The party descended deep into the caverns, twisting and winding their way until they reached a large cave. In it, there was a luminescent tree stump, a throne-like seat complete with wooden stalagmites that rose up to form its back and long flat branches that resembled armrests. Their edges were too gnarled to be man-made, yet too purposeful to be natural. Nikolai shook his head at the beauty of Bolshebnoie Duplo.

The tsar strode up to the throne and eased himself into it. The light in the cave brightened, shifting from dusty rose to a pearly pink. He gestured for the enchanters to step forward, and Nikolai and the girl obeyed. Galina and her brother, however, held back.

“I assume your mentors have informed you of the rules and format of the Game,” the tsar said, “but I will repeat them again so they are clear. The Game is a display of skill and a demonstration of strategy and mettle. The goal is to show me your worthiness to become my Imperial Enchanter—my adviser for all things from war to peace and everything in between.

“The Game will take place in Saint Petersburg, and you will take turns executing enchantments. There is no restriction on the form of magic you choose, only that you do not alarm or harm the people of the city.”

Right, Nikolai thought. So no alligators swimming unchecked through the canals.

“Each enchanter will have five turns, at the most,” the tsar continued. “As the judge, I may declare a winner at any point in the Game, or I may wait until all ten plays have been made. Remember, your moves will reveal not only your power but also your character and your suitability to serve the empire. Impress me.” He looked down at Nikolai and the girl from his glimmering throne. The tsar couldn’t actually see through their facades, but his expectation pierced their shrouds nonetheless. Nikolai shrank a little inside his own shadow.

“To begin the Game,” the tsar said, “we—”

“Pardon me, Your Imperial Majesty,” the girl said. “I have a question.”

Nikolai shifted in place. Was the girl really so bold that she would interrupt the tsar?

“What is it?” The tsar practically spat the question.

The girl was unfazed in her shroud. Bold indeed. “Why must the Game end in death? I understand that the Imperial Enchanter needs to be the sole conduit of magic, but why can’t one enchanter win, and the other step aside?”

The tsar huffed. “And what would the other enchanter do? Retire to the countryside and promise never to use magic again? Or move abroad and have no access to Russia’s wellspring? Would you be able to do that? Give up everything you are, in exchange for your life?”

The girl contemplated this for a moment. Then she looked up. “It would not be a life, Your Imperial Majesty, if I could not enchant.”

“Precisely.”

“So you just execute one of us in the end?”

Nikolai gaped. Was she really questioning the tsar again?

The girl stood with her arms crossed.

The tsar stared at the girl from his arboreal throne and shook his head as if unable to believe she was interrupting again, and doing so to ask about logistics, of all things. He rose from his throne and towered before them. “When I declare a winner, the Game’s own magic will eliminate the other enchanter. Even if, for some reason, I did not declare a winner after you had each taken five turns, the Game would make the decision for me and extinguish one of you. Russia will have only one Imperial Enchanter to wield the full force of its magic. Understood?”

The girl seemed undisturbed. In fact, she pursed her lips, considering the tsar’s answer. It’s as if she’s contemplating the possibility that the tsar’s word isn’t absolute, Nikolai thought. The girl was made of daring. Or recklessness.

“I see,” she finally said. “Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“If there is nothing else . . .” The tsar paused just long enough to glare at the girl, like a challenge to interrupt again. The message was clear that there would be consequences this time if she did.

She didn’t.

“Fine. Then let us commence the oath.” The tsar opened the oaken chest he had carried into the caverns. A yellowed scroll and a long black quill floated out. The scroll unfurled itself, and both Nikolai and the girl took a step back. The Game was its own living magic.

The parchment hovered beside the tsar, and he read its timeworn instructions. “Bolshebnoie Duplo has been imbued with ancient enchantments that will bind you to the Game and to Russia. Now, reveal your true selves to me.”

Nikolai glanced at the girl. They would both have to maintain their shrouds but open up the enchantment so that only the tsar could see. He needed to know who his future enchanter was.

The girl looked at Nikolai, too.

Nikolai yanked his gaze away and faced forward. He focused on protecting his shadow veneer—he might know the girl’s identity, but she did not know his—and allowed a pathway for the tsar to see him.

Would the tsar recognize him as Pasha’s friend? Or not, given that the tsar gave hardly a whit about his son’s social affairs? He cared only to engage Pasha on matters important to his training as tsesarevich.

The tsar squinted as he looked upon Nikolai, as if trying to place him. A moment later, it seemed to click in his head where he had seen Nikolai before, and he frowned.

“Interesting.” The tsar drummed his fingers on the arm of his wooden throne. And then he cleared his throat and continued as if the presence of his son’s best friend in the midst of a magical battle to the death were nothing extraordinary at all. Of course, it made sense that the tsar would appear unruffled at this turn of events. Certainly he had encountered much greater surprises in his career. Or perhaps the tsar truly didn’t care that Nikolai was one of the enchanters. After all, who am I but a common boy who happened to befriend his son?

“Repeat after me,” the tsar said to both Nikolai and Vika as he read from the Russe Scroll.

“I hereby swear my loyalty to the tsar,

And promise to abide by the rules of the Game,

A duel of enchantment, until a winner is declared.

To this and all traditions here before established, I commit myself

As an enchanter in the Crown’s Game.”

Nikolai and Vika repeated the oath back to the tsar in unison. Nikolai kept his voice even, but hers carried and echoed throughout the cave, as if even in this inaugural moment of the Game, she was already trying to gain the upper hand.