Authors: Evelyn Skye
V
ika sat on the floor of the apartment and stared at the Imagination Box. She had brought it inside the flat after the ball, a rash and likely imprudent carryover from dancing with Nikolai, and it had been there ever since. And unlike the Masquerade Box, the Imagination Box’s magic hadn’t been extinguished. Vika hardly blinked as she looked at it.
One panel was covered with
the word
Father
carved over and over, followed by the words
lies, lies, lies, lies, lies
.
Father, Father, Father,
she thought.
I miss you, Father. I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t know, Father.
Lies, lies, lies.
I don’t know my father. Or my mother. Was everything you ever told me a lie?
The other panel on the Imagination Box was covered with angry slashes, and the words
the Game
and
Galina
and
Nikolai
and
blame
.
It’s your fault. Without you, without the Game, he’d still be
alive. It’s all your damn fault.
Vika growled through her tears. Then she reached out and touched the Imagination Box.
She obliterated the words with a single, violent swipe.
T
he bridge spanned the Fontanka River, composed of two stone arches with a wooden drawbridge in between. Four Doric pavilions housed the drawbridge mechanisms, and it was in the corner of one of these pavilions that Pasha stood, hiding. He’d grown out some of his blond stubble into a two-day-old beard, shadowed the rest of his face with a wide-brimmed hat, and donned a frayed
coat over a common laborer’s rough tunic and breeches. He’d even sewn lopsided patches onto the knees.
“Hello, Frenchie,” Ludmila said as she approached the opposite side of the pavilion.
He peeked out from under the hat. A grin spread across his bearded face. “Why, if it isn’t my Aphrodite of the pumpkin. How did you find me here?”
“A hunch.”
“Ah, it was Ilya, wasn’t it?” Ilya was the youngest
member of Pasha’s Guard, but the best one at guessing his whereabouts. “I’ll have to be slyer to outwit him. Though
he doesn’t inform the rest of the Guard, which I appreciate.”
“He thought you’d be watching the boats.”
“Indeed. I’m trying to work out the inefficiencies in the water traffic around the city. There are times when there is too much traffic, and others when there is none at all.
The delays cause all manner of problems, from spoiled goods to missed connections to accidents while the boats wait in the queue.”
“Ah, and here I thought Ilya meant you were merely watching the boats as boys do when they dream of becoming sailors.” Ludmila chuckled. “Don’t you have a harbormaster whose job it is to manage this?”
“I do, and the tsar has asked me to meet with him several times,
but he knows nothing except what’s written on his timetables. But that’s just paper. And reality isn’t paper, is it?”
Ludmila shook her head.
“So I came to see the situation for myself. Also, I just like looking at boats and dreaming of becoming a sailor.” Pasha flashed his famous smile. “But you did not seek me out to discuss river traffic. What can I do for you today, Madame Fanina?”
“It’s
about Vika.”
Pasha inched closer to where Ludmila stood. “I’ve been wondering where she is. There haven’t been any new enchantments in a fortnight. I thought perhaps it was because the festivities for my birthday had concluded.”
Ludmila hung her head. “Vika’s father passed away.”
“Oh no.” Pasha left the cover of the pavilion now and came out to the main part of the bridge.
“She received word
two weeks ago. I haven’t been able
to convince her to leave the flat.”
Pasha continued to stand still and steady, as a tsesarevich should in the face of tragedy, even though he wished he could fly to Vika’s apartment that very instant to gather her in his arms. “What can I do?” he asked Ludmila.
“Will you talk to her? Invite her for a walk, or do anything to take her mind off her father for
a short while? I realize it’s bold of me to ask, and you have the boats to observe—”
“No. I’m glad you came to me. I shall send a coach for her straightaway.”
His carriage pulled up to the Winter Palace, hopefully with Vika in it. Pasha had returned home to shave and put on neater clothes, and to have pity on his Guard and actually inform them of his location and intentions. Now, as he passed
Ilya in the courtyard, he patted him on the back and whispered, “The boats at Chernyshev Bridge. Well done. I’ll best you next time.” The guard laughed before he snapped his mouth closed and attempted to look stern again.
