agreed that it had been a mistake, that they would simply pretend that the night hadn’t happened. They
hadn’t spoken much since then. While he’d suspected that one day her professional savvy would be
useful, he’d never imagined that he would be coming to Vera about Evangeline.
Verlaine stared at Vera, watching her move. She was as beautiful and brutally elegant as he
remembered, but to his surprise he could not recall what it had been like to be with her in bed, what
her body had felt like next to his. He could only summon forth the sensation of holding Evangeline,
her presence like a vortex of white-blue snow, swirling and dancing around him as he tried to catch
it.
Vera, however, hadn’t forgotten a thing: She suddenly turned to Verlaine, giving him a hard look,
one that conveyed curiosity and complicity at once, and then glanced from Verlaine to Bruno.
Registering that she and Verlaine weren’t alone, she assumed the expression of a disinterested
colleague.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet us on such short notice,” Bruno said.
“It was quite a surprise to get your call.” Vera shook Bruno’s hand and gestured for them to sit at
one of the tables. “Please, tell me what I can do to help you.”
“I’m not entirely sure if you can help,” Bruno said.
“Actually,” Verlaine said, cutting in, “we’re hoping you can give us some information.”
“With pleasure.” Vera moved her eyes over Verlaine until he felt his stomach turn. Details of their
night together were beginning to come back to him.
Without trying to explain, he removed the jeweled egg from his pocket and turned it in his fingers
as if it were a Rubik’s cube. With each twist of his wrist, he struggled to forget that this egg had been
in Evangeline’s hands only hours before, and that the Nephilim had likely abducted her in hopes of
obtaining it.
Vera took the egg from Verlaine, lifting it as if it might explode in her hand. “My God. Where did
you get this?”
“You recognize it?” Bruno asked, clearly surprised by the intensity of her reaction.
“Yes.” Her expression softened as she grew thoughtful. “It’s Fabergé’s Cherub with Chariot Egg,
made in 1888 for Empress Maria Feodorovna.” Vera ran her fingers over the enamel and, with expert
movements, opened the egg, moving the hinges apart so that the golden mechanism creaked. As she
removed the chariot and cherub figurine, Verlaine stepped behind her and examined it over her
shoulder. The workmanship was exceptional: The sapphire eyes, the golden hair—every detail of the
cherub had been perfectly rendered.
“What does it say on the sash?” Bruno asked.
“Grigoriev,” Vera said, reading the letters painted in Cyrillic. She paused, considering the word.
“The patronymic of Grigori, meaning son of Grigori.”
Verlaine couldn’t help but think of Evangeline’s connection to the Grigoris: As the granddaughter
of Percival Grigori, she was a descendant of one of the most vicious Nephilim families on record. “Is
it possible that the egg could belong to the Grigori family?”
Vera gave him a weary look. “Grigori is an extremely common name in Russia.”
Bruno rolled his eyes. “It’s just a piece of tsarist bling, a nicely made bauble. Nothing deeper than
that.”
“I don’t agree with your aesthetic sensibility,” Vera said. “Fabergé’s eggs are exquisite objects,
almost perfect in their lack of practicality, whose sole purpose was to delight and surprise the
recipient. Their seemingly impermeable exterior cracks to reveal another egg and then, at the center
of this egg, a precious object, the surprise. The eggs are the most pure expression of art for art’s sake:
beauty that reveals only itself.”
Verlaine liked the way Vera stood when she spoke, her posture that of a ballet dancer midstep, one
arm moving with her voice, as if her ideas had been choreographed to match the rhythm of her body.
Perhaps sensing the intensity of Verlaine’s gaze, she changed her stance.
“Go on,” Bruno said.
“The first Imperial Easter egg was constructed by Peter Carl Fabergé for the Russian tsar in 1885,
and delighted Empress Maria Feodorovna, who had seen similar creations in her childhood at the
Danish court. Fabergé was commissioned to create a new and original egg each year. The jeweler
was given the artistic license to design the eggs according to his imagination, and, as you can
probably guess, they grew more elaborate—and more expensive—with time. The only requirement of
Fabergé was that there must be a new egg each Easter and that each must contain a surprise.”