Authors: Evelyn Skye
The bubble around Vika quivered.
I am tied irretrievably to my enemy,
she realized.
The Jack and
ballerina continued to twirl around the sky. The music soared louder and louder. It crescendoed to a furious trill. And then it suddenly broke off into silence.
Every muscle in Vika’s body tensed. The Jack and ballerina halted their dance, as if they, too, were startled.
The crowd gasped then and pointed at the ballerina’s chest. Although she hadn’t heard Vika’s earlier warning, the ballerina
heard the audience now. She looked down at the bodice of her dress. A red silk handkerchief blossomed from where her porcelain heart ought to be.
“I knew she couldn’t trust him,” Vika said.
The ballerina’s painted mouth formed a devastated O. She glanced at the Jack. He looked not at her, but at a cloud near his feet, his wooden mouth set in a grim straight line.
Then the ballerina went limp
and plummeted from the sky into her box. The Jack hung his head. The ballerina’s lid lowered and latched with a click.
Palace Square burst into deafening applause. Everyone clapped and howled.
Everyone except Vika, for something had begun to press
on her from above, forcing her to her knees.
What? How? I have a shield—
But then she saw them, thousands of tiny needles protruding from the cobblestones
at her feet. They must have appeared while she was busy watching the Jack and ballerina. The needles bowed in unison, as if they knew she’d finally seen them, before they retracted into the ground.
Those impertinent needles punctured and destroyed my shield!
Vika hadn’t even known it was possible. But perhaps that was the problem. She couldn’t properly protect herself from something of which
she was unaware.
She pushed her hands upward and tried to stand, but the pressure of whatever was pushing on her was too strong. Vika flung herself forward to escape, but smashed into an unseen wall.
She spun to the left. Trapped.
To the right. Blocked off.
Backward. Another wall.
It was as if she was inside the ballerina’s music box.
“No!”
The invisible cube kept shrinking, and Vika’s
lungs burned as the air grew thin. She was nearly at a crouch.
In front of her, Ludmila cheered, oblivious to what was happening. Could nobody see Vika? The enchanter must have cast a deception shroud around her. And the invisible box was now almost the same size as she was, with little room to spare. Vika pressed outward with her palms one more time and kicked with her feet. She rammed the top
of the box with her head.
If I stay inside, I’ll die, and I’ll never see Father again, never
become Imperial Enchanter, never have a chance to become who I was meant to be.
As the sides of the cube squeezed out the last of the air, Vika felt all its edges against her. She pushed up, down, in every direction again, rebounding like a marble rattling in a box too small. The corners pressed inward.
The walls crushed against the sides of Vika’s ribs.
Oh, mercy.
She winced at the pressure that she knew would soon turn into pain.
But what if they weren’t walls? What if they weren’t solid, but vapor instead?
“Steam,” she gasped.
The inside of the box began to grow hot and humid.
Vika hovered on the brink of a faint.
Just a little more . . .
She ran her fingers along the sides of the box
and imagined them transforming from glass—or whatever they were—into steam.
Please, please, turn into steam.
The walls of her near coffin exploded. Vika tumbled out of the stifling mist. She wheezed as air rushed to fill her empty lungs.
And then, from somewhere on the other side of Palace Square, came a voice. It was quiet, yet it cut through the noise of the still-applauding crowd.
“Bravo,”
it said, and Vika knew the compliment was for her, not for the Jack and ballerina’s show. “Your move, Enchanter Two.”
S
he was still alive. He was still alive. Nikolai was glad, but he wasn’t. Because now it was the girl’s move, and every time she had another move meant another time Nikolai might die.
The next evening, just as an audience formed in Palace Square to wait for the Jack and ballerina to dance again, the sky darkened. It went from pale blue to storm gray in the time it took the
nearby clock tower to chime six times. Nikolai looked up, along with everyone else in the square.
There were no clouds. But the sun was gone, and a diaphanous drizzle began.
The would-be audience murmured. The men were glad they had hats on their heads, and the women found scarves in their bags with which to cover their hair.
