Chapter 1: The Last Dinner I

_Tatiana_ 

If everything went according to plan, this would be one of my last dinners inside these walls.

Julian had poured months into finding a way through Father's security. I'd witnessed every failed attempt with a mixture of dread and hope, each defeat revealing something useful. Three nights from now, if luck finally chose my side, if I didn't lose my nerve and Father didn't somehow already know, I would step beyond the estate without permission for the first time in my life, and the thought made me want to run toward the gate or back to the safety of my room.

By the time dinner started, I'd already read three chapters under the table.

The worn paperback rested against my thigh, its pages slightly curled from how many times I'd devoured it. Mother noticed the moment she reached for the bread basket. Her eyes narrowed with a flash of displeasure.

"Tatiana, put down the book. Haven’t I told you dinner is not the place for your novels."

I sighed sighed, my shoulders sagging like a tragic heroine.

"I was hoping you'd forgotten. One more page? Raskolnikov is in the middle of a moral crisis."

"Don’t forget, I raised you. I know every one of your tricks."

"I had to try."

I slid the novel onto the table beside my plate, treating it with far more care than the expensive china beneath it.

Father glanced at the cover.

"Dostoevsky. Again? The man writes about murder and moral decay. I simply don’t understand how you find it comforting. Don't you get bored after reading it more than four times?"

"You don't get bored of Crime and Punishment, Father. You get bored of company that doesn't understand it." I rested my chin on my palm. "He maps why people become who they become. Isn't that the interesting part? Anyone can pull a trigger. Understanding why someone wanted to is much harder."

"You sound," Father said, cutting another piece of lamb, "as though you sympathize with monsters."

"People," I corrected. "Monsters are names we give people after we've decided we don't want to understand them."

Father's mouth twitched. Mother hid a smile behind her wineglass. The crystal chimed softly as she lowered it onto the table. She reached over and moved the book another inch away from my plate, as if that single inch might finally win the argument. "Comforting or not, it stays closed until dessert."

The dining room had always felt absurdly large. Twenty people could have eaten there without touching elbows. Five of us disappeared among fresh roses, and enough cutlery to perform surgery. I still wasn't entirely sure what half the forks were for.

The curtains stayed drawn every evening. Father said they kept curious eyes out. Sometimes I wondered if they were meant to keep mine in.

Uncle Mikhail cleared his throat.

"Tatiana, your father and I discussed your request again this morning. You cannot attend a university. It’s not safe."

"Even with an escort?"

"You have even more experienced tutors attending to you already. The university will only draw you back."

I looked from him to Father. “Papa, please.” It’s pointless begging, yet I thought if I tried just one more time, maybe I’d get my wish. The silence stretched longer than it should have.

Father had set down his knife against the rim of his plate with a soft clink and looked at me. Uncle Mikhail had gone quiet too, reaching for his bread without eating it.

For a minute there, I let myself believe.

I kept my voice careful. "Just one semester. I wouldn't need to tell anyone who I was. Julian told me he could arrange the enrollment quietly." I watched Father's face rather than his hands. "I'm not asking for too much, Papa."

Mother's lifted her crystal wineglass to er lips. Aunt Sofia had stopped laughing.

Father picked up his knife.

"No, Tatiana."

I looked down at Dostoevsky beside my plate and said nothing.

Three more days.

“No.” Father shook his head.

"But it’s not fair. You all leave whenever you want."

"The world outside these walls is uglier than you imagine. Your father has enemies. We don’t want anything bad to happen to you."

The same answer every time and what did that say about me? I was twenty-two years old and had never bought my own coffee. I'd never wandered through a bookstore, never stood in line for anything.

People wrote novels about extraordinary lives. I would have traded mine for an ordinary Tuesday without thinking twice.

"Books are safer company anyway," Uncle Mikhail continued, "what would you do out there that you can't do here?"

"They're wonderful companions," I agreed, my voice warm with genuine affection. "They've carried me to more places than anyone else ever has, lives entirely unlike my own." I paused, the realization settling over me with irony. "Although, come to think of it, I have never actually been anywhere at all."

Aunt Sofia's laughter rang out full and bright, filling the room around us.

"You could be recognized by the wrong people." Father said with a sigh.

I searched his face. The lines around his eyes looked deeper than they had a week ago.

"What people, Papa? You never tell me anything"

He reached for his wine without answering.

"We're protecting you," Mother said softly.

More like punishing me. My parents’ protection had become another word for no. Father picked up his knife again.

"Eat."

"Yes, sir." I saluted with exaggerated seriousness beneath the table.

Just three more days. Then I'd finally discover whether the world beyond our gates was as dangerous as my family claimed or whether freedom had simply frightened them more than it frightened me.