all.”
How I wished she would come up with something better to say every time she brought our tray, the same single tin bowl of groats we shared twice a day.
She took a book from the tray and tossed it into the room, where it landed with a dusty thump. “Here’s that book you wanted. Don’t let Vladi see it.”
I hurried to the book and picked it up. Eliza’s Five Weeks in a Balloon, a hot-air balloon basket on the cover. Jules Verne. I held it to my chest. How smart Luba had been to ask Mrs. A. for it.
Tum-Tum rose from his little bed in the corner to greet Mrs. A., dislodging the towel that covered Luba’s rope. I stifled a gasp as Luba noted the problem and started toward the corner.
Mrs. A. reached down and picked up Luba’s coiled rope. “Somebody thinks I’m stupid. After all the things I’ve done for this family.”
She held our one hope in her hand and shook it. “I’m taking this out of here and lucky for you I’ll not tell Vladi, for there’d be hell to pay for all of us.”
The weight of the defeat was a crushing blow and as Mrs. A. left, bolting the door behind her, I glanced at Luba, expecting a tear perhaps, a downtrodden look. Instead, she pulled at her lower lip as she often did when thinking, already on to idea number fifty-one.
* * *
—
I WOKE AT DAYLIGHT the next morning to read my precious new book. How good Eliza had been to send it, back in the good times. I ran two fingers down the illustrated cover, which featured a castaway trapped in a hot-air balloon basket, tethered to a desert island. How good it would be to just float out of that terrible little room.
I opened the first page to find three four-leaf clovers, pressed flat, resting in the book’s gutter.
Eliza.
Tears came to my eyes. Such a good friend. Did she fear the worst at this point? If only I could get word to her. Tell her how clearly the good-luck clovers were not working for us.
Luba woke, came, and sat next to me. “I have a new plan, sister.”
I sat up on the cold floor and rubbed my back. “It’s early, Luba.”
“This one’s foolproof. But it means giving up Mother’s necklace.”
I felt for it, still heavy there, sewn in my travel coat pocket lining. “We’ve been over this. Once Vladi knows we have it, he’ll just take it.”
“Yes, but what about Mrs. A.? She likes me, I can tell. She brought your book when I asked. And Father was good to her. What if I tell her she needs to release you, just temporarily? To get medicine for Agnessa. Offer her the necklace as payment for her kindness.”
I felt for the hole in the silk lining and pulled out the necklace. Not exactly a model of thoroughness, Vladi had searched us that first day and missed it. Even in the dim light of Bogdan’s room the emeralds glowed and diamonds shot prisms of light against the walls. I glanced toward Father as he pressed the cool cloth against Agnessa’s forehead.
“Vladi would shoot her if he found out she let me go,” I said.
“I can cover for you. I’ll say you’re still here, sick and resting there under the coats. Plus, she has all of us as hostages. I’ll tell her she gets the necklace once you’re on your way.”
“What if she tells Vladi?”
“She’s smart enough to know he’d take it from her.”
I considered her plan. What could it hurt to try? I handed her the necklace. “And when I get out I will go to the house and retrieve Max.”
“No,” Luba said. “First you must go to Alexander Palace and get help from the tsarina. Then you can get him.”
“I haven’t walked more than six steps a day since last fall.”
“Even with frequent rests you can walk there in one day—”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten the snow is three feet deep.”
“It’s packed down on the roads and it’ll get slushier by the day. Perhaps you’ve forgotten I put away winter clothes for you in the horse barn.”
Though I was loath to tell her, she truly was a genius.
“So, if I make it to Alexander Palace, I just walk right in?”
“The chapel is always unlocked. Go. Tell the tsarina what is happening. Come back with imperial guards.”
She made it all sound so simple, but we’d spent a year with no newspapers. Who knew the status of the