The frost-kissed streets of St. Petersburg shimmered under the pale glow of gaslights, their golden haloes blurred by the whispers of a December snowfall. A sleek black carriage, emblazoned with the Romanov double eagle, clattered over cobblestones, its velvet curtains drawn tight against the night. Inside, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich adjusted his military collar, the silver threads of his uniform catching the dim light. Through the window slit, the neon flicker of a sign—Аквариум (The Aquarium)—pulsed like a siren’s call, its letters dripping cerulean light onto the snow below.

The club was a cathedral of decadence, hidden behind a façade of unassuming brick. As Dmitri stepped inside, the Arctic chill surrendered to a haze of cigar smoke and the throaty wail of a saxophone. Crystal chandeliers, refracted through cascading water walls, cast prismatic ripples over silk-clad aristocrats and poets reciting verses over absinthe. The air hummed with secrets, the kind spun in back rooms where revolution and romance shared the same glass.

And there, amid the aquatic gloom, lounged Felix Yusupov.

Perched at his usual corner table—Felix swirled a goblet of Crimean champagne, his fox-fur collar framing a smile sharper than the dagger he’d tucked in his boot. “Dmitri!” he purred, voice slicing through the jazz. “I’d almost given up. Again.”

Dmitri slid into the seat opposite, his gaze narrowing at the trio of Persian dancers twirling in gilded cages above the bar. “You come here every night. Don’t you have a wife to annoy?”

“Mmm, Irina adores the scandal.” Felix leaned forward, emerald cufflinks glinting. “Besides, our friends here…” He nodded to a shadowed booth where a trio of officers murmured over maps, “…they’re plotting something delicious.”

A waiter materialized, depositing two glasses of something smokey and amber. Felix raised his drink, the liquid catching the light like molten topaz. “To the Aquarium—where the fish never sleep, and the hooks…” He paused, smirk widening, “are always baited.”