Come in, it’s freezing out there,” Renata said as she ushered Nikolai into Madame Boulangère. There was no one else in the bakery—shopgirl or customer—for most were still too ill from the Neva fete. Renata shut the door behind Nikolai, flipped the sign to indicate the bakery was closed, and fastened the lock.
Nikolai looked around at the floral French wallpaper and the small café tables surrounded by brocaded chairs. “Not much different from Galina’s.”
Renata laughed. “In some regards, not much at all. Tea?” She darted behind the counter and began to fill a porcelain cup. She placed it on a tray, along with sugar and lemon and cream, and a pain aux raisins, since she knew it was one of Nikolai’s favorites. In less than a minute, Renata came back around the counter and set everything down on one of the café tables.
“You don’t need to serve me, you know,” he said as he hung the greatcoat and top hat on a brass hook near the door. “Please sit.”
Renata blushed and stood for a few seconds, unsure whether to keep her apron on or take it off. But given that the last time she saw Nikolai, they’d kissed, perhaps taking off her apron in front of him now would seem too suggestive? Or was she making too much of nothing? Heavens, she was probably making much too much.
Why are you here? she wanted to ask. Perhaps it was only a friendly visit. She and Nikolai used to chat every day when they lived at the Zakrevsky house. Or perhaps he wanted more energy from her. Which would mean he might kiss her again . . . Renata felt her cheeks grow redder.
“Are you going to sit?” Nikolai asked.
“What? Oh. Yes. Thank you.” She sat on the chair, apron still on, hands balled up in the ties because she didn’t know what to do with them. Either the ties or her hands.
Nikolai exhaled audibly as he lowered himself into one of the chairs opposite her. He closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. His mouth turned downward in a frown.
Renata gasped in surprise as she realized what she was seeing. His mouth. His actual mouth. Nikolai wasn’t a shadow anymore.
Nikolai opened his eyes again and raised his brows. “Why are you staring?”
Renata blinked. “Because I can see you!”
“Ah, right. My mother’s dead. I took most of her energy before she passed, which finally gave me enough power that I’m able to cast a facade that looks like a facsimile of myself.”
“I . . .” There was too much in those few sentences to know which to respond to first. Renata shook her head to sort them out. “Your mother died?” she decided to ask.
“Yes. She was arrested for murdering the tsar and sentenced to death, but I took care of it before she was hanged.”
Renata’s mouth hung open.
Nikolai took a sip of his tea. “No need to be alarmed. She asked me to kill her out of mercy.”
“Er . . . um, I see,” Renata said, although she didn’t see at all. Why was he so casual about this? Her brain scrambled to keep up with Nikolai’s reasoning, but it couldn’t seem to do it. She defaulted to her most common sentiment instead. “Are you all right?”
He let out a short bark of a laugh. “She wasn’t much of a mother, and I’m not sure she was entirely human, either. It’s no great loss that she’s dead.”
Renata recoiled from the table. This boy before her looked like Nikolai, but he wasn’t the one she knew and loved. That Nikolai was so vulnerable to emotion, it actually tortured him. But this Nikolai . . .
“You said you’ve cast a facade,” Renata said carefully. “Does that mean you’re still a shadow underneath it?”
Nikolai smiled, but in a way Renata didn’t recognize. It was too cunning, and it didn’t invoke the dimple in his cheek like Nikolai’s real smile would.
He released his facade and immediately turned to shadow again, although his edges were clearly defined, not blurred, now.
Renata’s hands stilled in her lap, even more knotted in the apron strings than before.
“You said before that my being a shadow didn’t scare you. Have you changed your mind?”
“N-no.”
“Good.” He recast his facade and smiled again.
Yes, there was definitely something very wrong with this Nikolai, for the one who had been Renata’s dearest friend would have known she was lying.
“Galina’s dead, too,” he said without any hint of mourning. “It turns out she left the house to me, probably because there was no one else to leave it to. So I came tonight to offer you a job, if you’ll take it.”
“At the house?”
“Yes, your old job,” Nikolai said. “Say you’ll come.”
The apron strings were wrapped so tightly around Renata’s hands that they cut vicious white lines into her skin.
“Please,” he said, but he was not smiling anymore.
Renata nodded. “Y-yes, of course.”
“I knew I could count on you.” He drained the rest of the tea from his cup and rose, leaving the pain aux raisins untouched. Before Renata could even get to her feet, he had his greatcoat and hat on—they were both pitch black; in fact everything he wore was black, she noticed. There was no splash of colorful lining inside his coat or even a fanciful handkerchief, unique touches Nikolai used to pride himself on.
“I’ll see you at the house then.” He didn’t even say good-bye as he unlocked the bakery door and let himself out onto the snowy street.
Renata stared after him. But once he was out of sight, she turned back to the table to clear the plate on which she’d brought the pain aux raisins and the cup and saucer for Nikolai’s tea.
His cup was nearly—but not quite—drained. He never drank the last drops around her, even though she’d long ago promised she wouldn’t read his leaves without explicit permission. As Nikolai had left them, the leaves suggested death was once again near.
But as she stood over his cup, something inside her sparked. She wasn’t touching the tray or the table, yet his tea leaves shifted.
What? Did that really happen?
Renata squinted at the pointed black leaves. One of them had turned a little in the cup.
“I did that . . . ,” she whispered. The remnants of the energy Aizhana had given her danced a jig in Renata’s veins.
If it had been a true prophecy—if Nikolai’s cup had been entirely drained—these leaves would’ve meant that death was a little delayed.
And perhaps even more important, if Renata could influence how the tea leaves fell inside their cups . . .
Did that mean that fates could be changed?