“It’s just a passing sprinkle,” a thin man said to his even thinner
wife.
“It must be. The fishmonger this morning predicted sunshine all day.”
The jack-in-the-box’s crank began to turn, and its tinny scales started to play once again. Everyone in the crowd returned their focus to the boxes. Everyone except Nikolai, who kept his gaze planted firmly upward.
What are you playing at, lightning girl?
A second later, her namesake lightning splintered the sky into
shards, and a flood of rain gushed out from its cracks. It drenched the crowd and drowned out the sound of the Jack’s music. People ran for cover, their once-sufficient hats now tumbling onto the cobblestones upside down and full of water, their scarves no more than sopping rags plastered onto their heads.
All around Nikolai, the crowd stampeded out of the open square. The storm kept coming,
like Zeus himself out for revenge in one of Pasha’s favorite myths. Nikolai rubbed the back of his dry neck—he’d conjured a waterproof shield over both himself and the Jack’s and ballerina’s boxes at the first hint of rain—and sighed. The girl had made quite a display of commanding the weather. The immensity of her power was impressive indeed.
Nikolai snapped his fingers, and the crank and music
from the Jack’s box stopped. He could hardly hear it anyway. There would be no show tonight.
A bolt of lightning slammed into the cobblestones mere feet away from him.
“Merde!”
Nikolai leaped back from the pulverized pavement.
Another bolt slammed into the ground behind him. He jumped again, but this time he cast the strongest shield he could conjure and sprinted for cover.
The Winter Palace.
If only he could make it across the square—
The path in front of him burst in an explosion of electricity and mortar and stone.
“The tsar won’t be happy if you demolish his square while you try to kill me!” Nikolai yelled as he continued to run. “And I doubt this qualifies as something impressive for the tsesarevich’s birthday!” He didn’t know where the girl was, but she had to be near if she
was directing the lightning straight at him.
She responded by whipping the rain into his face, aiming a thousand stinging needles at him all at once. They bounced off his shield.
“You’ll have to try harder!” He was almost at the palace. Only ten more seconds and he’d be at a door.
The girl unleashed the lightning again. Several bolts ruptured the sky, ferocious veins of searing white in the
darkness, and they convened on one target: Nikolai’s shield.
The crack blew all sound out of his ears, and he was thrown to the ground as the lightning shattered the invisible layer protecting him. The palace was still too far. It was Nikolai against the weather now.
The sky crackled and popped again. Recharging, readying for attack.
He remembered the girl rising out of the fire on Ovchinin
Island. He didn’t think he could fight that. Not without a shield.
But if Nikolai was going to die, he was going to do it with dignity. He reached for his top hat, which had skittered away on the cobblestones and finally gotten wet. He brushed it off and rose to his feet.
Then he turned to face the ballerina’s purple box in the center of the square. He wasn’t sure where the girl was,
but he
could address the puppet he’d created in her stead. He took a deep breath and stood as still and as serenely as he could, given the circumstances of thunder bellowing all around him.
Electricity buzzed in the air. Nikolai tried to conjure another shield, but it sputtered out.
“I don’t blame you.” He tipped his hat in the ballerina’s direction, but unlike the time he did so after the other enchanter
had tried to drown him, there was nothing mocking in his gesture now. “I don’t blame you if this is the end.”
Then the sparks in the sky extinguished themselves, and the gray clouds blew away with a hiss. Not a trace of violence—or even rain—remained.
And the scar at Nikolai’s collarbone warmed.
She’d ended her turn. Nikolai exhaled.
She had spared his life. He let his posture slide.
Whether
the girl was actually showing him mercy or simply toying with him to draw out the chase, Nikolai would take it. He would live to play another day.
I
t was the fortitude in his voice. And the grace in his poise.
That’s why
I wasn’t able to kill him,
Vika tried to convince herself.
But in reality, it was his eyes. There was a sadness in them, a deep pool of it, which she could see even from where she hid inside the ballerina’s box. The lid was cracked open just an inch, but it had been enough for her to falter.
