Vika sat in an armchair in Pasha’s room and watched as the blue-and-gold blankets that warmed the tsesarevich’s bare chest rose and fell with his breath. Yuliana had left at one o’clock to rest and had promised to come back well before sunrise, but for a little longer, Vika could be with Pasha alone. The crease between his brows was relaxed, and his blond lashes fluttered against his cheeks in what was hopefully a happy dream. In his sleep, he was just an unguarded boy.
She bit her lip, though, because when Pasha woke, that crease between his brows would reappear, carrying with it the weight of being attacked by his brother, on top of all the other responsibilities and worries that being the next tsar would hold.
But hadn’t they all changed? Life happened without permission, and it swept everyone along in its violent wake. Pasha was no longer the innocent tsesarevich. Vika was no longer a carefree girl from the forest. And Nikolai . . . Vika wasn’t sure what Nikolai was now, but he was no longer purely elegance and melancholy. He was still those things, but twisted and magnified.
Nikolai and Vika were no longer two sides of the same enchanting coin. How could she save him if she couldn’t even understand him anymore? Her stomach turned.
Beneath the covers, Pasha stirred. Vika stood and hurried to his side.
He groaned as he found his way back to consciousness. As Vika had predicted, the crease on his forehead reappeared even before his eyes opened.
He squinted at the single lamp that lit the room. Then he turned to his bedside. “Vika?” Pasha’s voice rasped. But he moved to sit up as soon as he saw her.
“Don’t strain yourself!” She held out her hand as if to stop him.
Pasha sat up anyway. Of course he did. He was the tsesarevich, and that meant he did whatever he wanted. That is, unless Yuliana said otherwise.
“You saved my life.”
Vika shrugged.
“You’re terribly nonchalant,” Pasha said. “It’s as if you do this every day.” He laughed, but it was flatter than usual, weighed down, most likely, by why it had been necessary to save him in the first place. Then he stopped laughing altogether and held on to his stomach. Magic might have put his pieces back together, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel the aftereffects, like a patient after surgery. Pasha managed to shoot Vika a smile, though, through the pain.
Vika smiled, too. It was nearly impossible not to in reaction to his charm. Plus, without the blankets covering him, she could see the ripples of muscle on his chest and abdomen. She tried not to stare. “I’d rather not have to stitch you back together every day. It’s not exactly easy, and I can’t guarantee it’ll work every time. So if you don’t mind, try not to get yourself almost killed again, all right?”
“I’ll try,” he said. “But I must warn you that tsars are often high on assassination target lists.”
“Good thing you’re not tsar yet, then.”
As soon as she said it, Vika wanted to take it back. Really? she chastised herself. You said that in the midst of everything that’s happening?
Pasha let out a curt laugh. “Right. Good thing I’m not yet tsar.”
I am an idiot, Vika thought.
Pasha brushed his fingers over the place where Vika had extracted Nikolai’s gear. Once. Twice. Three times.
“I’m sorry about what I just said.” Vika couldn’t take her eyes off Pasha’s fingers, still tracing and retracing where his brother had wounded him. “But I’ve been thinking. I ought to protect you better.”
Pasha shook his head. “You saved me. There’s not much better than that.”
“No, I meant a permanent shield, which I’d thought before was impossible, because that sort of magic requires a great deal of power and, therefore, proximity. But now that Bolshebnoie Duplo is generating more magic than ever before . . .”
“You might be able to do it.” His fingers ceased their obsessive tracing.
“Might. I’ll try, but that doesn’t mean you can toss caution to the wind. It’s possible it won’t work, and we won’t know until Nikolai tries to harm you again.”
Pasha cringed. Vika did, too, for she had said it as if another attack by Nikolai was inevitable. She and Pasha both knew it to be true, even if they didn’t want it to be.
“Do I need to, um, do anything?” he asked.
“No, just sit still.”
Vika stood from her chair but took a second to breathe and feel the magic sparking inside her. It brightened even more as she called to it, so much so that she almost felt there was a torch within. She welcomed its eager flames—she was, in this moment, pleased that magic was no longer secret, that the people’s belief had stoked more power for her to use—and then she focused on Pasha, outlined the space around him with her eyes, and conjured an invisible shield around him.
She imagined it as a soft, flexible material, one that would not repel bullets or enchantments but rather, would absorb them until she could dispel them safely. It seemed a better approach than conjuring a rigid barrier like a more traditional shield, for something like that could potentially shatter.
Then again, all this was theory. Vika didn’t even know if this enchantment would hold.
She stumbled a bit when she finished. Conjuring a shield that strong, and to last indefinitely, had taken more out of her than she expected.
“Sit and rest,” Pasha said, as he patted the edge of the mattress. “And thank you.”
