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“Then perhaps this particular egg should be given to the baby’s father,” Tom said.
“Ah, yes” said Ella. “Yes, perhaps you are right. But see here, this part is clever. You press
the panel on the other side and, just like this, our golden hen is gone.”
“So it is a trick,” Tom said.
“I suppose a trick is precisely what it is,” Ella said with a shrug, as she carelessly rolled the
egg back into the blue velvet cloth and replaced it in Tatiana’s bureau drawer. “But it is a pleasing
one, is it not?
The Streets of St. Petersburg
3:54 PM
“You seem to work rather lenient hours.”
Davy looked at Vlad out of the corner of his eye. Was this a challenge? Were they onto him
somehow? “The Queen does most of her paperwork in the morning,” he said. “Any correspondence
she sends is likely gone by early afternoon.”
“Lucky for you, I’d say.”
“Are you about to tell me that the work of a revolutionary is never done?”
To Davy’s relief, and somewhat to his surprise, Vlad laughed. He was such a serious sort that
Davy found it hard to tell when he would accept a joke on face value and when it might prickle his
sensibilities. The two young men were walking in a rather indirect fashion toward the Volya meeting,
a stroll which Davy was enjoying, since it gave him the opportunity to see more of the city. The
streets of St. Petersburg were broad and beautiful, with space between the buildings and a more
modern sense than one found in London. This openness is what you get when you build a city from
scratch rather than letting it evolve over centuries, Davy thought, trying to remember all that Emma
had told them on their lectures at sea. She had unleashed a torrent of facts on their heads in a matter
of days and Davy doubted that a fraction of it had truly sunk in to any of them. He wondered if Emma
would be willing to tutor him on history when they returned to London, but at a more civilized pace,
perhaps one evening a week in Geraldine’s parlor. It would be embarrassing to ask her, an admission