The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

She was the most exquisite creature Wynn had ever beheld. Svetlana spun across the White Bear’s floor, every step and line of her body a sweep of elegance that held him mesmerized. He braced an arm against the back wall as his heart nearly thudded from his chest. Her shell had cracked off to reveal the breathtaking life within, and he felt sole witness to its emergence.

When she twirled to a stop and dipped into a deep curtsy on a cloud of feathers, applause exploded around him. The spell broke and suddenly he was surrounded by people once more.

Her movements stilled, he saw her face. A black lace mask hid most of it, but not enough to obscure the whiteness of her lips and clenching of her jaw. Not a look he expected after hearing her describe what dance did to her. Then again, she carried the weight of a thousand worries on her slim shoulders. If he could help relieve merely one of them, he would.

She disappeared behind the stage, and Wynn edged his way through the throng of patrons clamoring to the dance floor as the band swung into a more lively tune. Several of the familiars spotted him and waved to get his attention. Wynn ignored them. He was in no mood for goiters or suspicious bunions tonight.

“Mac!” Leonid’s voice cut through the cigarette haze.

Wynn followed the sound and spotted his friend standing at the far side of the room next to an empty booth. He weaved his way over.

“Good to see you, but I can’t stop. I came to see Svetlana.”

“She changing. We wait here.” Leonid slid into the red cushioned booth and gestured for Wynn to do the same. “Her I walk home. She find me.”

Eyes anxiously glancing to the curtain, Wynn took a seat. It wouldn’t do to barge in on her in the dressing room. She’d avoided him for days, refusing his money and claiming she had her situation in hand. The lie had danced between them long enough.

“You and Angel speak again, da? Khorosho. I no like friends argue. I no choose sides.”

“I’m glad. I feared you’d choose her over me, and I’d be out a chess partner.”

“She prettier you.”

“Can’t argue that.”

Leonid leaned forward, all traces of humor gone. “Must take care. She not do well.”

Wynn’s gaze darted to the curtain as a tightness constricted his chest. “I know. Her sister has been in hospital for over a week, and tensions are strained in that infectious hovel they’re staying in. I want to get her and her family out.” He didn’t mention the stolen property. If he hadn’t been standing there to overhear it, he doubted she would have told him.

Glancing over his shoulder, Leonid leaned forward until his chest nearly touched the tabletop.

“Greater danger.” His eyes darted over Wynn’s shoulder, then back. “Happenings . . . around.”

Wynn tensed on immediate alert. “What danger?”

“Hear things. See things. Russian things.”

“Are the Bolsheviks in Paris?”

“Papochka no involve politics, but turn blind eye to all with money. Angel need get out.” He stared pointedly at Wynn, pinning him with the answer. Svetlana’s living nightmare. That which had destroyed her world and sought her death had followed her.

The curtain rustled and applause exploded over the dancing music. Svetlana bobbed through the crowd as adoring fans rushed around her. She broke free and tore to the exit.

Leonid fumbled from the table. “Angel! Wait! I walk you.”

“I got her.” Wynn shoved through the crowd, not caring how many he knocked down in his haste. They were too drunk to protest.

Outside, he scanned up and down the footpath. Where could she have gotten to so quickly? Heel clicks sounded on the pavement. He took off running left. Her hair made a bright spot against the inkiness of midnight and shadowy buildings. In a matter of seconds, he closed in on her and reached for her hand. With a wrangled sob, she yanked away from him and shouted in French.

“Calm down. It’s me.”

Her face was bleached in terror and tears ran down her cheeks. With another strangled sob, she covered her face with her hands. Tiny cries shook her body. Moving on instinct, Wynn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He could feel the delicate bones beneath her thin coat and the flutter of her lashes as her face pressed into his neck.

Did she know about the Bolsheviks? If so, why appear so publicly? Why would Sheremetev plaster a poster outside the White Bear advertising the Ice Swan, a beacon to her enemies? Wynn could kill the man with his bare hands. That is, if he could get his hands around that fat neck.

Svetlana pulled away abruptly. Blinking rapidly, her gaze darted up and down the dark street shooting through the heart of Little Neva.

“I must go. I must leave.”

“Where? That’s the wrong direction for hospital and the church.”

“I must go. I must leave here.”

She was in shock. He grasped her face, forcing her to focus on him, then lowered his hands to rest on her shoulders, grounding her. If the Bolsheviks were sniffing around as Leonid claimed, they might go straight to those places in search of her.

“Where would you feel most safe?”