There’s
always next time,
she thought as she curled up next to the limp ballerina with the red handkerchief spilling from her porcelain heart. Vika had thought she would relish the irony of her opponent trying to kill her in a box, only to turn it on him and kill him
from
the box. But it hadn’t worked out for either of them.
It’s all right
, she told herself.
I still have three more turns. I’ll kill him
the next time.
T
he next morning, Pasha was once again in the palace library, although this time, instead of reading
Russian Mystics and the Tsars
, he was poring over reports from the Imperial Council. He had fallen asleep during yesterday’s meeting—he had, at least, attended it, as he’d promised his father—but afterward, Yuliana had shoved into his arms these stacks of paper on topics ranging
from the state of the corn and sunflower harvests to the worsening siege in Missolonghi.
“The ministers are thorough, I’ll give them that,” Pasha said aloud to himself as he flipped through yet another pile of papers. He yawned and tapped his pen on the top page, which was filled with tables of data on wheat yields. Surely there must be a better way to rule a country than to read reports from
afar.
And yet, what other way was there, when the country was so vast? The tsar could not be in all places at once.
Pasha yawned again. He was just about to skip the
wheat tables to read an account of the current situation in the Crimea when Gavriil, the captain of his Guard, poked his head into the library.
“Your Imperial Highness, please forgive the disturbance, but you asked to be informed
of any, er, important developments.”
Pasha threw the report onto the table and sat up straighter. “Yes?”
“Well, Your Imperial Highness, a, uh, giant glass pumpkin has appeared along the Ekaterinsky Canal.”
Pasha grinned. “Excellent.” Because he hadn’t wanted to miss a thing, Pasha had ordered his Guard to inform him of any new happenings around the city, especially if they seemed . . . unusual.
He disliked reducing his Guard to messengers and gossipmongers—he suspected they resented it—but it gave them something productive to do instead of the typical routine of losing track of him and panicking before his return.
Pasha rose from his armchair, no longer seeing the Imperial Council reports stacked before him. “Inform the stables to ready my carriage. I’ll go to the pumpkin at once.”
The guard knitted his brow.
“Is there something unclear about my instructions, Gavriil?”
“No, Your Imperial Highness. It’s just . . . I was confused because you informed me of your intended whereabouts rather than . . .” He trailed off.
“Rather than sneaking out?” Pasha grinned even more brightly. “It’s only because I have greater roguishness planned.”
Pasha could see the line stretching from
the bakery kiosk before he saw the pumpkin itself. Word had spread quickly about Madame Fanina’s incredible confections, and the carriage had to stop a block away because the crowd was too thick to pass through.
A handful of his guards dismounted their horses while Pasha disembarked from the carriage.
“Make way for His Imperial Highness, the Tsesarevich Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov!” Gavriil
called.
Pasha flushed. “I could have waited in line,” he muttered.
But it was too late for that, for everyone on the street had turned to catch a glimpse of the crown prince. And then the entire queue bowed low, like a line of dominoes tumbling onto its knees. The Ekaterinsky Canal glittered red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet beside them.
As Pasha walked past, men and women rose and
reached to kiss his hand. He smiled kindly as they declared their love for him and prayed for his health, and his heart swelled to span the far reaches of the empire. He loved it, not because they kissed his hand, but because the people of his country were infinitely more real in the flesh than
in Imperial Council meetings and reports.
Halfway through the line, the pumpkin rose into view. Pasha
bounced in his boots.
I knew it!
It was the glass pumpkin he’d had commissioned for the baker on Ovchinin Island! Well, a very enlarged version of it. Pasha recognized the crystalline curl of the green vines around the stem, and the ripples the imperial glassblower had chosen to incorporate into the pumpkin’s orange ribs. The only modifications that had been made to the pumpkin—other than its
size—were
a window cut out of it and a counter tiled with enormous pumpkin seeds from which to serve Ludmila’s patrons.
