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diamonds and pearls. She saw Maman as soon as we were announced, and came toward us.
    “Yevgenia Maximilianovna, darling, I am so glad to see you.” She held out both of her slender gloved hands for Maman to take. “And your daughter, Katerina Alexandrovna,” she said, smiling down at me.
    “Your Imperial Highness,” I said with a curtsy.
    “Your daughter is growing up,” Miechen said, studying me with her dark violet eyes.
    “She is, indeed,” Maman said with a dramatic sigh. “We have been so fortunate with both of our children.”
    “And how is the younger Duke of Oldenburg?” Miechen asked.
    I glanced across the crowded ballroom as the women chatted. The orchestra was playing Tchaikovsky. Some of the youngest Romanovs were dancing a quadrille with my cousin Dariya. She caught my eye and winked.
    “And how are your children?” Maman was asking.
    Miechen glanced across the ballroom. “Kyril is over there, talking with his uncles. And Boris and Andrei are torturing their poor sister.”
    From the way my mother’s eyes lit up, I could guess she was wondering about a marriage between me and one of Grand Duchess Miechen’s sons. Never mind that the eldest, Kyril, was only thirteen. He wasn’t bad-looking, as far as thirteen-year-old distant cousins went. But I would not marry just to satisfy my mother’s social ambitions.
    I envied Petya that he did not have to be here with us. He was attending a dinner party with his fellow officers, havinga much more amusing time, I was certain. Maman was still scheming, however, even as she perused the young guests. If my brother wasn’t careful, she might match him up with Miechen’s pasty seven-year-old daughter, Helena.
    The grand duchess looked at me. “Katerina Alexandrovna, I am sure Kyril will be looking for an expert dance partner for the quadrille. I heard the empress was most impressed with the way you danced at the Smolny Ball. Would you be a dear and accept when he asks you?”
    “I’d be honored, Your Imperial Highness,” I murmured with another curtsy. The empress had noticed me?
Mon Dieu
. I took a glass of punch from the silver tray a nearby servant offered. This would be a long night.
    As I looked for my cousins, the imperial family was announced, and the empress appeared at the entrance to the brightly lit ballroom. The orchestra immediately began to play the empress’s favorite procession, the cortege from Rimsky-Korsakov’s
The Snow Maiden
. As everyone present curtsied and bowed, Miechen glided away from Maman toward the empress.
    Both faerie queens were the perfect illusion of grace, pretending to forget their usual hostilities toward each other. Miechen’s son, Kyril Vladimirovich, followed his mother. I realized then that all five of the empress’s children were standing behind her.
    Dressed in a white velvet gown embroidered with silver thread, Grand Duchess Xenia looked almost exactly like her mother. They shared the same dark eyes, but there was something mischievous in the daughter’s glance. She wasonly thirteen, yet already beautiful enough to break some poor prince’s heart.
    Maman and I made our way to the empress so we could give our greetings. I noticed Xenia laughing at something her brother George was telling her.
    I sensed the empress’s gaze on me as my mother and I curtsied. “Good evening, Your Imperial Majesty,” Maman said. “We hope you and your family are well this holiday season.”
    I trembled a little under the empress’s piercing stare. She was using her faerie sight. I could feel it shimmering over me, illuminating even the darkest stains on my soul. I grew slightly dizzy. And a little sick.
    The orchestra began to play a Christmas carol. Kyril Vladimirovich stepped up and asked the grand duchess Xenia to dance. I had been spared for now. “Of course,” she said, eyes twinkling as she allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.
    The empress turned and spoke a word to her three sons before moving on to