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I felt paradoxically better when Vera and Taisiya reacted with shock and horror.
“Who would do such a thing?” Vera asked. “That’s horrible.”
“Is everyone alright?” Taisiya asked.
“Avenel and Kliment were hurt,” I said, “but they’re alright now. The attacker was someone Sebald knows. His motivations were…hazy.” Actually, they were crystal clear, but I wasn’t in a mood to explain a bunch of messy romantic entanglements between men to my little sisters. “It means that everyone is just a little out of sorts, and we all just want to stay close to our loved ones for a bit.”
Maybe it was spiteful of me, considering my mother’s view on things, but I felt like Vera and Taisiya were so close to being won over that I shifted to hold Genny in my arms, his back to my chest. I rested my cheek against the side of his head and gave myself a moment to feel the two of us together, our hearts beating as one.
My mother clearly tried not to react to what she saw as disgusting, but Vera and Taisiya appeared to melt a little.
“That’s awful,” Taisiya said. “Who would do something like that?”
“We should send parcels down to the cottage so everyone can eat,” Vera said. “Like we did last night. The delegates might not be able to have lunch with us here, but we still have a responsibility as hosts to make sure they’re taken care of.”
I smiled. Vera might have been the youngest of us, she might have been a child still in the days when our father was duke, but she had the makings of the strongest leader of us all.
“Honestly, I think everyone would like that,” I said. “I’m sure Jorgen and Hati are still down at the cottages, and I believe Magnus, Peter, and Neil were heading there as well.”
And if everyone in the palace was suddenly busy packing up a feast of a lunch and carrying it down to the cottages, they would stay far away from Sai, Donnel, and Amos as they disposed of Hadrian’s body.
Except, shit, there was a dead body in back of one of the cottages too.
“I can run down to the cottages right now and let them know you’re bringing everything,” I said. Genny tensed in my arms, which told me he’d felt my body tighten at the realization of what we were facing.
“Yes,” Vera said, looking like she would take charge of everything. “You do that. Mama,” she turned to our mother, “you know this is the right thing to do. We need to be good hosts, no matter what turn things have taken.”
“I don’t think the meetings are over entirely,” I said, even though I really didn’t have a clue. “We’ll probably pick everything up again tomorrow. I know Magnus really wants to give the palace staff a chance to show how magnificent they can be.”
And if he knew what was good for him, for all of us, he’d make sure there was some sort of huge banquet, or even a ball, as much as I hated those, before we all left. It was too bad that we would probably leave as fast as we could now.
“That sounds reasonable,” Taisiya said, glancing timidly between me and our mother, as if she might have to intervene in a fight. “Doesn’t it, Mama?”
Several long, tense moments followed as my mother and I stared each other down. I wanted to argue with her that she was being stubborn. I wanted to explain the logic behind why it was in her best interest to get over her prejudices and disappointments to accept the wolves. I wanted to beg for her to love me again the way she had when I was just a boy, before she knew who and what I was.
The best I could do was to let go of as much of my emotion as possible, sigh, and say, “Please, Mama. You know this is the best way.”
Another few anxious moments passed until Mother finally gave up, wilted a little, and said, “Very well. I will tell Victor to organize the servants to take things down to the cottages.”
She turned and walked off without saying anything else to me.
That left me standing there with Genny and my little sisters.
“I’m sorry she’s being so stubborn,” Vera said.
I laughed humorlessly. “She’s a Rozynov. We’re all stubborn. It runs in the family.”
“I don’t really understand any of this,” Taisiya said with a long-suffering sigh. She peeked at Genny, then looked up at me. “You’re different, but you’re not different. I always thought you’d marry Manya when you were of age.” She looked at Genny again. “But I like Gennadi. He seems very nice.”
Coming from most other people, those words would have been faint praise, but considering how far Taisiya had come in such a short time to be able to say them, they meant a lot.
“Thanks,” I said. I kissed the side of Genny’s face, then said, “I’m sure Genny is grateful too. It’s been a tough day for us, though. We really need to get back to the cottages to warn them everyone is coming.” And for more reasons than my sisters knew.
“You should go then,” Vera said, gesturing toward the door. We started to go, but she stopped us again with, “Would you mind if…if Taisiya and I came down to have lunch with you?”
My face lit up at the idea…about three seconds before I remembered yet again that there was a dead body waiting at the place where my sisters wanted to go. I desperately wanted to spend time with them, though. My mother wasn’t going to come around anytime soon, but I could still have a connection with my sisters.
That seemed to be the entire theme of the meetings. The original purpose of it all just wasn’t going to happen, but we would all be able to build something out of the rubble of our hopes and expectations coming into the thing.
“Alright,” I said, smiling and trying to be casual. “But give us a little bit of time. When Genny and I left, the other pups were still upset. I don’t want to upset them even more without warning them what’s about to happen.”
“We’ll come down with the food,” Taisiya said, smiling with relief.
Even though it was dangerous for my sisters to linger around the cottages, given what had happened, I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t incredibly happy to spend time with them. I could tell from the softness in Genny’s tired face that he was actually happy too, even though he was struggling. If the others weren’t happy to see my sisters, they’d have to answer to me.
But we really did need to figure out what to do with Barthold’s body before anything else happened.
