IT OCCURRED TO ETTA THAT perhaps the passage itself wasn’t cold; it was simply breathing out the frosty air of what lay on the other side of it.

She opened one eye slowly, half-amazed by the fact that she was still vertical. The passage had tossed them out at alarming speed after seeming to spin them head over heels, but…she’d landed. Landed solidly, as if she’d taken the jump out of it herself.

“There are you are,” a voice said over the rattling moan of the passage. There was a slight pressure on her wrist, and the shallow daze ripped away, jolting her back into the moment. Etta forced herself to take smaller breaths, sipping at the freezing air, cooling her lungs and pounding temples. At their backs, a wave of pressure burst from the passage, and she didn’t need to turn to know that the last two guards had finally come through it.

Etta swung her gaze around; when she’d traveled with Nicholas, she’d learned quickly enough that survival meant assessing her surroundings, determining the year, and figuring out how best to blend into the scenery. The lance of panic that went through her dissipated as her mind caught up to her instincts.

They had taken a passage on Russian Hill in San Francisco to Russia itself, which struck her as too big of a coincidence to be an actual coincidence. Her mind would never truly accept this, how her heels could be crunching through loose gravel one moment, then sinking into the soft earth of a forest in the next. But trees sheltered them from all sides, their leaves shot through with fiery shades of red and gold, and the silence of this place made it feel more like a memory she rediscovered than a moment.

To her left, jutting out of the glassy surface of the crawling river, was a rock formation that looked like something out of a dark kingdom, its jagged height like the remnant of a small watchtower.

That same dark stone had been used to construct the breathtaking bridge that rose high over the water in an almost perfect arc. Its spine looked as thin as a finger from her vantage point. The way it was settled into the earth, becoming part of the mass of life around it, made her wonder if it wasn’t just old, but ancient.

But what struck her most, what held her there in disbelief of its beauty, as the Thorns milled around, was the way the late-afternoon light reflected the image of the bridge into the water below.

“A perfect circle,” Henry said from beside her. “Two halves meeting, for a time, as a whole.”

Etta’s brows furrowed at that show of romanticism, but Henry had already directed his attention to a pinched-faced Winifred, who was working her way through the mass of assembled guards. She’d changed into a fur coat, and a hat that looked like some sort of enormous, exotic flower was about to eat her face.

“Sir, all of the preparations have been made,” she said. “He’s expecting you for dinner this evening.”

“He?” Etta asked, though she knew it was useless.

Winifred’s eyes flicked over at Etta, at Henry’s coat still wrapped around her shoulders. “I’ve procured a gown for her, if you’d like her to dine with you.”

“Excellent,” Henry said. “We’ll stop by the others’ hotel so that we can both change. I’m assuming you found an appropriate suit for me as well?”

“Of course,” Winifred said. “It was the very first thing we did after we confirmed the alterations had taken hold.”

“Any word from Kadir?”

The missing Thorn. Etta’s focus sharpened on the woman’s face, searching.

But Winifred shook her head, clearly troubled. “It’s likely he’s safe in the palace, and waiting for us to arrive.”

“Why, Aunt, that almost sounded optimistic,” Henry said with a knowing look to Etta.

“Otherwise,” the woman finished, “he’s dead and we’ll only be in time to collect his remains.”

“There it is,” Jenkins murmured nearby. “Can always count on her to douse the light of hope.”

Henry held out his arm to Etta, and once she’d taken it, they made their way toward the rough path that edged out from below the overgrowth of trees and bushes. Two of the guards jumped into place in front of him, leading the way. Etta found her feet naturally sinking into the footprints that already marked up the trail.

While not all of the Thorns had left San Francisco, an even dozen had gone ahead to make preparations for Henry’s arrival. Julian, to her surprise, had been escorted out with them. She’d caught sight of him being half dragged onto the street, trying to hide the decanter of brandy inside of his coat.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “I hope you don’t mind, but it’s a surprise—oh, no, I promise, it’s a welcome one. I simply want to see…I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, and an important place to my side of the family.”

A parent who shared with their child. What a novel concept. “As long as it doesn’t involve tigers. Or cobras.”

“Pardon?” he said, startled.

Winifred swept into the conversation with her usual awareness and tact. “Far be it from me to tell you what to do, Henry, but I worry—the girl has hardly been trained, and the stakes of this dinner will be so high—let me at least work with her for a few days.”

