As Nikolai stepped inside the rowdy tavern, he was hit by memories. The Magpie and the Fox used to be his and Pasha’s, where they came when Pasha wanted to sneak out of the palace and be anyone other than tsesarevich, and where Nikolai could put aside the strains of his enchanter training and feel like a normal boy. Nikolai’s stomach soured. He almost turned back around to head for the door.
But then what had begun as a queasiness in his stomach quickly shifted to a hard knot of anger. Why should Nikolai have to abandon the tavern simply because Pasha had once frequented it? Not everything should default to Pasha for the mere reason that he was heir to the throne. Besides, Nikolai would take the crown from him, somehow—perhaps even more easily now that Vika was forbidden from using magic—and then everything that was once Pasha’s could and would become Nikolai’s.
He just needed to figure out how. He needed a new plan.
He also needed something to eat.
Nikolai snuck into a dark corner of the tavern—he hadn’t cast his facade, for he wanted to move about unseen, a shadow among shadows—and swiped a few slices of rye bread and smoked fish off a wooden platter at a table where the conversation had grown too animated for the patrons to pay attention to their food.
He moved deeper into the tavern and lurked around a group of rowdy gamblers, who already had five empty vodka bottles on their table next to their piles of coins and bills.
“You should have seen the look on the girl’s face when I cornered her,” one of the men said, his mouth full of half-chewed pickle.
“Did she scream with horror when you unbuckled your belt and she saw how tiny your member was?” another man said, as he drew a card from the deck.
“I think you’re confusing your own experience with mine.” The first louse of a man spit on the floor. “The only screams were from the girl and her sister begging me for more.” His fellow gamblers guffawed, and he sneered in victory.
A serving girl walked by at that unfortunate moment, and the man smacked her rear end. He was met with more hoots of approval from his drinking mates.
Swine, Nikolai thought. As a silhouette, his sense of propriety might have waned, but it had not yet disappeared entirely.
But the dark energy within him bubbled for another reason—it wanted more of its own kind, even though Nikolai didn’t necessarily need it, since Aizhana’s strength was more than enough. But the energy was greedy, and it craved more darkness. That made these men perfect targets.
Nikolai reached out of the shadows to touch the first gambler’s back.
The energy shuddered through to him, and with it, he felt the magic in his fingertips hum ever stronger, pulsing with shadow. Nikolai almost sighed out loud, for energy was like water—no, vodka—after being parched for too long. He took and took until the man’s head bobbed, drowsy from what Nikolai stole.
His friends only pointed and laughed. “The Great Stanislav of Sennaya Square can’t hold his drink anymore!”
Nikolai let go. The Great Stanislav of Sennaya Square? He edged around to get a better look at the man’s face. No, not a man, but a boy Nikolai’s age. The face was rougher than he remembered, skin leathered from long days in the sun, but it was the same reprobate with whom Nikolai used to play cards. Stanislav was a liar and a swindler and a brute, and that was only a list of his best qualities.
Stanislav mumbled something, then slumped onto the table, face in a platter of herring, and began to snore. His friends laughed harder, then emptied his pockets of the rest of his rubles.
Each is worse than the next, Nikolai thought as he watched them. All the better for me. He decided to take energy from every single one of them.
When he was finished, they were all asleep with their faces smashed in the herring. Nikolai scooped up the bills and coins and poured them into the serving girl’s apron pocket as she walked by. “For you,” he whispered. It was that tiny bit of propriety, that sliver of sunlight that still existed within him, that made him do it.
The servant girl looked all around her but couldn’t find her benefactor. When she dipped her hand into her apron pocket, though, she smiled and said, “Thank you.”
Nikolai felt both wonderfully vile and horribly saintly in the moment, and that strange oil-and-water roiling churned within him again, like it had when he’d absorbed some of Vika’s magic in the egg. He frowned and spat on the floor, as if that would rid him of the discomfort of being good.
