Anastasia burst into the room, followed by Olga and Tatiana.

"We really can't thank you enough, your highness. I am Tatiana, and these are my sisters, Olga and Anastasia. You've already met Maria, I see."

"Please, call me Alek. And this is my wife, Deryn."

After another round of handshaking, they all sat down to dinner.

"So how was your trip?" asked Deryn. They were speaking in English, and Deryn's Scottish accent was the most interesting sound Maria had ever heard.

"It was wonderful after we arrived in Austria—Hungary," said Tatiana.

"I'm sorry you had to arrive in the middle of Prague. I'm sure you would have preferred somewhere more private," said Alek.

"Not at all! It was glorious to be around so many people after such a long time!" exclaimed Maria, with uncharacteristic effusiveness.

"The only thing we didn't like were those black dresses," said Anastasia, and Olga tried to kick her under the table, except she missed and kicked Maria instead.

Deryn laughed at this.

"I saw those things before they left Vienna. I really did try to get you something more modern, but the Empress was quite insistent. Aren't they ugly?"

"Very," said Anastasia, and the Grand Duchesses nodded in agreement.

"So how long will we be here?" asked Maria. "I don't mean to be rude, of course, but Captain von Werther said he would come in a few days to escort us to whichever relatives decide to take us in."

"You should only be here for a few days. From what we heard in Vienna, King George in England is most likely to accept you," said Alek.

"It's dead rotten of everyone to be treating you like this, though. They've been negotiating for months not only with the Bolsheviks, but with each other. You're not going to be given any choice as to where you go," said Deryn, playing with a piece of broccoli on her plate.

"We're just happy to be free. Anywhere is better than Siberia."

Dinner was actually more fun than Maria expected. Everyone was friendly and relaxed, and that attitude persisted during her entire stay at Konopischt, which lasted almost a week. She and her sisters talked with Deryn and Alek like they were old friends, and she appreciated that they sympathized with her, and not pitied her. She couldn't stand to be pitied.

Maria also marveled at Deryn. She had never seen a woman fly an aeroplane before, much less and archduchess, or wear trousers like any man. When the occasional swear word slipped out of her mouth, she didn't seem to be embarrassed.

Word came five days into the visit that the Grand Duchesses would be leaving for England. After two days of furious shopping and packing (they had sold some of their jewels so they could look presentable), they took a zeppelin from Prague to Paris.

Alek and Deryn came to see them off from the military base where the zeppelin departed. Maria and her sisters watched as the two waving figures became as small as ants as they ascended into the air.

They were transferred from the zeppelin to a hydrogen breather at Paris, and were welcomed at Buckingham Palace by their distant relative King George V, who invested them with titles and land, which would provide them with incomes, and warmly welcomed them into the royal circle.

Two months later, their Grandmother arrived from Copenhagen.

"My darlings!" she cried, hobbling over to them. The Revolution had aged her prematurely, too, and there were more wrinkles on her face than Maria had ever seen.

"Grandmother!" all the girls cried at once, enveloping her in a hug as large as a fabricated bear.

"How was your time at Konopischt?" asked their Grandmother one day. "Were you scandalized by the Archduchess?"

She clearly expected them to be so, and none of the girls offered an opinion, except Maria.

"I thought she was perfectly lovely."

"Thank goodness you didn't stay long. Konopischt is where royals go when they want to be forgotten."

"It was much better than Siberia, Grandmama," smiled Maria, looking over her grandmother's wizened shoulder at a smart count dressed in his military uniform.

The End. Thank you everyone for reading!

Leviathan Series (c) Scott Westerfeld.