Pasha slipped into the carriage as soon as the coachman opened the door. Vika indeed sat inside, dressed in all black. She had even changed her hair so that it was no longer
a single stripe of ebony, but an entire mantle of it. Her mien managed to darken even the white paneled walls and cream leather of the carriage. Good gracious, Ludmila had been right. This Vika was a different girl entirely.
“You requested my presence?” She hardly glanced up as Pasha slid onto the seat across from her.
“I heard you needed a change of scenery.”
“The scenery in my room was fine.”
“Ludmila said you’ve been staring at the face of an armoire with only an evil-looking rat as company. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fine.’”
“His name is Poslannik.”
“Pardon?”
“The rat. The rat’s name is Poslannik. And he isn’t evil.”
“Ludmila is concerned about you.”
The carriage started with a lurch, and the sound of horse’s hooves—both those that led the carriage and those that belonged
to the Guard—surrounded them.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we might go for a ride in the country. I asked the coachman to take a scenic route to Tsarskoe Selo, my family’s summer residence. No one is there now, so the gardens will be all yours. Perhaps the fresh air will do you good.”
“My father is dead. Or the man I thought was my father. And my mother, whom I thought had died, apparently
did not, but abandoned me instead. My entire life has been a lie. I doubt fresh air will do a thing to change that.”
Pasha sat back in his seat and looked at her scowl. She was still beautiful, but with her expression as black as her hair, her beauty was of a fiercer kind. An almost frightening kind. After Vika’s warnings about the danger of magic, Pasha wondered if he’d taken the recent enchantments
too lightly, and if he’d fallen too easily under Vika’s spell.
“I’m sorry.” Vika sighed, and the furrow of her brow softened. “I appreciate you coming to see me. I shouldn’t take my grief out on you.”
“It’s all right. It must have been quite a shock.” His
concerns about her ferocity fell away. Instead, he wanted to protect her. But that was foolish. A girl like Vika didn’t need protecting.
“I didn’t even know he was sick,” she said. “Father had gone away on a trip, and I simply assumed he was safe. He was so strong, I never imagined him otherwise.”
Pasha wanted to cross the space between them and comfort her. But she would probably shift away. Wouldn’t she? It was certainly a risk. But she’d come in the carriage. She could have declined. Pasha decided to take the chance.
He moved
across the coach to the seat beside her, taking her hand. She startled and almost withdrew it, but then . . . she didn’t. She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder instead.
A smile bloomed across Pasha’s face. Even in her grief, Vika smelled sweet. Like flowers and warm spice. He tried not to move at all, so that she would stay nestled into his side.
“Father gave his entire
life to me,” Vika murmured. “But what was the point when he didn’t survive long enough to . . .”
“To what?”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “I must make him proud. I can’t let his death be in vain.”
Pasha touched her arm gently. “I’m sure he was proud. It would be impossible not to be.”
The roads grew rougher the farther they traveled from the center of Saint Petersburg, and the carriage
bumped along the dirt. Soon, they were outside the city limits, and the scenery gave way to more space: fewer buildings, save for the small houses that sprinkled the landscape every
now and then, and more fields and clusters of red- and gold-leaved trees. It was a good plan, Pasha thought, to head to Tsarskoe Selo. A walk through the gardens and woods really would do Vika good.
She didn’t speak
much. But Pasha was all right with that. She didn’t need his words; she needed room to breathe.
He did not, of course, understand the full extent of her grief. But he knew the fear of it. He thought of the tsar and tsarina at the Sea of Azov. Pasha shuddered.
Mother will be all right. She’ll recover. She’ll return.
As the carriage approached Tsarskoe Selo, Vika fell asleep against him, and Pasha
was loath to wake her. Ludmila had told him of Vika’s nightmares, the constant tossing and turning and unconscious wailing. So when the coachman slowed the carriage and inquired whether Pasha wished to stop, he commanded the coachman to continue onward. They would take a circuitous route around the nearby villages, then proceed slowly home to Saint Petersburg.