“There are no stakes. It is simply dinner with a friend,” Henry said. “I need you to take charge of searching the various rooms for Kadir and the astrolabe.”

The world darkened around them as the trees closed ranks over their heads and the sun continued its downward slide.

“What happens if he and the astrolabe aren’t here?” Etta asked, her boots squelching loudly through the mud. “What then?”

“I haven’t gotten past the prayer that he is here,” Henry said. “I’m curious, though, what would you do in my position?”

“Do you care what I think?” Etta asked.

He seemed confused by the question. “Would I have asked otherwise? I want to know your thoughts.”

Etta wanted to bask for a moment in the small, trembling warmth of that idea, but quickly stomped it down.

“The thoughts of a seventeen-year-old child,” Winifred said. “Really, Henry.”

But he wanted to know, and was plainly waiting. It made her feel…

Trusted.

When in her life had her mother ever stopped to ask her about her thoughts or feelings on something, without having already made the decision herself?

Even Nicholas. Even Nicholas had tried to take advantage of her trust, however halfhearted the attempt had been. He was overburdened with a guilty conscience, and was honorable in a way only the heroes of history and fiction seemed to be.

“Immediately start sniffing around any Ironwoods you can find,” Etta said. “Set off more alterations—as many as you can manage at once.”

Henry inclined his head toward her, considering this. “Ah. To lure Cyrus out with the astrolabe to fix them?”

Etta nodded. “Even if he didn’t bring it out into the open, you’d still split the Ironwoods’ attention. Meaning more chances to follow one of the Ironwoods back to wherever he’s taken up and find the astrolabe there.”

“Fortunately, we already have that information. He’s bought back his old home in Manhattan, eighteenth century. We’re having a damned time getting near to it with the British occupation, though.” He let out a thoughtful hum. “I had considered using the Ironwood yearling to lure him out to more open ground. We simply don’t have the manpower for what you’re describing, though it’s an excellent strategy otherwise.”

“An excellent thought,” Winifred said, picking up her pace to keep up with their long strides. “He has never brought anything to us to merit the kindness we’ve shown him. He’s a leech.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Henry said, with a fond look at Etta.

“That was pure luck,” Winifred groused.

“Well, it was certainly fortunate,” he agreed. “What did you make of him, Etta?”

“Julian?” she clarified, brushing a leaf from her hair. “He’s…” A brat, obnoxious, high on himself, rude. “…an Ironwood.”

“Was he untoward to you at all?” Henry asked carefully. “He’s a shameless flirt, but I judged him to be fairly toothless. Many of the Thorns feel he’s outstayed his welcome, and if it wasn’t for the happy serendipity of finding you, I daresay I might agree.”

“What do you mean, Julian’s outstayed his welcome?” she asked.

“You’ve more questions than sense, child,” Winifred muttered.

“He’s no longer able to provide information about Ironwood that we don’t already know,” Henry said. “Ironwood has taken a few of our travelers prisoner over the years, and I had considered trading Julian for them.”

“That’s probably the thing he’s most afraid of,” Etta told Henry. “Ironwood might actually kill him.”

A road emerged beyond the trees ahead of them. Within an instant of its appearance, streams of headlights swept over it, and two old-fashioned black cars rolled into place in front of the trees.

“You really think so?” Henry asked. “Everything is such a joke to him, I half expected his dalliance with us to be for amusement alone. Ironwood wouldn’t kill his heir, not when he needs him.”

“The astrolabe could be used to create new heirs, if he uses it to save his wife,” she pointed out.

“That was your mother’s theory, yes,” Henry said. “And a likely one.”

“Julian could have gone back to Ironwood at any point, especially when it became difficult to survive in hiding,” she continued, working out her own thoughts on the matter. “Instead, he came to his grandfather’s most hated enemy and betrayed him to you. He needed help, but he clearly felt like he needed protection, too. So I don’t know if you should send him back to Ironwood, but you could at least use that same fear to get some last important details out of him that he might not give you otherwise.”

He nearly beamed at her. Etta, again, had to fight the ridiculous glow her heart gave in response.

“Second most hated,” Henry said. “I daresay that honor belongs to your mother, and she’d skin me for taking that from her.”

Winifred let out a loud harrumph and released her hold on her nephew’s arm, charging forward to the first of the cars. The driver barely had time to jump out and open the door for her.

“I might have a better use for him, if tonight turns out the way I imagine,” Henry said as he wisely steered them toward the second car. He nodded to that driver. “Paul, how are the boys?”

