It was too late to be evening, yet too early to be morning, when Pasha tripped his way into Peter’s Square. There was nothing princely about him at the moment, for he hadn’t shaved in the fortnight since the end of the Game, and he wore a tattered coat and a threadbare fisherman’s cap, which had come from the secret chest where he stored his disguises. There was also the matter of the entire bottle of vodka he’d gloriously—or perhaps, ingloriously—drunk on his own, and as he came to rest against the base of the statue of Peter the Great, reality was a bit slippery for Pasha to hold on to.
“Bonsoir, Your Imperial Majesty,” Pasha said from the Thunder Stone. Towering above him, an enormous bronze Peter looked out across the dark river, while his horse trampled a serpent, symbolizing the enemies of the tsar and Saint Petersburg. Legend had it the statue was enchanted, that it would always protect the people and the city.
“Quiet out tonight,” Pasha said. “Looks like it’s just you and me, tsar and . . . future tsar.” He’d hesitated because he’d almost called himself a tsar, too. But Pasha was technically still only the tsesarevich, the heir to the throne, until the official coronation in Moscow next month.
This felt right, though. Tsar and future tsar. Pasha laughed and lowered himself down to the snowy ground. He rested his head against the Thunder Stone.
“Do you ever wish you could go back in time and do things over?” Pasha asked the statue. He tilted his head farther back until he was looking up at the underbelly of the horse, as well as in the general direction of the bronze tsar. Snow fell into Pasha’s eyes. The horse snorted.
Pasha startled. “Did your horse just—?”
But after a few moments of definite silence (he must’ve imagined the horse making a noise—damn it, how much had he drunk again?), Pasha returned to leaning against the stone. “No, I suppose you never felt that way. You’re Peter the Great. You’re great by definition. Whereas I will be, what? Pasha the Unshaven.” He waved his arms dramatically in the air. “Pasha the Unprepared. Pasha the Dreadful, who never apologized to his best friend before sending him to his death.” He exhaled loudly. “I just wish I could have a second chance. I would . . . I don’t know what I would do. But I know I wouldn’t demand the end of the Game. There must have been some other way.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Your Imperial Highness,” a voice said.
Pasha jumped to his feet and whirled. He looked at Peter the Great, eyes wide. “Did you say something? O-or . . . was it you again?” He shifted his focus to the horse.
A girl came from around the other side of the Thunder Stone. Her red hair flamed beneath the dull brown of her fur hat. “Are you talking to the statue?”
Pasha blinked at her. It took a few seconds for his addled head to process what had happened. Of course. The voice had belonged to a girl. And not just any girl. To Vika, his Imperial Enchanter.
“I’m not talking to the statue,” Pasha lied. How long had Vika been there, on the other side of the Thunder Stone? Might as well add “Pasha the Insane” to his list of illustrious monikers.
Vika came closer but stopped several yards away from him. Ever since the end of the Game, she’d maintained her distance. Pasha winced at the memory that the girl he’d once almost kissed now despised him.
“I mean it when I say you ought to be careful what you wish for,” Vika said.
“Why? What could happen?”
“Anything. Or nothing. I don’t know. But I’ve told you before, magic comes tied with many strings. Wishes, I’d imagine, are a bit like magic. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
But Pasha smiled at her admonition. She could have left him here, babbling to Peter the Great and possibly making a grave magical mistake. But she took the time to intervene. She actually talked to me, voluntarily. That was progress. He thought back to the last time they’d spoken, a week after the end of the Game. She’d been in the steppe dream, and Pasha had come to find her, to apologize. She’d dismissed him.
And then another week had passed and he hadn’t seen or heard from her at all. Now here she was, in the middle of the night, watching over him like an Imperial Enchanter would. Or perhaps even like a friend.
Pasha looked at the expanse of snow between them. Maybe the distance could be shortened, both figuratively and literally. He took a step toward her and tripped in the snow.
