Pasha frowned as he walked in. He took in the room, still full of letters and envelopes, then looked pointedly at Yuliana. “Who are you?”

“What?” She scrunched her nose.

“This room is a disaster. My sister would never tolerate something like this. Therefore, you are clearly an imposter.”

Yuliana could see the grin itching to break at the edge of his mouth. “Very funny.”

“I thought so.” He allowed himself to grin now and cleared a small space on the chaise longue. He picked up an envelope as he sat down. “So tell me, why is it such a mess in here?”

Yuliana rose and grabbed her notes from the desk, then wove through a thin break between the stacks of papers. Pasha shifted on the chaise to make space for her.

“These are Mother’s things,” she said as she sat down beside him.

Pasha nodded. “I recognize her perfume on the pages. But that doesn’t answer my question of why it appears a storm has blown through your quarters.”

“I went through her letters to figure out who your father was.” Yuliana shoved her notes at Pasha. There were pages and pages of neat columns, listing dates and descriptions of the contents of each letter.

His grin disappeared. “I’m afraid to ask what you’ve discovered.”

Yuliana scooted closer to him and took back her notes, shuffling through them until she found what she was looking for. “Well, to be honest, I haven’t found anything definitive yet. The rumors are that Mother and Okhotnikov were involved early in 1808, right? Which would mean he could be your father, since you were born in October that year. And yet, look.” She pointed to several entries, dated 1807. “These are the letters in which Mother’s friends console her over the loss of ‘the candle that lit her nights.’ From what I can gather from her other correspondence, that’s code for her lover.”

Pasha leaned in for a better look. Yuliana could hear that he was holding his breath.

“He died in 1807?” Pasha said.

She nodded. “I think so.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“I’m going to keep reading.”

Pasha rose and kissed his sister on the top of her head. “I’ll check the Imperial Army’s historical rosters. That ought to give us an answer for good.”

She looked up at him. “All right. But be careful.”

He tilted his head quizzically.

“It’s been too quiet since Nikolai tried to kill us with the carriage made of swords. He’s up to something.”

Pasha sighed. But then he nodded. “I’ll figure out what he is doing.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The soldier on duty at the Imperial Army’s office was asleep at his desk. Pasha frowned. He had gone to all the trouble of disguising himself as an infantryman from a regiment out of town—complete with a story about why he needed to access his uncle’s records for an honor his fabricated city was bestowing upon said uncle—but it seemed all his preparations were unnecessary. It was also a bit disappointing that this was what a soldier in Pasha’s army did when no one was looking. Then again, this was a records office, not an outpost at the edges of the Ottoman Empire. Even Pasha had to admit that if his job were sitting at this desk, he’d nap to pass the time too.

He slipped into the back of the office, past the snoring soldier, and availed himself of the files in the drawers.

The records were tidy, and this was certainly something of which Pasha could be proud. The Imperial Army was one of the finest in Europe, from their fighting against Napoleon down to their polished boots, from the wisdom of their commanders to the documentation for every soldier, so precise it was as if Yuliana herself had made the notations for each one.

Pasha riffled through the yellowed papers, working backward in time until he found 1807.

Please, let there be a record here of Okhotnikov’s death.

He peeked through the door to the soldier out front, and upon hearing him still snoring, pulled a fat stack of papers from the drawer. Pasha sat with them on the floor, out of the soldier’s line of sight, in case he woke.

Records of new recruits. Of retirements. Of promotions and approvals for sick leave.

And then, a notice of death.

Alexis Okhotnikov, staff captain of the Guard.

Cause of death: stabbing, assailant unknown.

Pasha’s breath came fast and shallow. He clutched the paper to his chest, squeezed his eyes shut, and leaned back against the wall.

Before he’d left Yuliana’s chambers, she’d shown him the rest of her notes. After the loss of “the candle that lit her nights,” there were no more mentions of other lovers, and the tsarina began to write her friends more of the tsar’s renewed attention to her. And then of her pregnancy.

With Okhotnikov’s death record still in his hand, Pasha covered his face and processed the information.

“I really am a Romanov,” he whispered. “I am the tsesarevich. The crown belongs to me.” His voice shook as he uttered the words.

No, not just words. The truth.

But then he suddenly pulled his hands from his face and sat upright. Just because he was the legitimate heir didn’t mean his ascension was guaranteed. Plenty of kingdoms had been wrenched from their rightful rulers. Nikolai had been relentless in pursuing the crown. He wouldn’t stop simply because Pasha had evidence that he was first in line.

Pasha pounded the floor with a fist and got to his feet. His job was not done. For now he knew for certain he was supposed to be tsar.

“And I’m going to prove it.”

Outside one of the larger barracks, a crowd several men deep was ringed around a pair of wrestlers, who circled each other, shirtless. The snow had been cleared half an hour ago, when the soldiers had grown listless and had too much to drink—they’d managed to “procure” three crates of vodka from an unattended cart on Sadovaya Street—and now they pummeled out their boredom with fists and wagers and, of course, more vodka.

Pasha, still in disguise as a soldier from another regiment, threw himself into their midst. If he was going to rule the empire, he had to do so in a way that worked for him—diving into the reality of his people.

Pasha had attended a recent Imperial Council meeting, though (much to the council members’ surprise), and he’d learned that the constitutionalists were leveraging Nikolai’s fete and the evils of magic to bring the army to their side. Until now, only a minority faction of the nobility had supported the idea of a constitutional monarchy, and even then, it had been an academic, almost theoretical discussion. But recruiting common soldiers was alarming, because it took a philosophical idea from fancy parlors and turned it into a real potential threat.