Pasha watched the countryside fly
by. Occasionally, villagers would come out at the sound of the approaching horses, and when they saw the double-headed eagle on the carriage, they would fall to their knees in the grass and the dirt. Children chased after the coach. Gavriil tossed coins for them onto the road as the coach rambled away.
When they were almost back at the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, Vika’s head rolled on Pasha’s
shoulder. He caught her gently before she slipped down, and he repositioned her so she could continue to sleep. For a moment, he thought about kissing her, maybe just on the top of her head as she slept. But then he scowled at himself for even thinking of doing it without her permission.
And then Vika’s hair fell to the side and exposed her bare skin.
Pasha gasped. She writhed as something glowed
orange on her collarbone. Two crossed wands, searingly bright as if they were the tip of a branding iron. Nearly invisible wisps of smoke floated up from the wands, and a faint hint of smoke that Pasha had not noticed before lingered in the air.
The wands were the same as the ones in his book.
So it really is true,
he thought. And for a second, Pasha grinned as if he’d shot a hundred partridges
in one day. Nikolai had not wanted to believe him, but Pasha had been right. For once, he’d known something Nikolai hadn’t: the Crown’s Game was real.
But then beside him, Vika gritted her teeth, and as the scar glowed brighter, she thrashed as if she were caught in the throes of a diabolical dream. How long had it been her turn—how long had it been burning—that it hurt her like that?
Reality
rushed at Pasha, and he saw Vika through a whole new lens. One in which she was actually fragile. Because if the Crown’s Game was real, it meant Vika truly could die at any moment.
He didn’t want to lose her.
“I’ll find a way to end the Game,” Pasha said aloud. “I swear on my mother’s throne, I will.”
T
he Magpie and the Fox was crowded as usual, but Nikolai had sent word earlier of Pasha’s request to meet at the tavern, and Nursultan had reserved their table in the back. Nikolai arrived first—it happened on occasion when Pasha had to take an alternate route to evade his Guard—and Nikolai sipped on his beer while he waited.
He had just begun to take a bite of bread and smoked
salmon when Pasha slipped into their booth. He was clean shaven this time, almost entirely himself but for the spectacles on his nose and the Wellington hat on his head. He promptly removed both as he settled into the darkness of their corner.
“I saw her today,” Pasha said.
“Hello to you, too.” Nikolai set down his bread and picked up the cold bottle of vodka Nursultan had left on the table.
“Saw whom?”
“Vika. Her father passed away, and Ludmila asked me to comfort her. I took her on a carriage ride.”
Nikolai paused mid-pour and missed the shot glass, and vodka spilled and dripped onto his trousers. He didn’t move. Sergei had died? Was this why Vika hadn’t taken her turn?
“When did it happen?” he asked. The calmness in his voice was 100 percent pretense.
“The drive?”
“No. Her
father passing.”
“A fortnight ago.”
Exactly when Vika had fainted. And lost her bracelet. They had to be related. Nikolai poured a new shot of vodka for himself. He didn’t even stop to pour one for Pasha or mumble a perfunctory toast; he just gulped it down and chased it with half a stein of beer.
“What’s gotten into you?” Pasha said.
“Nothing.”
Pasha shook his head, as if shrugging this
off as another of Nikolai’s brooding episodes. “I also confirmed she’s part of the Crown’s Game.” Pasha pushed aside the platter of bread and fish and shoved his copy of
Russian Mystics and Tsars
onto the table. Did he carry that encyclopedia with him everywhere?
Nikolai considered drinking straight from the bottle. And yet he took Pasha’s bait and asked the question he knew Pasha wanted him
to ask. “How?”
Pasha flipped open the book to a page he had marked with a length of gold ribbon. There was an illustration of two wands crossed over each other. “Because the enchanters are branded with this when the Game begins. And when Vika fell asleep on me—”
“She fell asleep on you?” Nikolai clenched his fists, and the glasses began to rattle.