Etta missed the man’s answer as she ducked inside the car and slid across the seat. Henry joined her after a moment, removing his hat and gloves.

“All the logic of the Hemlocks, without the ruthlessness of the Lindens,” he said, as he set both on the stretch of leather between them. The car dipped as one of the guards sat in the front beside the driver. “You’ll do very well indeed.”

As she settled into the warmth of the car and let it thaw her stiff skin, she passed his coat back to him. Henry folded it in his lap and turned his gaze out his window. Etta watched his face in its reflection, how the easy humor and brightness vanished like a flame blown out. He seemed to retreat into himself, leaving a look of severe contemplation as he touched the rose she hadn’t noticed he’d tucked into his lapel.

And Etta could picture it so clearly then, how the reflection of the bridge had disappeared in the water, leaving one half to wait to see its other self again.

THE CITY DWELT IN DARKNESS. THE ROAR OF THE ENGINE swallowed every other sound from the world outside her window, those streets cloaked in the gray evening haze. Etta felt she was watching a kind of silent movie. As the car rolled down a huge main thoroughfare—“Nvesky Prospeckt,” Henry explained—Etta had the sense they were slipping into St. Petersburg on the edge of someone’s shadow: uninvited, unwanted.

The light slush covering the ground was nearly indistinguishable from the sludge of garbage that lined the street’s gutters. The car jumped as it rolled over something—Etta craned her neck back, but saw only the tattered remains of a banner and two poles that were being dragged away by men in stark military uniforms. Her gaze followed their path to a courtyard where a bonfire raged. The cloth and wood were fed into it behind a wall of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, backlit by the flames. A few men and women lingered at the fringes of its glow, but the car sped by too quickly for Etta to see what they were trying to do besides stay warm.

The beautiful fa˚ades of the buildings that rolled by, with all of their glorious arches and domes, looked as though they’d been painted with jewels. It made the contrast of what was happening on the streets that much bleaker.

Etta leaned back against her seat, resenting the thick white fur coat Winifred had stuffed her into. The truth was, she burned with the desire to be herself, to see more clearly the points at which she and Henry might intersect. But dressed so grandly, wearing another creature’s skin, and still feeling the burn of Winifred’s crash course on period etiquette, she felt the pressure to let Etta slip away. To disappear into this false image of a lady.

Her dress was a thin, rose-pink silk sheath, cut straight and falling just above her ankles. The topmost layer was sheer, draping over her in scalloped tiers, each edged with the smallest bit of shimmering fringe.

Before they’d left the venue, Henry had handed her a pair of white gloves that stopped just above her elbow and a long strand of pearls, and had given Winifred some sort of diamond—hopefully crystal—barrette to affix in Etta’s hair. After an hour-long struggle, the woman, with the help of two other maids, had managed to wrestle Etta’s hair into something resembling finger waves, pinning the length of it up and under like a false bob. She’d be lucky not to find bald patches later that night when she finally got to take the pins out.

Etta wrung her hands in her lap, glancing around—at the driver, at Jenkins in the front passenger seat, at Henry. He had his gold pocket watch open again, but quickly snapped it shut. Etta caught a glimpse of the time: seven something. Way too early for there to be no other cars or carriages out on the street besides the ones that were parked, or those that looked more like tanks—clearly military. Here and there, a few scattered people moved by, ducking into shops or making their way home. It reminded her of the short time that she and Nicholas had spent in London during the Blitz; this scene had all the uneasiness of the last dying leaf on a branch, waiting to fall.

“Are we in the 1920s?” Etta asked, turning to look at Henry again. It was an obvious guess based on the cars, style of dress, and small touches of décor in the hotel.

He, however, had turned his head to look up at something the car was racing past—flagpoles?

“1919,” Jenkins offered, turning to speak to her through the partition. “It’s—”

“I thought the reforms had been passed,” Henry said, with an edge of anger. Jenkins and the other guard seemed equally startled by it. “Why does the city look this way?”

They’ve already broken from the original timeline, Etta realized. In some way, big or small, the timeline had altered enough that Henry no longer fully recognized some of the parts in the century’s great machine.

“Some socialist leader was imprisoned, caught red-handed in an assassination attempt on the minister of the interior,” Jenkins explained. “A small alteration, not nearly enough to cause a ripple, only a headache for our preparations. Rumor has it there are some of the old Bolsheviks out working people up about it, hence the military presence. Give it a day and it’ll pass.”