Her eyes came into focus as a single tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away. “I . . . the stage, but that’s not . . .” She looked back to the White Bear, then quickly away. “The gardens of the Blue Palace. There were roses in summer.”

Anchoring his arm around her, he led her across the deserted street with its shuttered cafés and butcher shops long since deprived of meat and headed west toward Parc Monceau. It wasn’t a palace, but it was the best he could manage in the circumstances. Curfew was still in effect, but the city had grown eerily quiet as half its citizens were struck down by influenza. The other half were left to care for them and the incoming wounded soldiers.

With the Germans losing ground on the frontlines, they had little ability or strength left to summon for night raids. A fact Wynn didn’t take for granted as the full moon and shower of stars offered a brilliant amount of light by which to guide bombers to unsuspecting targets. Instead, he used it to navigate the formal pathways with overgrown shrubberies and lonely statues of writers and musicians toward the pond, half flanked by a classical colonnade. He guided Svetlana to a wrought iron bench nestled between the columns and pulled off his wool coat, wrapping it around her. Having grown up in Scotland, the early November air did little more than brisk his skin.

They sat quietly staring at the dance of moonlight off the pond’s still surface.

“Do you feel safe now?” He kept his voice low and even, careful not to rattle her. An effective bedside method.

She reached for his hand. “Yes.”

Wynn didn’t move lest he disturb the fragile touch. Her hand was cold in his, as if her long fingers were carved of ice. “Where is the Blue Palace?”

“My family’s home in Petrograd. So called for the way the winter light turns the walls to pale blue. We had the most dazzling blooms in all the city, and I could sit there for hours in the quiet.”

The musty scent of dry leaves clinging to dead branches and scraggly plants left unattended in the years of war were a far cry from palace roses, but the area was peaceful as the earth slowly reclaimed man’s version of nature. In all the years his family had holidayed in Paris, they’d never visited this park, preferring the Jardin des Tuileries and Jardin du Luxembourg or Mother’s favorite stretching from that Eiffel Tower tangle of metal. Bit of a marvel he was only stepping foot here now, but the occasion was gratifying. It was a place where he held a memory of no other but of her and him.

“Why did you run out of the club?”

Her hand slipped from his and she tugged up the collar of his coat. He didn’t take it as a rejection, merely a move to settle into a defensive position like a soldier adjusting his armor.

“Sheremetev offered to cancel my family’s debt and provide security by offer of marriage.”

“No.” His harsh answer tore out in a contorted growl of disbelief and anger. He didn’t care how fat the man’s neck was, Wynn would strangle him if he ever laid eyes on the dog again. To blazes with his oath to do no harm.

“He spins a compassionate tale of rescuing the maiden in distress, but it’s the title and money he’s after. A princess of the proud Dalsky line would provide prestige that his own name, powerful as it is, cannot acquire. As his wife I would be forced to continue dancing to bring in waves of rich patrons. He has taken the thing I love and turned it against me.” Her voice was flat. Emotional detachment. A common response to shock and one she handled with practiced skill. “Tonight I watched him sanction the beating of a man begging for his life by thugs wearing red armbands. Do you know what red represents in Russia?”

Wynn clenched his hands as rage poured into his veins, hot and vindictive. “I can guess.”

“Then you know what I failed to see before. They were there all the time. They are here. No matter how far I ran or what I’ve done, they have found me.”

“I won’t let them hurt you. Do you understand? I will keep you safe.”

“Safe?” She laughed bitterly and swiped at an errant tear. “No one is safe from a man like Sheremetev. He may not be political enough for a Bolshevik, but I believe he’s part of the criminal sect Black Claw. Importing and exporting opioids, weapons, prostitution rings, laundering of money, and other illegal activities. His connections are like poisonous vines crawling beneath the surface on which we walk. At his will the vines shoot through the dirt and twist at our ankles, dragging us into his lair. No one can stop him.”

Jerking off the bench, Wynn paced as he fought to keep a string of curses silent. Every blood vessel throbbed with anger.

“You cannot marry that monster.”

“Do you know what he offered me? A ruby ring red as blood. It may as well have been as it was pried from the dead tsarina’s finger after she was executed along with her family in a filthy basement by a group of Red soldiers. Men of whose ilk he allows to plot in his club.” She pulled down the corner of his coat collar to reveal bruises on her jaw in a distinctive handprint. “He has fed on my fears and closed the circle around me.”

“You cannot marry him.”

“He will feed me to the Bolsheviks if I do not comply. It seems I have no other option.”

He squatted before her. “There’s one. Marry me.”