“No; in fact, it was Anastasia who insisted. She was very ill; and she and Ivan both recognized that she was dying. He believed she was being poisoned by his enemies in the court—and indeed, it was proven not so long ago that she was indeed poisoned with mercury—and he was overcome with grief. But there was little they could do; she was already nearly gone.
“As the story goes, one day near the end, Anastasia called him to her and extracted a promise from him to protect the library; to hide it somewhere and keep it from the evil boyars at court.
“Although Ivan fairly fell apart after his tsarina’s death—indeed, that is when the stories of him banging his head against the floor, and eventually murdering his own son in a fit of rage, came to pass—he did fulfill his promise. He had the library carefully packed away, and sent it off on a secret ship up the Moskva River, to the Kara Sea, to a new land he had recently added to Russia’s vast acquisition: Siberia.
“Ivan of course always planned to come to this place where he had the library sent; in fact, he attempted to leave the throne several times before his death … but he always returned.”
Lev grew quiet and took several long sips from his cup, draining it.
“May I get you some more?” Marina asked, fascinated and titillated by the story, unwilling to believe such a thing could happen—yet surrounded by the evidence, how could she not accept it?
“Thank you, my child.” He smiled faintly. “I hope you do not mind that I call you that. I did not know of your existence until … recently.”
“I don’t mind.” No matter what his sons were, Marina found that she couldn’t extend her anger or fear toward this man who seemed to exude spirituality and serenity like none other.
She took his cup and moved to a small alcove he indicated, where she found a pitcher of the liquid he was drinking. She sniffed the dark concoction. It wasn’t water. Perhaps it was tea of some sort.
When she brought the cup back to him, he took it gratefully and smiled up at her. “Thank you.”
She sat back in her chair; yet her attention was drawn for a moment toward the cabinets. Marina could read some of those ancient languages; she wanted nothing more than to immerse herself in this room and study these texts.
Surely this was a dream.
“So Ivan never came back to his library? Is this where he had it sent?”
“It has moved several places in the last centuries; and in fact may well move again. But when Ivan sent it away from Moskva, he sent several scholars with it, and some of his trusted friends. And one man in particular he named responsible for the care of the library: a cousin of Anastasia Romanovna. His name was Leonid Aleksandrov.”
“You—we—are his descendants?” Marina understood, then, what her heritage was.
The protector, the keeper of this library. This priceless, miraculous, incredible library.
The treasure that could solidify her career. And keep her busy for decades.
“We are. And you are the last of us.”
“So I’m safe. But what about Gabe? Where is he?”
Before Lev could reply, a soft snick behind her and the knowing look on his face drew her attention to the heavy metal door.
“I see you have found your grandfather.”
It was Roman.
-36-
Marina had terrifying dreams that night.
Water crashing down on her, its blackness smothering her as it had when she nearly drowned in a small pond … Roman’s angry face, livid and stark and threatening. Books, manuscripts crackling with age, and then with uncontrollable fire, blazing hot and red … then morphing into images of Repin’s famous painting of Ivan the Terrible after he’d slaughtered his son, coming to life and blazoning her in the scarlet of blood … .Drums pounding, reverberating in a non-stop, hypnotic rhythm … .
When she finally awoke, she was drenched with sweat and she rolled off the couch, staggering to the toilet. She splashed water over her face and wished for a mirror.
Then she decided she’d rather not see the hollow eyes and sunken cheeks that would look too much like her father.
What had they done with Gabe?
Her fingers clenched over the side of the sink, which appeared to be made from some kind of shell-like material. After Roman had appeared in the library last night, he’d quickly escorted her back to her chamber, quashing any hope of her escaping from Lev.
Roman’s anger and annoyance had been ill-concealed by his manner and stance, but he spoke only respectfully to his father. And he said nothing further to Marina, save, “So you have learned the family secret, have you.” Then he took her back to her room.
Marina burned with questions she wanted to ask, and the glittering desire to touch those old books and see each one of them … it was a craving that hovered within her even as she struggled to focus on finding Gabe and getting him out of there.
How could she do both?
Get him out of there, and see the books?
That quandary presumed he was still alive.
That thought deadened her obsession with the library and Marina sank back onto her sofa-bed to think. She had to get out of this room. There had to be a way out.