Pasha glanced up from the book. The glasses
stopped shaking. He furrowed his brow. “Er, yes. She fell asleep on me in the carriage. She had her head on my shoulder, and when her hair moved, it exposed her collarbone. . . .”
Nikolai closed his eyes, as if doing so could undo everything Pasha was saying.
“And right there on her skin was this mark of the wands.” He tapped the book. “Glowing orange and actually burning, no less.”
Nikolai
leaned against the high wooden back of the booth.
“Amazing and horrifying,” Pasha said.
There was nothing but the noise from the tavern. Men singing a bawdy drinking song. Shouts to Nursultan to bring more pickles. A fistfight at one of the tables.
“Come now, Nikolai. You honestly have no comment? I spent the afternoon consoling the girl I’m in love with, and I confirmed that she might die
as well. At least congratulate me on my detective work, or offer your condolences, I don’t care. Something.”
“I congratulate you on your sad lot.”
“Oh, don’t be such a curmudgeon.” Pasha poured himself a shot of vodka and gulped it down. He bit off a chunk of bread to take off the vodka’s astringent edge. “I thought you’d be more supportive. Or are you jealous? You’re not interested in Vika,
are you? You danced with her only once at the masquerade.”
“I’m not jealous.” Nikolai had lost track of how many lies he’d told Pasha by this point. He knew only that he was buried deep in them, and he was suffocating.
“I implore you again to help me stop the other enchanter.
You’re resourceful. Surely you can think of some way out of the Crown’s Game.”
Nikolai squeezed his fists tighter. His
nails dug into his palms. “I told you before. There is no way out.”
“How can you be so sure? I’ve told you only the abridged version of the Game. There are many more details. There’s so much you don’t know.”
“I already know too much, Pasha!” Nikolai picked up the vodka bottle and smashed it over the book. Glass shattered and flew across the table, several shards embedding themselves in Pasha’s
sleeve.
Pasha gasped. “What are you—”
But he stopped talking as the pieces of glass quivered, then slid across the table and back onto the book, where they reassembled themselves into the shape of a bottle. The shards in his arm wrenched themselves free and rejoined their glassy brethren. Even the liquid on the book cover converged into a small pool, then traveled up the side of the bottle in
a clear stream before trickling back through the bottle’s mouth and back inside.
He gaped at Nikolai.
Nikolai squinted at Pasha’s arm. “I’m sorry. Did the glass cut you? Or is it only your sleeve?” There was concern in his words, strictly speaking, but his tone belied very little of it.
Pasha glanced down but was unable to speak.
“Just the sleeve then. Much easier.” Nikolai’s tone was more
derisive than he’d intended to let on, but he couldn’t shake it, because Pasha had pushed him too far. Nikolai snapped his fingers, and a needle and thread appeared. They dipped down to Pasha’s shirt and began stitching the tears the broken glass had left.
“You’re the other enchanter,” Pasha whispered.
Nikolai kept his face an unfeeling mask. “I’m afraid so.”
“You made the benches.”
“And refaced
Nevsky Prospect and conjured the Jack and ballerina. The Masquerade Box was mine as well.”
“All this time . . .”
Nikolai sighed, and his mask dissolved. Now actual remorse began to flow. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You let me go on and on about the Crown’s Game like a fool.” Pasha stared at his sleeve, where the needle had finished its work, and a pair of scissors was snipping the extra
thread.
Nikolai shook his head. “You’re not a fool.”
“But you made me out to be. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m the same person you’ve always known.”
“No.” Pasha rose from the booth. “You’re not.”
“Pasha.”
“You’ve known this about yourself your entire life. And that means you’ve lied to me for the entirety of our friendship.”
“It’s only a small part of my identity. I’m so much more
than this.”
“Perhaps. But what else have you hidden from me?”
“Nothing!” Nikolai slapped the table.
“Did you befriend me for your own ambitions, to become closer to the tsar so you could win the Game?” Pasha’s ordinarily angelic face contorted into something uglier. Something harsher. Something that looked like his father or his sister.
“No. I didn’t even know the details of the Game until
a month ago.”