He began to walk away, but then he paused. Stanislav’s and the others’ shadows were following him. Well, not exactly following, for they weren’t alive by any means, but they stretched thin, as the shadows of the girl and her father at the toy shop had done, one end stuck to their owners, the other attracted to Nikolai.
He took another step, and then another and another, and the shadows from other patrons began to cling to him, too. Nikolai watched as more shadows joined, stretching thinner and then thinner still, until he was on the far side of the tavern. The Magpie and the Fox was striped with eerie, willowy silhouettes from one end to the other.
Nikolai grinned. And then, when the shadows were on the brink of nearly snapping, he waved his hand to release them from his pull. They sprang away.
He’d let them go back to whom they belonged. For now.
The shadows closest to him returned to a table near the wall, where a boy his age and three men in their midthirties huddled. Nikolai furrowed his brow as he studied them, for he could tell they weren’t the sort who normally met in the Magpie and the Fox. They had attempted to dress below their station, but unbeknownst to them, their mannerisms gave them away—they ignored everyone around them, customers and servers alike, in the manner of the highborn, who were accustomed to not seeing those beneath them. Nikolai simultaneously hated them and wanted to be them.
“I have no problem with the tsesarevich,” one of the men said. “The tsesarevich has a reputation for generosity. It’s the grand princess I take issue with.”
Blazes, that’s Major General Sergei Volkonsky. Nikolai recognized him, of course. Everyone in Saint Petersburg knew him. But what was a man like Volkonsky doing in a hole like the Magpie and the Fox?
“It is substantiated fact,” said a man with a pinched face, as he gesticulated with a pickle in his hand, “that the grand princess was always at the tsar’s right hand. She attended every meeting of the Imperial Council, whereas the tsesarevich did not.”
A third man, this one long-faced, cleared his throat. It was Colonel Sergei Trubetskoy, another prominent member of the nobility whom Nikolai recognized. “The grand princess would see a continuation of their father’s policies,” Trubetskoy said. “But Russia cannot continue like this. We need a constitution. We need accountability.”
Nikolai listened intently from his dark corner. Perhaps he had misjudged these men earlier. Perhaps they ignored all those around them not because they thought themselves superior, but because they were so engrossed in their patriotism that they saw nothing else.
And he was empathetic to their ideals. If anyone understood the inequality of Russian society, it was Nikolai.
“We should kill the grand princess when we revolt,” the pinched-face man said.
“Pavel Ivanovich Pestel,” Trubetskoy whispered urgently. “Keep your voice down. We will not condone murder.”
But I would. The wheels in Nikolai’s head began to turn. What were these men up to? And could they be of use to him?
Pestel leaned back in his chair. “What we discuss is all treason. It is just the degree of severity that matters.”
“There must be another way,” Trubetskoy said.
“There is,” Volkonsky said. “That’s why Ilya is here tonight. He has an interesting proposal.”
Nikolai squinted in the dim light. Yes, it was Ilya Koshkin, whom he knew because Ilya was the only member of the Guard who ever had a clue where to find Pasha when he snuck out. Ilya was also, in a way, like Nikolai. Both were ignored at home—Ilya, because he was the fourth son, and Nikolai, because he’d never really had parents to begin with—but both boys were still ambitious enough to make something of themselves outside of that.
Nikolai shifted a little closer to the table, at the same time the other men turned their attention to Ilya.
Ilya fidgeted in his seat, but then cleared his throat and said, “I suggest that, instead of waiting until next summer to revolt, as we’d originally planned when the tsar was still alive, we ought to act sooner. The tsesarevich is scrambling to fix the mess that’s been made with magic, and I’ve been working to recruit more soldiers to our side as a result of it. They’re afraid of his witch, edict or not.”
Trubetskoy sipped on his beer. “This is interesting.”
“The timing is perfect for a coup,” Ilya said. “The tsesarevich has not been officially crowned. And there are rumors that the tsar wasn’t his father. Politically speaking, this is optimal for us. We wouldn’t be usurping a tsar; we’d be taking the throne from an illegitimate son.”
