“That would be fine.” Miriam felt herself closer to fainting than throwing up. Yes, the beta-blockers seem to work, she thought. “Drop the ‘my lady’—just call me Miriam. You didn’t tell anybody to search for me, did you?”

“No, my-Miriam.” This from Kara. “I wanted to, but—”

“It’s all right.” Miriam closed her eyes, then opened them again, to be confronted by a teenager with braided brown hair and a worried expression wearing a brown Dior suit and a blouse the color of old amber. “Nothing to worry about,” she said, trying to exude confidence. “I’ll be fine when I’ve had some tea. This always happens. Did anything unusual happen while I was gone?”

“We’ve been busy making the servants unpack your wardrobe and traveling possessions!” Kara said enthusiastically. “And Lady Olga sent you an invitation to walk with her in the orangery, tomorrow morning! Nobody is entertaining tonight, but there’s another public reception in Prince Creon’s name tomorrow and you have been invited!” Miriam nodded wearily, wishing she wouldn’t end every sentence with an exclamation. She half-expected Kara to break out in squeals of excitement. “And Sfetlana has been so excited!”

“About what?” Miriam asked unenthusiastically.

“She’s had a proposal of marriage! Delivered by proxy, of course! Lady Olga bore it! Isn’t that exciting?”

“What is that you’re wearing?” asked Brilliana, returning from the fireplace with a silver teapot held carefully in her hands; for the first time Miriam noticed the spindly table beside the ottoman, the chairs positioned around it, the cups and saucers of expensive china. It appeared that ladies-in-waiting led a higher-maintenance lifestyle than servants.

“Something suited to the weather,” Miriam muttered. Brilliana was wearing a black dress that would have passed unnoticed at any cocktail party from the 1960s through the 1990s. In the setting of a cold, sparsely furnished castle, there was something unbelievably surreal about it. “Listen, that’s a fire and a half.” Her skin crawled. “Is there any chance of using it to heat a lot of water? Like, enough for a bath? I want to get clean, then find something to eat.” She thought for a moment. “Afterward you can choose something for me to wear tomorrow when I go to talk with Lady Olga. And for the reception in the evening as well, I suppose. But right now, I’d kill for a chance to wash my hair.”

Fire Wall

Fire Wall

It turned out that there was a bathtub in her suite. The huge claw-footed cast-iron behemoth lived in a room she hadn’t seen before, on the far side of the huge fireplace. There were even servants to fill it: three maids and a grumpy squint-eyed lad who seemed to have only half his wits about him. His job seemed to be to lurk in corners whenever anybody forgot to send him packing for another load of Pennsylvania coal.