She’d been asleep when Lev came in last night, but awake and aware when they left the room. How did he open the door?
She thought hard, focused, pinpointed her memory and came to the frustrating conclusion that the door had seemed to just open when it needed to.
Was there some kind of command? A sensor? A button … .in the floor?
Marina launched herself off the sofa and began scrabbling about the thickly-carpeted floor in the threshold area of the room. The floor covering reminded her of generous skeins of sheepskin, woven into a pattern; rather than a carpet with pile threads.
Nothing. No slight indentation; no raised bump upon which one could step.
She used her nails to pick the carpet away from where it met the walls, trying to tear it up to see what was underneath.
And then the door slid open.
At first, Marina thought she’d somehow been successful, but then she saw the pair of feet in front of her.
She looked up into the amused, surprised face of an attractive older woman.
Her first instinct was to tumble through the open door, right at the woman’s feet, but her brain was still foggy and she wasn’t quick enough. The door slid closed. The woman stood in her chamber.
“Looking for something?” she asked, not unkindly.
“My earring,” Marina replied with sarcasm, cursing herself for not reacting more quickly. She could have been through the door and down the hall before the woman picked herself up from the ground.
“My name is Stegnora.”
“What have they done with Gabe?”
Stegnora blinked as if surprised at her demand, her brilliant blue eyes showing a flicker of kindness. “He is alive, but not in the best of health.”
“I want to see him. Take me. There’s no reason to harm him.”
Stegnora looked at her as if trying to read her face, and Marina stared her back down. If she could at least see Gabe, have a sense of where he was, if—when—she got out of here, she’d know where to go.
The woman drew in a long breath, then released it. “I came only to meet you, Marina. Your appearance has both upset and delighted my—Roman. I will have to get his permission to take you from your room. But I will tell you this. I will visit him myself and see if there is anything I can do to make him more comfortable. And if you want him to remain alive, do not anger Roman. There is little chance that you might yet convince him to keep your … partner … alive.”
Roman planned to kill Gabe. “Then I’ll have to convince him. Tell me how.”
“Roman does not like Out-Worlders, and he will not take the chance that someone might discern our location, or interrupt his plans.”
“His plans. He hasn’t seen fit to divulge them to me, yet he indicated that I was somehow a part of it.”
“You are a part of it because you belong to us. We are committed to doing what is necessary to—”
The door behind Stegnora slid open.
Marina looked up, expecting to see Roman.
Instead, a tall man, very handsome and very angry, strode into the room. He was well over six feet by her judgment, and his close-cropped dark blond hair brushed forward to frame a high, Slavic forehead. Piercing green eyes scanned over her briefly then settled onto her companion.
“You have overstepped your bounds, Nora.” His words matched the harsh expression on his angular face. “If you have any common sense in that scientific, love-sopped mind of yours, get out of here now and do not come back.”
Nora scrambled to her feet, and shot a look at him that smacked of fear. Without another word, or even a glance at Marina, she hurried out of the room. The door swished closed behind her, and left Marina alone with a man that in any other circumstance, she’d be drooling over.
“And who are you? A long-lost brother of mine?” Marina pulled to her feet and, though he towered over her, she refused to be cowed.
He looked her over, head to toe, slowly and arrogantly, as though waiting for her to turn and show him all sides. “So you are the infamous Marina.”
“And you are?” She stood her ground, and gave him the same treatment, skating her gaze over his tanned face, broad chest, and well-formed legs hugged by pants tighter than any of the other Skaladeskas wore. He had a wide, sensual mouth that at this moment held the barest curve of an arrogant smile, and deeply-cut dimples that might have made another man look soft or feminine, but on this man merely made him more masculine.
“Rue Varden. And no, I am not your brother.”
“How do you get that door open?” she asked suddenly.
He turned to look behind him. Apparently he saw the ripped up rug, because he turned back and grinned sardonically. “Ah, I see you’ve been trying to find a way out of here. Well, a little hint for you: the only way to open the doors in these … visitor chambers is through a radio-controlled key. Like this.” He held out his hand, and the sleeve of his shirt slid back, revealing what looked like a wrist-watch. Slim, brushed metal of silver cupped his wrist, and the top sported a small screen and three buttons.