Vika eyed the spot where Pasha’s hand lay. Heat flashed through her again, but not from magic this time. It would be incredibly improper to sit on any boy’s bed, but especially the future tsar’s. Not that Vika hadn’t already been ridiculously close when she’d healed him. Nor had she ever been constrained by propriety before. But still. This seemed different. Perhaps she was growing up and becoming more responsible. Perhaps she was learning to play by the rules.
Oh, please. Vika scowled at herself. As if I ever want to be the sort who plays by the rules.
She sank onto the edge of Pasha’s bed. She did, however, sit closer to his feet than his hand, and she kept both her own feet firmly planted on the ground. She was an Imperial Enchanter and a baroness, after all.
Pasha retracted his hand and frowned. “I wasn’t going to do anything untoward.”
“I know,” Vika said, even though she didn’t. Or maybe she was worried that she would be the one to do something untoward, so great was her relief that Pasha was all right, and that her attempt to heal him had actually worked. Even though she was no longer angry at him, and even though she could no longer love Nikolai—not as Nikolai was—Vika would not allow herself to fall into someone else’s arms, simply because they were open. She didn’t say all that, though. Instead, she asked, “What if Yuliana came in and thought there was something inappropriate going on?”
“I didn’t know you cared what others thought.”
“I don’t.” Vika crossed her arms. But then she dropped them to her sides, onto the blankets. “Well, sometimes I do.”
Pasha smiled. “All right, sit far away if it makes you feel better.” He had the grace not to rub it in that Vika had been acting, well, self-important. Just because he wanted to kiss me once, on Letniy Isle, doesn’t mean he always wants to kiss me when we’re alone, she thought. Or that he even wants to kiss me at all, after the nasty things I’ve said.
But then Pasha’s hand crept toward hers on the bedspread, although he stopped before he actually touched Vika. His fingers were long and impeccably manicured, evidence of his life in the Winter Palace. Hers were smaller, of course, with nails smooth but permanently stained from dirt beneath them, a fond reminder of her life in the unkempt woods of Ovchinin Island.
When she glanced up, she found he was looking at their hands, too.
“There’s a story that Plato told,” he said softly. “That people were once happy and whole. They were so powerful, they seemed a threat to Olympus. So Zeus split each person in two, such that they were then halves, each imperfect and damned to wander the earth, flawed and no longer competition for the gods. But if a half happened upon his or her other side, they could be united, happy and whole and perfect again.”
Vika looked at their hands as she contemplated the anecdote.
“So I’m a half?” she asked.
“Everyone is a half.”
“Then you’re saying I’m imperfect.”
Pasha laughed. “Of course that’s what you’d gather from my story. Everyone is imperfect. That’s the point. You can’t keep looking for perfection, because it doesn’t exist on its own.”
“Only when you’re united as a whole.”
“Exactly. Then somehow, two imperfect halves come together and form a perfect whole.” He leaned a little bit forward so his fingertips could just graze hers. Vika’s entire body tingled.
Pasha retracted his hand and smiled to himself.
“What?” Vika asked.
Pasha shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing. Just . . . that was nice. I’d like to keep that moment. I’m going to tuck it away somewhere safe.”
Vika blushed at his sweetness. This was why she’d liked him in the past. This pure Pasha, who could appreciate a single moment of life even in the midst of attempted murder and an unknown future.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. She listened to him breathe, and once again thanked the heavens (and magic) that he was still alive to do so.
Then Pasha opened his eyes, and the crease between his brows reappeared, heralding the end of their respite. “I suppose we should discuss how to deal with Nikolai. He’s clearly gone beyond civil disobedience now.”
Pasha’s eyes were rimmed red, and his hand went to his stomach again. “I can’t believe he actually tried to kill me.”
Vika’s breath caught, as she felt again those memories of Nikolai pulling and piercing her at the same time.
“Yuliana wants him dead,” Pasha said softly.
Vika clutched the bedspread in her fist, even though she’d known this was coming. “And what do you want?”
“Too many things . . . including not making the same mistakes again.” Pasha bit his knuckles as he thought. “But what can be done? He tried to kill me, Vika. My own brother. And part of me has already died, just by Nikolai making the attempt.” Pasha pounded his chest, as if trying to revive his heart.
“You have to catch him, Vika. And I hate to ask this of you, but then you’ll also have to help to execute him. An enchanter won’t die by simple hanging.”
For a moment, Vika lost control of the powerful magic in her fingertips, and she singed the bedspread. Smoke spiraled up in menacing swirls.
Pasha jerked back.
She doused the smoke but didn’t apologize. Vika was sorry for burning the blanket, but she was not sorry for having and showing her emotions.
She had been tasked with killing Nikolai five times during the Game. She would not do it again, not if there was any possibility of saving him.
But Vika turned to Pasha and said, “I’m at your command.” She might be a dragon on a leash, but she was still a dragon. She would stall. She’d find a way to fix this, bracelet or not.
Or, like witches, she and Nikolai would both burn.