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.

CHAPTER FOUR

Vika rematerialized in the birch woods of Ovchinin Island, her home in the middle of the Neva Bay. Yuliana had wanted her to move into the Winter Palace, but Vika had refused; she would not be a dog at the grand princess’s constant beck and call. Besides, although Saint Petersburg was stunning in its cosmopolitan way, it could not compare to this: logs and boulders covered by thick blankets of pristine snow. Dense, wild forests sparkling with icicles beneath the moon. Preobrazhensky Creek sleeping peacefully under a layer of crystal-blue ice.

And yet, despite the beauty surrounding her, all Vika could think of was the bracelet. It was no longer hot, but she could still remember its burn.

“Get off me!” She dug her fingernails beneath the edges.

The bracelet did not budge. But the eagle’s ruby eyes flashed at her.

Vika glared right back at it. And she remembered the challenge Father had set up for her, before the Game, with the lightning and the ring of trees. She’d had to fight fire with fire. Could it work now?

She focused on the bracelet and thought about heating it. Melting it.

It heated. But not because of Vika. She yelped as the gold glowed orange and the cuff tightened around her, the filigree digging in so that she could feel each curling vine of its pattern searing into her skin.

“All right, I give up!” she shouted.

The bracelet wove another inch of gold around her wrist, as if to emphasize that Vika’s fate was not her own. Only then did it cool.

But the smell of singed flesh lingered, and Vika gagged. She smothered her nose and mouth with her right hand, the uncuffed one that did not stink of charred skin.

In that regard, the bracelet was very much like the Game’s scar of wands, which could also cease burning at a moment’s notice, yet still leave pain lingering long afterward.

She thought of Nikolai, and for a moment, she forgot about the wisp of smoke that still rose from her skin.

If only he were here right now. He might have an idea for how to evade the bracelet. Or at the very least, Vika would be with someone who could commiserate. Nikolai had shared similar suffering. He would understand both what an honor it was to be Imperial Enchanter and what a burden it was, as well.

The need to see him suddenly consumed her, a silky, warm yearning like the all-encompassing feel of his magic.

To Letniy Isle, she commanded silently.

Please, Nikolai, she thought as she began to evanesce. Please be there tonight.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nikolai sat astride a black mare, both he and the horse watching a golden eagle soaring above as it scanned the Kazakh steppe for prey. Everything is always the same, he thought. Endless sky. Hunting. Breeze rustling through the tall grass. He sighed.

Of course, Nikolai could change small pieces of the scene if he wanted to. He could make his horse dappled gray when he fancied it, or paint the sky in sunset or storm, for none of it was entirely real. This place—this junction between fantasy and reality—was a magical dream he’d conjured back when he was alive.