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.