The woman wrinkled her nose. "What?"
Dmitry blinked, still stunned by the woman's resemblance to Anastasia. She was staring at him quizzically, her head cocked to one side. Vlad was staring at him too. Dmitry tried his best to wipe the shocked look from his face and appear casual.
"Vlad, give me the lamp so I can light the fireplace again," he said. His friend gave him a dubious look but handed the lamp over. Dmitry turned his back to the two other people in the room, thankful that it was still somewhat dark in the room. He took his time placing new logs in the fireplace and lighting them.
"So, what brings you here my dear?" He heard Vlad ask behind him.
"I need papers to get to Paris. I was told to come here and ask for Dmitry."
"And what makes you think Dmitry can help you?" Dmitry asked, straightening up.
"The dozens of other women who met you," she said flatly.
With the bright light from the fire illuminating the woman even more, Dmitry was able to get a better look at her. It had been the semi-darkness that had given her such a resemblance to his childhood friend, he told himself. In the light all he could see were her hollow cheeks and the deep circles under her eyes that only made them look more sunken.
"What women?" Dmitry asked, giving a noncommittal shrug.
"Are you kidding?" the woman said, looking between both men. "Everyone knows you're in here meeting women for some purpose. No one would tell me for what, but you'd have to be clueless to not know about the two of you in here."
Dmitry exchanged an uneasy look with Vlad. "What's your name?"
"Well, what's yours?" the woman shot back with a challenging glare.
"I asked first."
"I asked second, so it stands to reason you tell me your name first and I'll tell you after."
They continued to stare each other down as Vlad began to light the lamps again. Dmitry bristled as the woman narrowed her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. He crossed his arms and drew himself up to his full height.
"I'm Dmitry," he finally said. "Your turn."
The woman crossed her own arms and dropped her gaze to the floor. She mumbled something as she scuffed the heel of one of her boots on the cold floor.
"What was that, my dear?" Vlad asked as he took a seat on one of the couches.
"I said I don't remember my name," she said only marginally louder. The was a second of silence before Vlad began to chuckle.
"What do you mean you don't remember?" Dmitry asked as a few laughs escaped his mouth as well. "Isn't their own name something everyone just knows?" The woman's face began to turn pink as her face soured. Dmitry thought it made her look more like a human and less like a skeleton that had wandered in off the street.
"Surely there must be something that people call you?" Vlad prompted. "I find it very hard to believe you've gone through life being addressed as Hey You." The woman briefly cracked the smallest of smiles.
"I'm called Anna," she said. Dmitry snorted. He'd lost count of how many "Annas" they had seen. It was funny how many people seemed to think that made them more believable somehow.
"And is there a last name that goes with that?" Dmitry asked. Anna scowled at him.
"I was given the name Vetrova," she shot back, "but it's not mine."
"That doesn't make any sense," Dmitry said, his brow furrowing in confusion. "If it's not yours, then where did it come from? And if you don't remember, like you claim, how do you know it's not yours?" He studied the woman again, as if that would bring any answers.
"If you must know, it was my nurse's last name. They gave it to me at the hospital so they would have something to call me." She stared back at him, the clear blue of her eyes threatening to drag him back into the past. He crossed his arms again and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The more he heard of this girl's story, the more questions he had.
"And the name Anna?" Vlad asked, genuine curiosity leaking into his tone. "Was that given to you as well?"
"According to one of the nurses, that's what I said my name was when I was brought in," she said. "They tell me I passed out immediately after. But I don't remember that, and I don't remember anything else before waking up in the hospital."
Vlad glanced at Dmitry, and that was all it took for him to read the older man's mind. He shook his head the tiniest bit as Vlad raised an eyebrow at him. Seconds later, he didn't know why he bothered, because Vlad got up from his seat and began inspecting the woman more closely.
"How long ago was that?" he asked.
"Nearly ten years ago, I guess?" Anna said with a shrug. "Feels like a lot shorter than that, but I guess that happens when you've only got ten years' worth of memories to work with."
"What brought you to the hospital in the first place? Must have been something bad, if you can't remember what it was."
"That's an awfully personal question," she said stiffly.
"My apologies," Vlad said. "I didn't mean to be rude. I was only curious." He began to circle the woman, who turned with him to keep her suspicious gaze on him.
"I was injured badly," Anna said shortly. "No one knew what happened for sure. Or if they did, they never told me."