Volkonsky nodded, a smile on his face like a proud father watching his child come into his own.
“But who would we install in the tsesarevich’s place?” Trubetskoy asked.
“No one,” Pestel said. “We create a democracy.”
Trubetskoy frowned. “We’ve been over this before. Russia isn’t ready for that. Look at the disaster that ensued in France when they demolished the monarchy too swiftly.”
“But the United States—” Pestel began.
“Is much different from Russia,” Volkonsky said. “They are a very young country. We are much more like France than America.”
Trubetskoy nodded. “We must take the long view and shift first to something in between, hence my preference for a constitutional monarchy. I know you disagree, Pestel; you always have. But the majority of us believe this is the right course for the country.”
“Fine then.” Pestel crossed his arms. “Who would you propose to lead your so-called constitutional monarchy?”
I could do it, Nikolai thought, and he began to smile. In fact, this was precisely what he needed—a path to the crown with political legitimacy. It would also be easier for the Russian people to accept him as tsar if he didn’t murder Pasha outright. Better if he let a bunch of revolutionaries do it for him. As a bonus, they would be making a better Russia. Yes! A better empire for those like Nikolai, who were not born privileged or free. He was so gleeful at having a new plan, he almost laughed out loud.
Nikolai cast a shroud to make himself appear more himself, then pulled up a chair and inserted himself at the table between Pestel and Trubetskoy. The men startled and jerked away.
“I suggest you install me on the throne,” Nikolai said.
“Grand Prince Karimov,” Ilya whispered, gawking. He pushed back from his seat and began to rise so he could bow.
Nikolai smiled but put his index finger to his mouth. “Let’s keep my identity among the five of us for tonight, shall we? Otherwise, how will we surprise the tsesarevich if it’s public knowledge that I’ve joined you?”
Ilya nodded furiously and sat back down.
But as a precaution, Nikolai conjured a shield around them to muffle their conversation.
“How do we know it’s you and not some magical trickery ordered by the tsesarevich?” Trubetskoy asked, carefully treading the sword-thin line between skepticism and respect in case Nikolai really was Nikolai.
“You don’t, but believe Ilya when he tells you who I am. In fact, you and I were acquainted in society before my paternity was known. I was Countess Zakrevskaya’s ward. You may ask me anything you like to verify my identity. Once you have been satisfied, I should like to speak with you about helping with your plans, and you with mine.”
“Plans?” Trubetskoy cast his gaze about the tavern. “We have no plans.”
“Very well then, you have no plans.” Let Trubetskoy be cautious. Nikolai would have done the same were he in the other man’s shoes, for the previous conversation alone was enough grounds for a conviction of treason.
Ilya grinned at Nikolai. Pestel appraised him. Volkonsky watched him a bit more cautiously, but hopefully.
Trubetskoy, however, narrowed his eyes and shifted in his seat subtly. He hadn’t become a celebrated war hero by being foolish. Nikolai would have to volunteer information to gain his trust.
“The first time we met face-to-face, Colonel, was at a ball two years ago at Count Rostov’s home. You gave a toast that night, to commemorate the new ballroom in which we danced.”
“Anyone could know these facts.”
“All right. Then how about this? You know I used to sharpen swords for a lieutenant in your regiment in exchange for lessons. In May of last year, you declared that the very knife you’re fingering in your belt now was destroyed, but your lieutenant told you I could fix it. He brought it to me at our next lesson, the blade snapped an inch from the hilt. I don’t know what you did to the knife for it to buckle like that—what remained attached to the hilt had been bent forty-some degrees—but I did fix it.”
Trubetskoy didn’t put his hand on the table where Nikolai could see it. He kept it right where it was, on his belt, close and yet no nearer to his knife. “How do you know this?”
“I told you; I’m the one who fixed it. My initials are stamped onto the base of the blade. You can check it. In fact, I insist you do.”