Pasha could hardly wait to reach the kiosk. He had to force himself to slow down and not plow through the men and women who still wanted to kiss his hand.
Eventually, his guards led the way to the counter, and Gavriil once again announced, “His Imperial Highness, the Tsesarevich
Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov!” Pasha grimaced.
Inside the pumpkin, Ludmila and a dark-haired girl were already curtseying. Had they been in that position since he was announced when the carriage arrived? He hoped not. That had been fifteen minutes ago.
“Bonjour, mesdames,”
he said, remembering how he had greeted the women in the island bakery not too long ago. “Please rise.”
Ludmila perked up
immediately at the sound of his voice, and when she stood, her face exploded in a gap-toothed grin. “It’s you!” But just as quickly, her mouth contorted. “Oh, heaven forgive me, Your Imperial Highness, the things I said the last time . . . I didn’t know . . . your appearance was so different . . . I—”
“Madame Fanina, I take no offense,” Pasha said in Russian. He reached across the counter and
patted her hand. “It is I who deceived you. You are not at all to blame.”
The other girl in the pumpkin gaped at Pasha. He turned to her. She seemed familiar. “Are you one of the girls who works in the Zakrevsky household?” Pasha glanced down the street, where he could just make out the corner of the building in which Nikolai lived.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness. My name is Renata
Galygina.”
She looked at her feet as she spoke. “When I saw Madame Fanina’s kiosk here, I, um, thought I could earn some additional wages. I have some free time, as Countess Zakrevskaya is away, and my services are not in high demand.”
Pasha nodded. This, he knew. Countess Zakrevskaya had declared a sudden trip abroad, and no one knew when she would return. It was not at all out of character, for she was
rather . . .
eccentric
, to put it politely. Pasha hoped, for Nikolai’s sake, that the countess was gone a very long while.
“Well, it’s a lovely surprise to see you here,” Pasha said to Renata.
She curtsied.
“What may I get Your Imperial Highness this morning?” Ludmila asked.
“I liked it better when you called me Frenchie.”
“I will do no such thing, Your
French
Highness.” She winked.
Pasha
laughed.
“You may have anything you see.” Ludmila spread her arms wide, showcasing not only the Russian staples—honey poppy-seed rolls, Tula gingerbread, walnut-shaped
oreshki
cookies filled with caramel—but also a special glass case behind her.
“You’ve outdone yourself, Madame Fanina.”
She curtsied, although it appeared more like an amiable bear bobbing than a proper curtsy. “I admit I had
some help from another girl,” she said. “I made all the components, but the assembly . . . let’s say that girl has a magic touch.”
Pasha stood taller. “Magic touch, you say? Show me everything you have.”
Renata scooted out of the way, and Ludmila began to describe the confections on each shelf. “Here,” she said, pointing at the bottom row, “we have chocolate truffles filled not with ganache,
but with steaming-hot cocoa that doesn’t cool until it touches your tongue.”
“Incredible.”
She dipped her head in gratitude. “Next, we have a pear pie, but as you can see, it’s no ordinary pie, for the pastry is shaped like the fruit itself.”
“Exquisite.” The pie was not merely shaped with pear-like curved edges. It looked truly like a three-dimensional pear, round and tall and narrowing at
the stem, the kind you could pick off a tree and bite into. The large crystals of sugar on its “peel” even approximated morning dew. Magic, indeed. The laws of gravity would not allow such a pie to bake without falling.
“And finally”—Ludmila pointed at the top shelf—“we have cream puffs light as air.”
Pasha gasped because they were indeed as light as air, or even lighter, for the puffs floated
and had to be tied to the shelf with colorful strings, like mini
pâte à choux
balloons.
“If I may, I would like one of those,” Pasha said. Ludmila nodded so emphatically, all her chins wobbled. Renata opened the glass case and retrieved one on a violet ribbon and passed it to Pasha. He couldn’t stop smiling as he held the tiny balloon’s string between his fingers.
“Would Your Imperial Highness
like something else?”