"Seems like there's a lot of unknowns in your past," Dmitry commented. Anna turned her sharp gaze on him, and he felt some small part of him wither under her glare. He watched her open her mouth again, probably to say something rude, when her eyes wandered to the rest of the room and her jaw went slack.
It wasn't entirely unexpected- most common people had never seen the inside of any of the palaces before, let alone the grandiose ballroom of the Yusopov Palace. Most of the women who had auditioned for them had gone at least a little goo-goo eyed at the place. What was unexpected, however, was what she said next.
"I've seen this place before," she said in a strange voice, like she had been hollowed out and might collapse in on herself. Her eyes, which had gone sort of fuzzy, began to drift closed. "There was a party. And dancing. It smelled so lovely."
Dmitry's eyebrows pulled together. He couldn't imagine many commoners would have seen this room at all. Not to mention this woman would have been a child at the time that the palace was occupied and in use.
Vlad rushed forward and caught her by the elbow right as she began to sway. Her eyes, now clear, snapped open, and she pulled away from Vlad's touch.
"Are you feeling alright, dear?" he asked. He began to reach toward Anna again, but she took another step back.
"You never did say what you're doing in here," she said, her voice back to normal. Dmitry crossed his arms and leaned against the couch.
"Well, you never said why you want to go to Paris," he shot back.
"What is it with you two and demanding personal information?" Anna wrinkled her nose and frowned at him. Dmitry only shrugged one shoulder and ignored the look Vlad was giving him.
"I need to know certain things," he said. "Like who- or what- you're running from, and if I could get arrested. I can't help anyone if I'm in jail. Or dead."
"Who says I'm running from anything?"
"Which brings us back to the question of why you want to go to Paris, then."
Anna scowled at him, but didn't answer. Instead, Vlad stepped in front of her, temporarily blocking her from Dmitry's sight.
"Please excuse my friend," he said. Dmitry watched him reach down to take Anna's hand, and was surprised when she didn't immediately pull it away. "He has terrible manners, despite his decent upbringing." Dmitry snorted, and Vlad briefly turned to shoot him a glare.
"I'll say," Anna mumbled. "I think I've seen dogs with better manners."
"And I'm certain they smelled better, too." Dmitry bristled and made a noise of outrage, but neither Vlad nor Anna were paying any attention to him.
"I'm trying to find someone," Anna said after a moment of silence. "I think. Only I don't know who it is. All I know is it feels like Paris is where I'm supposed to be."
"Well, it's funny you say that," Vlad said in that stupid voice he uses when he thought himself a salesman. "You see, my young friend and I are headed to Paris ourselves."
Dmitry could already see where the conversation was going. It would be a lost cause to try and dissuade Vlad now. So, he quietly slipped from the room, not bothering to listen to his friend's sales pitch. It didn't matter. It wouldn't change anything.
Vlad found him a short time later, but Dmitry didn't look up as he approached him, or as he sat down next to him. He hated the new bounce Vlad had in his step and the way he began humming at he poked at the fire.
"I sent Anna on her way," Vlad finally said. "Or rather, she took her leave. It's late, anyway."
"I'm surprised you let her go," Dmitry said flatly. "Figured you'd want to keep her as close as possible."
"Oh, I do." Vlad leaned back, but still looked unbothered. "I don't think she trusts us very much yet, though. And I don't want to scare her off. She's our ticket out of here."
"So that's it then?" Dmitry asked as he stood and strode away from Vlad. He suddenly wanted to put as much distance as he could between him and the older man. "You've decided she's going to be your Anastasia imposter?"
"She's the closest in appearance that I've ever seen," Vlad said, his face suddenly serious. "Even you have to admit that. And who knows? She doesn't truly know who she is. She might not be an imposter. She could very well be a grand duchess."
"No, she couldn't," Dmitry muttered under his breath, too quiet for Vlad to hear. The Bolsheviks wouldn't have allowed anyone inside the house to have lived. And if Anastasia hadn't resurfaced anywhere after all these years, she was most likely dead as well. This Anna was just some poor, lost girl.
"Well, we should get some sleep, m'boy," Vlad said, stretching and yawning loudly. "I asked Anna to come back tomorrow. We should be well rested when she returns."
"Sure," Dmitry said.
"I have a good feeling about her, Dmitry," Vlad said. Dmitry looked up at him, and could see the genuine glee in his friend's face. "I really do."
"Sure," Dmitry said again, if only to avoid a conflict. "Good night, Vlad."
"Night, m'boy."