Regardless of the reason, Aizhana did not fall too far behind him.

Finally, Nikolai stopped pushing his way through the waist-high grass and whirled around. “What exactly is it you want from me?”

Aizhana stopped as well. “From you? Nothing. But for you? Everything. That girl should not have been the one to win the Crown’s Game. And the so-called tsesarevich should not be the one to ascend to the throne. You have as much claim to the crown as he does. More, actually. At the time he would have been conceived, his mother had a lover. Alexis Okhotnikov, I believe. So your precious friend is really the bastard product of the tsarina and a mere staff captain.”

Nikolai crossed his arms. “Don’t say that about Pasha.”

“You still defend him? After he all but shoved you to your death?”

Nikolai rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was true, what Aizhana said. Pasha had forced the end of the Game, knowing that meant either Nikolai or Vika would die. And of course Nikolai was angry and heartbroken over it.

But Pasha had also just lost both his parents. And Nikolai understood Yuliana well enough that it was clear her hand had more than guided Pasha’s decision to declare the violent finale of the Game.

It was difficult for Nikolai to know which was worse—that he still loved Pasha, or that he still felt betrayed.

“The rumor about the tsarina and her lover is unsubstantiated,” Nikolai said, avoiding Aizhana’s question—her accusation—about coming to Pasha’s defense. “Besides, if you call Pasha a bastard, then I am, too. The bastard product of the tsar and his murderer.”

Aizhana cackled. If the birds in the steppe dream had been real, they would have startled from the grass. “Call yourself what you want, but that still makes you first in line for the throne. You are older than the tsesarevich by a year, and you are a direct descendant of the tsar.”

“Right. And Russia wants a walking shadow for their leader.”

“Russia wants revolution, Nikolai. They don’t want the old ways, and they don’t want the tsesarevich, who is merely his sister’s puppet. Listen to me. All you need to do is kill a few people, and you’ll have the energy you need to be whole again, and more. You could make yourself indestructible, and with your magic, no one could stop you.”

Nikolai spat in the grass. “When I figure out how to make myself whole again, it will have nothing to do with killing innocent visitors to this dream.”

Aizhana shrugged. “Your misguided sense of honor holds you back. But remember this—the crown can be powerful yet as fragile as paper. Right now, Pasha is only a boy playing at becoming tsar. You could take advantage of that, my son.” And with that, she bit on her arm to force her body awake, and she vanished violently from the dream.

Nikolai shuddered. Then he pressed on through the grass toward the mountainside. But he couldn’t shake the black stickiness that lingered in the air, like humidity of the foulest kind.

Unfortunately, Aizhana always left an impression.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Vika waited just outside the door of Madame Boulangère, a snooty French bakery on Nevsky Prospect, the main boulevard through Saint Petersburg. She was there to intercept Renata, a servant in the house where Nikolai had formerly lived, because Renata could read tea leaves and might be able to see what was happening with Nikolai. But Renata thought Nikolai was dead, and Vika couldn’t simply appear at the Zakrevsky house and talk openly about what had happened in the Game, for other servants might hear. Not to mention that Galina Zakrevskaya, Nikolai’s mentor and the tyrant of the house, hated Vika.

So here Vika was, hovering by Madame Boulangère, where Renata was inside, picking up Galina’s daily order of baguettes and pains au chocolat. (Funny, in a way, that Galina was like her brother in that sense; Sergei had also had a standing order at a bakery for bread every day. Although Father’s preference had always been hearty, practical Russian fare, not extravagant French confections.) While Vika waited, she watched the people around her scurrying up and down Nevsky Prospect with brown paper parcels full of Christmas cakes and boxes with new suits and hats for holiday fetes. She wondered for a moment what ordinary life would feel like, the kind where days were filled with mundane concerns like what color ribbon to wear in her hair for Christmas night.

But Vika did not want an ordinary life.

Finally, the bell above the door to Madame Boulangère tinkled, and Renata hurried out with an armful of baguettes wrapped in old Parisian newspaper and a box presumably full of sweets. She stopped short and nearly dropped the bread when she saw Vika waiting.

Vika shot a quick charm to keep the baguettes cradled in the crook of Renata’s arms.

“Privet, Renata.”

Renata clutched the bread tightly again. Too tightly, in fact. The crust of the bread crackled under her hold. “Zdravstvuyte,” she said, returning the greeting but using the formal form of hello.

Renata looked mostly the same: a gray dress with a white apron, and intricately woven braids swaying against the nape of her neck. But there was no spark left in her eyes. Even near the end of the Game, Renata had been a candle flame of bravery. She’d leaned against the bars of the cell in which she was trapped and wished Vika well.

No trace of that courage remained. Nor was Renata’s telltale kindness present. She merely looked at Vika blankly. “How can I assist you, Baroness Andreyeva?”

It was the same way Vika acted toward Pasha. Detached. Reluctantly dutiful. Using her official title, not her name.

“I need to talk to you. Can you spare a few minutes?”

“I don’t think I have a choice.” She looked at the snow at her feet.

Vika gritted her teeth. She knew what it was like not to be permitted choices. She would not impose the same on Renata. “You always have a choice, at least with me. But thank you. Come this way, please.”

She led Renata off busy Nevsky Prospect onto a quiet side street. Vika looked up at the snow drifting from the sky. She issued a silent command, and the snowflakes began to flurry in a protective cylinder around them. “There,” she said. “Now no one will be able to hear or interrupt us.” Any passersby would simply see a heavier burst of snowfall.

Renata forced a smile despite not wanting to be there, the learned reaction of a servant, born and bred to be polite. “That’s a pretty bracelet you’re wearing.”