Damn alcohol. It was probably closer to samogon—homemade moonshine—than real vodka. That’s what I get for drinking in an unfamiliar tavern, he thought. But he couldn’t go back to the Magpie and the Fox. Too many memories of him and Nikolai there.
When Pasha got up, he held on to the Thunder Stone for balance. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“I was out for a stroll, Your Imperial Highness.”
That was also a post-Game development. Vika refused to call Pasha by name. He tried not to wince again—at least, not too visibly. “Out for a stroll, at this hour?”
Vika furrowed her brow. “Since when do you have the right to judge my comings and goings?”
“I was only curious—”
Vika held up her hand. A cold wind, colder than the one that already bedeviled Saint Petersburg, swirled around her. “You’ve had too much to drink, Your Imperial Highness. I hope you pull yourself together before the coronation. The people will only tolerate the grand princess running the empire for so long.”
Pasha’s insides flared. Perhaps it was indignation. Or perhaps it was the samogon in his stomach. Either way, it was enough to fuel him to stand up straight, without the Thunder Stone’s help.
But it’s true what Vika said, isn’t it? Pasha’s sister, Yuliana, was keeping the country going, attending Imperial Council meetings and receiving ambassadors, while he, the tsesarevich, was sneaking out of the Winter Palace in shoddy disguises and drowning himself in self-pity.
I can act like a ruler, too. The thought sloshed through his head, splashing against the inside of his skull.
“Vika,” he said.
“What?” Her fiery hair whipped in the wind, like a solitary flame in the middle of the snow of Peter’s Square.
She was his flame, though, wasn’t she? She was his Imperial Enchanter.
A sloppy grin plastered itself across Pasha’s face. “I order you to conjure me a midnight snack.”
Vika scowled. “I beg your pardon?”
“You were right, I’ve had too much to drink, and I need some food to soak up the alcohol. And a fire, too, because it’s a bit chilly out here, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t.” She stomped through the snow until she was only a few inches away from him. She was much shorter than he and had to look up at him, but somehow, she managed to make Pasha feel like he was the one who had to look up at her. Vika had a way of commanding more space than she occupied. “I know that losing your parents must have been traumatic—God knows I understand that firsthand—” She paused, but she gathered herself in a fraction of a second. “Yet I’m still me, even after Sergei died. You, on the other hand . . . I don’t know what happened to change you, to make you demand the end of the Game like you did. What happened to the tsesarevich who was so sweet with me, and who was inseparable from his best friend? And now this, ordering me around like a mere kitchen servant . . .”
She glared at him even more intensely, her eyes like emeralds on fire. “I may be your Imperial Enchanter, but I refuse to use magic for inconsequential rubbish like fixing you a snack. Try it again, and I’ll quit. Let’s see how you do on charm alone, without any magic by your side.”
Pasha’s mouth dropped open.
But at the same time, Vika shrieked and grabbed her left wrist. She fell against him, and Pasha caught her as they both stumbled backward, braced by the Thunder Stone.
“Vika, what is it?” All thoughts about himself vanished. She didn’t cry out again, but her entire body shook so hard, the tremors traveled through Pasha’s hands where he held her, into his bones.
Pasha pried her gloved fingers off the left sleeve of her coat. She sucked air through her teeth. He pushed the wool up and away from her wrist.
A bracelet—no, a cuff, a filigree of metallic vines—was wrapped tightly around her and burned and glowed orange like embers against her skin. Atop the cuff, the Russian Empire’s gold double-headed eagle watched her with fiery ruby eyes.
Pasha gasped. He’d been here before, almost like this but in a carriage, with Vika by his side as the scar on her collarbone glowed menacingly bright. And now this bracelet.
“Where did you get that? What is it doing to you?”
“It appeared just now,” Vika said through her teeth. “And it’s burning me, can’t you see?” Her eyes watered as she bore the pain. But she wrenched herself away from Pasha’s grip.
And fell immediately to her knees in the snow.
He moved toward her, arms outstretched.
“Stay back,” she snapped.
He did as he was told. Her tone left no room for debate.
