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Yuri Zhukovski told his people to give Alix breakfast. He’d gone at her for hours. Now he was satisfied that she had nothing more to tell him. He just had to decide what to do with her next. He would use her to get what he needed. It was simply a matter of how.

The servant said nothing as she went into the room, but her presence was enough to wake Alix from a fitful sleep that was really nothing more than a semiconscious doze. She winced as she propped herself up and watched the servant carry the tray toward her. The restraints that had tied her were gone, but the bruises showed up inky blue against the skin on her wrists and ankles. There’d been violence too, and the memories of what he’d done to her were as vivid as the welts on her body.

She looked at the servant, another Russian, as she placed the tray on the table beside the bed. The woman’s face was masked in the mute, dead-eyed blankness that had disguised the true feelings of a thousand generations of serfs. But Alix could still feel the contempt radiating off her.

She collapsed back onto the bed. She knew she had to eat, she just didn’t have enough strength left to lift the food to her mouth. Later, she thought. Later, maybe she’d try again.