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Chapter Twenty-One
The Winter Palace – The Chapel of the Mournful
5:05 PM
“Please don’t tremble,” Nicky said. “Everyone is so preoccupied with the ball that they won’t
even notice we are missing.”
She was indeed trembling, so violently that her small pearl earbobs bounced against her
cheeks. She had run through the rain from the palace to the chapel, which, just as he described, stood
free and separate from the Winter Palace and was surrounded by a graveyard. Nicky had been
waiting for her there, his thin frame pressed inside the enclave and he held out his hands as she
approached, pulling her under the protection of the arch.
“Come in,” he said, refusing to release her and thus reduced to awkwardly pushing against the
door with his shoulder. “It’s the last place they’ll look.”
She entered the chapel, then, after a quick look around to make sure neither of them had been
followed, he went in behind her. The room was terribly dark, but from what she could see, the
wooden floor and plain glass windows reminded Alix of the humble country churches of Germany.
She turned to him in wonder.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Shall we light a candle?”
She nodded and tiptoed to the altar where a box of the thin white tapers lay. When she had
safely reached the table he closed the door, and they were engulfed in gloom.
“Here’s one for my mother,” she said, striking a match and bringing it to the ragged strip of
cotton at the top, then pushing the candle into the pile of sand. “And I must add one for my sister and
my brother.”
Nicky moved beside her. She has had much loss for one so young, he thought. His parents and
his siblings were all alive, a condition which suddenly struck him as blessed and rare.
“For my grandfather,” he said solemnly, picking up a candle of his own. “I pray I will be even