Now Trubetskoy unsheathed the dagger and turned it in the light of the single lamp on the table. He focused on the metal near the hilt. Nikolai knew what he’d see—the letters NK engraved in Nikolai’s own handwriting, for he hadn’t needed a blacksmith’s stamp. He’d used his magic to etch his mark into the blade.
Trubetskoy examined the knife for several more seconds before he tucked it away. Then he dipped his head in respect.
A smile of relief broke across Ilya’s face.
Pestel leaned closer to Nikolai. “If I may ask, what happened to you? Is it true your brother tried to kill you, but you survived?”
“Well, more accurately, the grand princess,” Nikolai said. “Yuliana, as you know, can be rather ruthless. But Pasha was complicit.”
“Her influence over him is even worse than we feared,” Pestel said to the other men.
At this, the energy inside Nikolai began to burble again. “We can rectify the situation,” he said. “I like the ideas you and the others put forth.”
“You would support us in the reforms? You would abolish serfdom and be willing to entertain a constitutional monarchy?”
Nikolai’s smile was laced with the ugliness of retribution. “If you would support me on the throne, I would support your reforms.”
All four men dropped their heads, bowing without standing or making a show of it.
Finally, Trubetskoy spoke. “This is more than we could have hoped for. My men and I are behind you.”
“Whatever you need is yours,” Volkonsky added.
“Excellent,” Nikolai said. “Then let’s discuss how we achieve our goals. Ilya mentioned staging a coup soon. I suggest we do it by blocking Pasha’s coronation.”
“That’s only a few weeks away,” Ilya said.
“Can you have your soldiers ready?”
Trubetskoy cleared his throat. “We are one of the greatest armies in all of Europe. It won’t be a problem to mobilize.”
“The coronation will take place in Moscow,” Nikolai said. “Ilya, you’re privy to the tsesarevich’s conversations. Has he discussed the route they intend to take?”
Ilya shook his head. “Not when I’ve been there. But perhaps they’d been counting on the Imperial Enchanter to evanesce them and whatever they needed to Moscow.”
“Evasens?” Trubetskoy stumbled on the unfamiliar word.
“That’s how she magically appears and disappears, isn’t it?” Ilya asked.
Nikolai cocked a brow.
“I—I was there at Peter’s Square when you argued with the tsesarevich,” Ilya said. “I saw her appear out of thin air, then and another time.”
Huh. Nikolai had thought that he, Pasha, and Vika were alone that night he animated the statue of Peter the Great. Apparently, Ilya was even better at sneaking around and tracking Pasha than he was given credit for.
But Nikolai didn’t want the others to know he was an enchanter. He didn’t know how they’d react, especially since Trubetskoy had been wary of “magical trickery” when Nikolai first pulled up to their table.
Nikolai pursed his lips and subtly shook his head as he looked at Ilya.
Ilya blinked, then nodded, once. He bit back the smile forming on his lips.
Nikolai would have to take that as a sign of comprehension. “The Imperial Enchanter is forbidden to use magic now,” he said to Trubetskoy, Volkonsky, and Pestel. “That means Pasha will be forced to travel by carriage. He’ll be exposed.”
Pestel scooted closer to the table. “They’ll use the main road. The alternate routes are nearly impassable in winter.”
“It’s good that we know where they’ll be,” Volkonsky said. “Easier to know where to ambush them.”
“But bad that the weather will be punishing, even on the main road,” Trubetskoy said, tapping his vodka glass. “It will make things difficult for us, too.”
“Still,” Nikolai said, “I like this idea.” He didn’t say that they wouldn’t be entirely on their own, that he had magic to assist them. “Can you work on the details of the battle plan and present it to me soon?”
The four men bowed their heads again. “Of course, Your Imperial Highness.”
“Excellent.” Nikolai poured five shots of vodka.
Ilya raised a glass. “To Karimov and a constitution,” he said quietly.
“To Karimov and a constitution,” Trubetskoy, Volkonsky, and Pestel said.
Nikolai smiled as Aizhana’s black energy simmered inside him. “I like that.” He raised his own glass. “To me. And a constitution.”