Pasha glanced at his guards, who stood at attention nearby, and at the line behind him. “I would like to buy something for every man, woman, and child here.” He motioned to Gavriil, who retrieved a stack of ruble notes
from a hidden pocket and quietly passed it over the counter to Ludmila.
“You are too generous, Your Imperial Highness.”
“Well, I would like to ask another
favor as well.”
“Anything.”
“There is to be a ball tomorrow evening in my honor. A masquerade, because, as you know, I’m rather fond of disguises. Invitations have been sent to all noblewomen in Saint Petersburg, but the problem is, I cannot seem to locate the one girl I wish to have attend. I thought you might be able to assist me in that endeavor.”
Ludmila touched her heart. “You’re still
searching for Vika.”
“Yes.”
Renata’s eyes grew even wider than when Pasha had first made his appearance at the kiosk.
Does she know about Vika?
he thought.
Has Nikolai talked about her?
Ludmila ushered her to take pastry orders from the tsesarevich’s guards. Renata hurried out of the pumpkin.
“In the excitement of my arrival in the city,” Ludmila said to Pasha, “I’d forgotten all about telling
Vika that a mysterious, handsome Frenchie was inquiring after her.”
“So you could deliver my invitation to her?”
“Absolutely. I’m staying in her flat on Nevsky Prospect.”
“She’s here?” No wonder his messenger had returned from Ovchinin Island with Vika’s invitation, undeliverable.
He turned to Gavriil, who was stuffing his face with a pear-shaped pie. “See to it that the invitation for Vika
. . .”
“Andreyeva,” Ludmila said. “Vika Andreyeva. Her father is Baron Sergei Andreyev.”
“Is that so?” Pasha brightened even more than his usual self. So Vika was nobility. There, at least, was one of Nikolai’s objections struck down. It was not in violation of his mother’s rules for Pasha to dance with an unbetrothed girl who belonged to the aristocracy.
He pivoted back to Gavriil, who had,
in the meantime, wiped clean the pear smudges from his mouth. “See to it that the invitation for Mademoiselle Andreyeva is delivered this afternoon. Madame Fanina will ensure its conveyance to its recipient.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness,” Gavriil and Ludmila said at the same time.
Pasha looked at the cream puff in his hand once more. “Absolutely stunning,” he said, then popped it into his mouth.
The pastry and vanilla cream burst as if the little balloon had been punctured with a needle.
“I will hold that compliment dearly for the rest of my humble life,” Ludmila said. “How else may I be of service?”
“You have done more than most. I hope I will see you soon, perhaps as Mademoiselle Andreyeva’s escort to the ball?” He smiled, in a way that he knew was both infectious and persuasive.
Ludmila grinned and nodded. Her chins waggled again.
“Good.” With Ludmila by Vika’s side, it would be much easier for Pasha to identify her. He had not quite thought it through when he informed his mother that the ball would be a masquerade. Only after the invitations had gone out had he realized it would be that much more difficult to identify
any
girl when she was in costume, but especially
an enchantress, who could surely put to shame any other attendee’s disguise.
“Thank you again, Madame Fanina. I will see you very soon.”
She curtsied. It was a wonder she didn’t knock over her trays of tarts and cookies in the process. In fact, it seemed to Pasha that she did tip over one pan much too far, but against all laws of physics, it righted itself before any cookies fell.
Vika. Her
magic wasn’t only in the pastries.
Pasha smiled and turned to leave. His guards fell into formation and awaited his command. But he paused by the canal. Perhaps he would stop by Nikolai’s to boast of his victory in inviting the lightning girl. After all, Nikolai lived only a five minutes’ walk away.
But what if Vika decided not to attend? It was unlikely, given that Pasha had personally invited
her (well, personally through Ludmila). But if any girl in the empire was bold enough to decline an invitation from the tsesarevich, it would likely be the lightning girl.
No,
Pasha thought,
better to wait until the ball itself to gloat. I’ll just have to make sure that Nikolai shows.