Status Updates From The Shadowed Spring

Oh no! I rolled my eyes as this little mystery ala Murder on the Orient Express turned into a 1950's era romance novel for a chapter. I hope that fades into the background and let the murders continue!!!

This is good but not unputdownable. yet.

No-o-o! Not-you?

Well, color me surprised.

As I rose to my feet, the silence was shattered by the deafening sound of a shot. And then another.

Oh noes...

So-our host was the less desirable of the two O-----s; not the handsome and dashing guards officer, but the mad inebriate who was reputed to sleep in his own coffin.

First view of the room in the remote castle our merry band has been escorted to:

The heads of deer, bison, and wildebeests;lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar...But pride of place-the longest and lowest rank that ran at eye level as far as one could discern-was given to the wild boar:hundreds of the fierce risked heads, all with eyes that reflected the candlelight and seemed to follow one.

We are used to living with the threat of assassination, we Romanoffs. The bomb, the pistol, the knife, poison-they are the constant companions of our nightmares.

There's someone outside the window, and I think...Oh, my God-that was a gunshot!

Dun dun dun dun. Who's next to be murdered?

As for killing the creature, even a policeman would realize that a Romanoff would never descend to the vulgar occupation of executioner. Not when for over three hundred years it has been necessary for us to do nothing but nod - and the sentence is carried out.

As I've said before, there's someone on that train who isn't quite whom he or she appears to be.

There's someone on that train, some person - or persons - with a malevolent intent. Some who - who isn't maybe, quite what he or she appears to be.

Dun dun dun dun.

I was a newcomer to the business of having a princess for a friend - but learning fast.

…on a mission of great delicacy to the Star of All the Russias, one did not leave His Imperial Majesty's favorite niece sitting in a railway yard.

Upper class she might be, haughty lady she might be, but Miss Augusta Scrase snored like any fishwife.Gonna be a long train ride to St. Petersburg...

We are journeying to St. Petersburg to save the peace of Europe.

Miss Herbert, you are an embarrassment to me, and I frankly confess that I don't know what to do with you.

-he looked down the table to where Felicity was sitting, her delicately pretty face wearing the expression of a kitten that has made free with a whole bowl of cream-

Bitch.

The year 1878, which was the year all these things happened in my life, began like any other for me; bland and quin unpromising.