Vika muttered something under her breath. A moment later, a platter of black bread and smoked herring appeared in the air in front of Pasha’s nose. The bread was steaming hot, as if it had just come out of the oven, and the smell was enough to make his samogon-soaked stomach growl. He leaned instinctively toward it.
Then the platter unceremoniously dumped its contents onto the dirty snow at Pasha’s feet. Some of the herring landed on the toe of his boot. “Sacré bleu!” He jerked away, and the herring slid onto the ground, a slimy trail remaining on his shoe.
Vika exhaled, and the tension in her body melted away. The bracelet stopped glowing and turned an innocuous, ordinary gold.
An immediate reaction to her obedience, Pasha realized. He’d ordered her to conjure him a midnight snack. She’d refused. The bracelet had appeared and punished her, but had relented as soon as she complied with his request. Well, technically complied. He hadn’t said anything about the snack being clean.
She looked at him from where she remained kneeling in the snow. “Are you happy now?”
Pasha shook his head. “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would happen.”
“You seem sorry quite a bit lately, but only after being horrible.” She climbed to her feet, still glaring.
Since it was the truth, he didn’t try to defend himself. He pointed at Vika’s wrist instead. “Are you all right now?”
“As all right as one can be, I suppose, being literally cuffed to Your Imperial Highness’s service.” She bit her lip, but ferociously, not at all in the coy manner that girls of the court ordinarily bit their lips in Pasha’s presence. “It was foolish of me to think I could simply refuse you or walk away from being Imperial Enchanter.”
“If I had a choice, I would release you from your obligations.” Pasha took a step toward her.
Vika scowled. He didn’t move any closer.
“But you don’t have that power, Your Imperial Highness. The bracelet ensures that I stay. I swore an oath of loyalty to your father at the beginning of the Game and promised to abide by all the rules and traditions that had previously been established.”
Pasha’s brain was still soaked through with samogon, and drawing logical conclusions took great effort. He spoke, but the thoughts came slowly. “And since you won the Game . . . you’re bound by the ancient magic of the oath to serve the tsardom?”
Her shoulders sagged then, as if sadness suddenly weighed her down and crushed her anger beneath it. “Apparently, if I can’t be trusted to act in the interest of the crown, then there are safeguards to ensure that I do so. The roles of tsar and Imperial Enchanter have not survived for centuries by chance.” She transferred her gaze from Pasha to the bracelet on her wrist. Then she yanked her coat sleeve down over the cuff so she couldn’t see it.
Pasha leaned back against the Thunder Stone. Part of him was relieved Vika couldn’t just leave him. He needed her. But part of him hated that she stayed only because she was compelled to, not because she wanted to.
“Well, then, Your Imperial Highness, now that you have your midnight snack . . .” Vika paused, as if to allow Pasha a moment to look at the bread and herring scattered (and now frozen) in the snow. “I should probably be going. As you mentioned, it’s quite late.”
She curtsied. It was terribly formal, with an emphasis on the “terrible” part.
“Wait.” Pasha moved forward, undeterred this time by her glare. “I mean it when I say I’m sor—”
“Don’t bother.” Snowflakes began to spin around her, and within seconds, Vika had dissolved herself so that she, too, was a part of the flurry, and then the wind whipped and carried her off.
Pasha was alone again with the statue. He fell back against the Thunder Stone and ran his hands through his mess of blond waves. His fisherman’s cap fell to the ground—appropriately, into the herring—but he didn’t care enough to pick it up.
“Now I truly wish I could have a second chance,” he said.
Pasha immediately slapped his glove over his mouth. For he’d made another wish, even after Vika had warned him.
And yet, I’d do anything for it to come true, he thought. The samogon made him both wistful and reckless. But why not? There was no risk, not really. Nikolai was dead. Vika hated him. Pasha was not getting a second chance with either.
He kicked the loaf of bread across the square, hung his aching head, and trudged through the snow, back home to the lonely halls of the Winter Palace.