child of Percival Grigori and a human woman. The angelic genes were, in her case, recessive, and she always gave the impression of being human. She looked like her father, but her appearance was just a shell for a wholly human organism. This can be seen in the genetic sequence.” Godwin stepped sideways, so that he was under the second image. “Your blood, however, was instantly recognizable to me—and to your mother as well—as something quite different, something special. It is not at all like your mother’s mixed blood. Nor is it like your grandmother Gabriella’s human blood.”
“But you said that my DNA was identical to theirs,” Evangeline said, squinting to see the image.
“Your mitochondrial DNA is identical,” Godwin said. “But it is not your mitochondrial DNA that interests me. No, it is the genetic inheritance you received from your father that made you what you are.”
Evangeline closed her eyes, trying to understand what Godwin meant. She could see Luca walking at her side, filled with restless energy. He had done everything in his power to take her away from the Nephilim, to protect her, and for this she had always seen him as a man with extraordinary powers. But, in reality, her father was an ordinary human man, with ordinary human characteristics. Godwin must be mistaken. What she had inherited from Luca could not be measured in her blood.
La Vieille Russie, Antiquaire, St. Petersburg
From the moment Bruno saw her in the film—her quiet, thoughtful demeanor obscured by the brighter, more vivid personality of Angela Valko—he suspected that she had all the qualities of the perfect witness, one who watched and listened with great care, filing her experiences away. As Vladimir’s wife, she was both inside and outside of the action, allowing her to bear witness from the sidelines. The trick would be to handle the situation the right way. Verlaine could hardly contain his impatience with the situation, while Vera remained aloof, pretending that Nadia was some minor player. Verlaine he understood, but Bruno didn’t know if he could trust Vera yet, and so he monitored her reactions carefully. The best agents were often the most duplicitous.
Nadia pointed to the inside of the album cover. There was a copper plate with an inscription embossed at its center, the words twisting through the patina with swirling flourishes: To OUR FRIEND, with love, OTMA, Tsarskoye Selo.
“You see this?” Nadia said. “OTMA was the collective name for the four Romanov grand duchesses: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, all of whom were brutally murdered with the tsar and tsarina in 1917. Apparently the girls used to sign cards and letters with this collective name, and when their brother, Alexei, was young, he referred to his pack of older sisters as OTMA.” She paged through the album and pulled out a black-and-white photograph.
All four of the girls struck Bruno as remarkably beautiful, with their wide expressive eyes and white linen dresses, their pale complexions and curled hair. What a crime it was to have murdered such lovely creatures.
“Anyone who knows even the rudimentary facts about the Romanov family could tell you the meaning of OTMA,” Nadia continued, running her finger over the copper plate. “But understanding the nickname Our Friend is a bit more complicated.”
“Complicated by what?” Verlaine asked, his manner filled with impatience.
Bruno shot Verlaine a warning look—Cool off and let the woman speak—before turning back to Nadia. “Do you have any ideas about who Our Friend was?”
Nadia eyed them, cautious, and turned to Vera, who was studying the album with care. “It did not refer to just one person. The tsarina Alexandra used this moniker as a code name for her spiritual advisers. When writing to her husband, she never committed her guru’s name to paper but tried to mask him in order to avoid scandal. Alexandra used the name Our Friend for the first time with a man called Monsieur Philippe, who came into their life in 1897. He was a French mystic and charlatan who entranced the empress—Alexandra was a woman prone to mystical spells and esoteric beliefs—and he became a kind of court priest.”
“Like John Dee to Queen Elizabeth,” Vera said.
Bruno held Vera’s eye for a moment, impressed. John Dee was an obscure angelologist who had conducted some of the first angel summonings on record. He was starting to like Vera.
“John Dee was not a spiritual adviser so much as a court renaissance man,” Nadia said. “But that said, the analogy is appropriate. It was only one of the