“Bolsheviks,” Henry muttered, pressing a hand to his forehead, “or Ironwoods?”

A single drop of sweat worked its way down the ridges of Etta’s spine.

“This isn’t the St. Petersburg you knew?” she pressed. “You seemed surprised by the state of the city.”

“It’s called Petrograd in this era,” he corrected, with his usual gentleness. “I am surprised to see the state of it, knowing the reforms to improve lives across the country had passed. Whatever messes have been made, we’ll clean them up while we’re here.”

The first tap against her window sounded like a rock kicked up from the road—it was the second hit that made her turn, just as a man launched himself out of the darkness of an alley and leaped over the sidewalk.

His arm craned back like a pitcher’s, and Etta gasped, instinctively cringing as a bottle hurtled toward the car, smashing against her window. Another man, a woman, more, surged out from the city’s cracks and crevices.

“Faster!” Henry barked, reaching into his jacket for a pistol.

“Trying!” the driver barked right back.

Another stone flew toward the web of cracks on her window, but she refused to be pulled down, to have her face pressed against the seat until she was nearly smothered by leather and flickering fear. Clattering, shattering, smashing. The whole car rocked with each hit.

Etta searched the buildings around them for more protestors. Up high, on top of a bakery, two cloaked shadows moved. As impossible as it was with the distance between the buildings, they seemed to easily make the flying leaps to keep pace with the car. There was a flash of silver, like a blade—

Or a gun.

This time, she yanked Henry back down with her as a gunshot—two—shattered her window, blowing shards of glass inside, over her head, along her back. Etta’s whole body jumped at each blast, one hand pinned beneath her, the other rising to cover her right ear.

The men up front were slinging words and orders to each other over her head. Etta fought to breathe, to sit up again, but the heavy weight of Henry’s arm kept her down until, finally, the shouting outside became muffled. The car wheezed and shuddered, but began to cruise faster.

She stayed in that same awkward position for the next ten minutes, until she felt the wheels of the car begin to slow. Henry released her, still swearing beneath his breath. Etta sat straight up, her vision black and spotty. She brushed small, sparkling pieces of glass from her coat and hair, watching, stunned, as they collected in her hand and lap like ice.

“Are you all right?”

Etta hadn’t realized Henry was speaking to her until he gripped her shoulder, almost to the point of pain, and turned her toward him to begin inspecting her. There was a small cut above his left brow, but he seemed otherwise fine.

“My God,” he was saying, “I’ll kill them myself.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Etta insisted. A cold wind blew up the back of her exposed neck through the opening in her window. “What was that all about?”

“Protestors,” Jenkins said. “Damn it all! We should never have taken Nvesky Prospeckt. But the palace assured us it would be safe. Sir, believe me—”

“The people on the roof—” she tried to say.

Henry held up his hand, still breathing hard as the car rolled through a gate and came to a slow, shuddering stop.

Several figures in suits and nondescript uniforms flowed out of a nearby building’s arched entryway. With a start, Etta opened the door and let herself out on unsteady feet, the glass spilling out around her feet, disappearing into the light smattering of snow. Her breath heated the air milk-white as she slowly tipped her face up.

They’d arrived at a building that was beyond imposing—ornate couldn’t begin to capture its presence. It was almost Baroque, the way the pale green fa˚ade was trimmed with gold. The building itself was massive, stretching on as far as her eyes could see in both directions. Statues of women and saints watched from the roof above, dusted with the same sooty snow. It had to be the palace.

The second car with Winifred, Julian, and another guard zipped up behind them a moment later, skidding to a stop in a similar state of disarray. Winifred all but rode out of the automobile on a wave of her own fury, bellowing, “Those beasts!”

Julian was close behind, looking far less angry and far grayer in the face. He raised his brows in Etta’s direction. Bumpy ride? he mouthed.

Etta’s brow creased as she looked away, back toward Henry, who had deigned to let Jenkins brush the remaining pieces of glass from his coat. Then an elderly man was at her side, clucking and cooing at her, bowing in a way that made Etta take a startled step back. The Russian came too fast and furious for her to find the three words in the language she actually knew.

The whirling activity seemed to still somewhat as Henry stepped up behind her and followed her gaze upward. His face softened, the stern line of his mouth relaxing, as if seeing an old friend.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the Winter Palace.”