In which a splendid fête unfolds within the illuminated halls of the New Palace at Moscow, where nobles and diplomats mingle amidst delicate music and picturesque splendour, all under the watchful eyes of the Emperor, whose calm visage masks a brewing unease conveyed through urgent dispatches from beyond the distant Siberian frontier. Meanwhile, two keen correspondents, one French and the other English, attend the ball only to exchange guarded reflections on the stirring intelligence and shadows looming over the empire’s vast reaches.