside. The sprite has just made it to the top of the stairs when I unlatch the door for the others. His eyes bulge as he rockets back toward me, wearing such a murderous expression that I disintegrate into smoke. I materialize just in time to witness him smack into the door frame at such velocity that he slithers down like a glob of soup.
I reach out and snatch him by his high ponytail a heartbeat before his limp body can make contact with the marble flooring.
“Unhand Pietr immediately!” comes a shrill voice.
I shuffle over to a round table covered in a pink tablecloth and set the sprite down beside a vase overflowing with huge pink roses. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to harm your butler.”
I lift my gaze to the glowering Faerie standing at the top of the stairs, blinking when I catch sight of the long gray plaits grouped on the crown of her head with a pink bow. I should probably be more concentrated on her frightful glower, but no…it’s the hair.
Izolda steps past me, her heels clicking on the buffed pink marble. “Countess Zubrowa, I’m your greatest fan.”
“Get out of my house!”
Izolda halts and holds up her bakery box. “I’ve brought you khvorost.”
“I don’t care to be plied with fried dough.” She glances disdainfully at the box that’s a shade paler than her eyes. “Out! All of you.”
“Please hear us through,” I say. “It will take only a?—”
“No.” She hikes up her chin.
I guess I’ll have to join Lachlano in his covert investigation.
I start to turn when Izolda splutters, “When Olena left, she gifted me her collection of signed editions. I own every book you’ve ever written. They’re my pride and joy. I reread all two-hundred and forty-three of them yearly. It’s thanks to your books that I learned to read. I was seven the first time I read one of your novels.On Shkolnaya Street. I borrowed it from Olena’s room. She obviously didn’t know. When she found out…oh, how mad she was.” Izolda finally takes a breath, eyes shimmering. “I loved that woman so much. And I know you did as well.”
The Countess’s expression, which had softened an iota during Izolda’s impassioned monologue, tightens anew. “A shame your brother didn’t care for her like we did.”
“Konstantin didn’t kill Olena,” I snap.
She flaps a hand that is as bejeweled as her long ears. All the stones are pink. Various shades of the hue, but all pink. Just like her dress. Just like the paint on her walls and her staircase runner and her nails and the ribbon she wears around her elegant black neck.
“Yes, yes, I heard it was Salom, but to me, they are one and the same.”
“They’re nothing alike.” I jut my head toward her still unconscious attendant. “If your sprite were to murder someone, would you consider yourself to blame?”
“Yes, for it would mean I did not guide him well.”
I roll my lips, feeling extra defensive of my fiancé, even if he is snubbing me at the moment.
“We’re sorry to pick at a barely-scabbed wound, but we’re trying to find Svyato’s daughter,” Elio says, closing his fingers around my twitching bicep.
Her glimmery eyelids spasm. “And you thought she’d behere?”
“Yes,” he says.
She comes down a few stairs. “Well, she’s not.”
“It’s interesting that you haven’t asked us why we’re searching for her,” I muse.
Another lid spasm. “I haven’t asked you because I want to put an end to this conversation, not prolong it. Now, leave before?—”
“I know she’s my niece!” Izolda blurts out.
Silence entrenches us, glutinous like the sugared treats in the bakery box trembling from Izolda’s fingers.