“Did you enjoy listening to me ramble about mysticism, then laugh behind my back?”
“I would never.”
“And what about Vika? How will you finish the Game? Will you kill her so you can be victorious, so you can finally be somebody?”
“No! Pasha, what are you saying?” Nikolai jumped from his seat. “I could never hurt her, I love her, too.”
“You what?” Pasha’s mouth hung open.
Damn.
Was it true? Renata had accused him of falling for Vika, but Nikolai hadn’t fully admitted it to himself until now. Not actually being in love. The confession left him feeling both as if the floor had been pulled out from under him and, at the same time, made more firm.
The two boys glared at each other from opposite sides of the booth. Anywhere else, their argument would have attracted attention.
But in the tavern, it was business as usual. At a nearby table, another bottle smashed against the wall and the men there began to yell.
“I love her, too,” Nikolai said quietly as he sank back into his seat.
Pasha, however, did not sit. He towered over Nikolai. “So you lied to me about that as well.”
Nikolai could do nothing but nod. He could argue that it was an omission, not a lie, but such
technicalities shouldn’t matter between friends. It was deception nonetheless. One of so many deceptions.
Pasha scowled. “You were the one who said I couldn’t love Vika, because I hardly knew her. How is it possible, then, for
you
to love her? Do you know her so much better than I?”
“It’s different. We’re enchanters.”
“And what is that supposed to mean? That you’re somehow better than me because
of it?”
“No! Just . . . we understand each other. There’s no one else like us.”
“So if we are only to fall in love with someone exactly like ourselves, I suppose that means I need to find a woman who is in line to inherit an empire, who has also been betrayed by her best friend.”
Nikolai wilted on the table.
“I could have my Guard arrest you, you know. I could accuse you of kidnapping me tonight.
I could have a firing squad on you by morning.”
“I know you could.”
“I could, but I won’t, because in another version of this life, you were my best friend. And I wouldn’t want
that
boy’s blood on my hands.”
“Pasha—”
“Why do you have to steal Vika?”
Nikolai sat up again. “What? I’m not. I said I love her, not that she loves me.”
“She’d choose you over me, though. You’ve always had everything,
and now you have to take Vika, too.” Pasha stabbed a knife into the center of the loaf of bread.
Nikolai yanked the knife out. “How could you possibly believe that? You’re the one who has everything. I’m an orphan with not a drop of noble blood in my veins and not a ruble or kopek to my name. All I have is my magic, and all that’s going to lead me to is death.”
“Not true. Do you not see what
you have, Nikolai? You’re better than everyone at everything, and you don’t even try.
You’re a better dancer, a better swordsman, a better scholar. Girls fall at your feet, and you don’t seem to care. You excel at everything, whereas I’m only adequate. The only thing I’ve got is that I was born to be heir.”
“You’re more than that.” Nikolai dropped the knife on the table.
“Tell that to my father.
Or don’t. He probably already likes you better than me anyway. After all, he’s the judge of the Game, isn’t he? So he knows all about you. He knows more about you than I do.” Pasha jabbed at his book on the table.
“Please. Calm down. Let’s be rational. I can explain.”
“You’ve had years to explain. It’s too late now. From this moment on, I want nothing to do with you or your kind. Keep your magic
to yourself.” He snatched the knife and stabbed it straight into the center of
Russian Mystics and the Tsars
. “And stay out of my life.” Pasha glowered. Then he stormed toward the Magpie and the Fox’s back door.
“Pasha, wait!”
But he didn’t.
Nikolai buried his head in his hands. If only he’d told Pasha before. If only he hadn’t listened to Galina about keeping his abilities secret. If only
he hadn’t been so afraid to tell his best friend about the Game.
But now it was done, and there was nothing Nikolai could do.
His tea leaves were right. He was alone. Again. Alone, alone, ad infinitum. Nikolai swilled the rest of the vodka—lukewarm now—directly from the bottle.
Then he slumped onto the table, his face next to the knife. He wanted the tea leaves to stop being right.