The night sky had clouded over and the cobblestone steps of the Opéra Garnier were glistening with fresh raindrops, leaving them slick and damp. "Great." Dimitri mumbled to himself. "Just what we need." Behind him, Vlad was pacing back and forth, his eyes darting from the floor and back to the front doors, where festively dressed couples were talking and animatedly making their way into the hall. It annoyed Dimitri; there was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

Anya was the princess. It was just as Anya had said herself a week earlier; the empress would certainly know right away. The empress would give him the reward money and Anya would live with her grandmother and they would part once and for all. He should be hadn't known it, but the real Anastasia had been handed to him on a silver plate, and now it was his turn to hand her on a silver plate back to her grandmother. Things were going to be how they should have been along.

Why was he so utterly miserable then?

Why did he feel like the ultimate con-artist? He wasn't even conning Marie; Anya really was her. She really was Anastasia. So why did it still feel like he had duped Anya; tricked her? He felt no better than usual. He berated himself with the usual terms. Lying cheat, con-man, petty thief, forger, liar.

The simple truth was, he was a con man. He depended on dishonesty and other people's vulnerability to make a living, and no matter what intentions were now, they certainly hadn't been very... benevolent or charitable in the beginning. He couldn't deny that. This journey had been fueled by nothing but greed when he'd first started out. But soon, he'd found more value in the race than the reward, and Anya seemed more attractive to him than the ten million rubles.

It was almost ironic. He'd wanted her answer to Sophie to be made-up drivel, something she'd either come up, or the story Vlad and him had taught her. He almost hoped she wouldn't be the princess. He would offer to let her stay with him and Vlad, since she had nowhere else...and then...

And then he'd heard her say those words. They changed everything. Out of the millions of girls in Russia, the thousands who'd auditioned after being short-listed, the hundreds more who hadn't even made it as far as that, he'd found the heir to the Russian throne. He'd found her by complete and absolute luck.

"There was a boy in the palace...he opened a wall..."

She phrased it more like a question than a response, doubting her memory.

In a moment, it was all vaguely thrust aside. Sophie was laughing, Vlad was spinning Anya around the room, and Dimitri felt like he'd just been shot. Was this some cruel joke? Karma?

Was he getting what he deserved? The moment he laid hands on the ten million rubles, he would lose Anya forever. It was a barbaric twist of fate.

Vlad's pacing had finally gotten on his nerves. She was the princess, damn it!

"Vlad." The deathly tone in his voice alerted Vlad to turn his head right away. He looked at Dimitri with an air of sympathy; the boy had been brooding ever since the interview with his Sophie...

"I was the boy. The boy who opened the wall." He states stoically; cold, free of emotion.

Vlad looked at him amazed. For a second, his lips were paralyzed and he could not speak.
"We have found- the... heir to the Russian throne." And he realized something else as he spoke.

"Our Anya has found her family…" He said, weakly. He looked at Dimitri again, with a wistful sigh, realizing there was a solemn and unexplored possibility he had yet to address since the night on the ship.

"And you?"

"Will walk out of her life forever." Dimitri stated, simply and casually, as if it means nothing to him, like it's just a kopek or two lost, or a piece of bread.

Because princesses don't marry kitchen boys.