“And yet,” he continued, “you saw that girl in the forest on Ovchinin Island, whether you’ll admit it or not. Tell me you believe me, that magic is real. Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”

Nikolai poured another shot of vodka for himself as he pondered whether to confirm or deny it.

He had actually considered confiding in Pasha many times before—both about his magical abilities and the related indignities heaped upon him by Galina—but he had always stopped short of confessing. For one, Nikolai knew Pasha looked up to him, as backward as it might be for the tsesarevich to admire a nobody from the steppe, and Nikolai was loath to have yet another thing that set him apart, for he wished to fit in with his friend, not stand out. On the flip side of that, Nikolai might work for Pasha someday, and he wanted to enjoy their friendship as it was for as long as possible, before that dynamic in their relationship shifted. And third, Nikolai did not want to tell Pasha about his abilities, when his magic was eventually going to be used to kill someone. Not that it wouldn’t be revealed at some point, should Nikolai survive the Game. But he didn’t want to think about that. That was a problem for the future, if that future existed.

Honesty, sometimes, was the worst policy.

Nikolai poured vodka for Pasha, too, but his friend shook his head. So Nikolai raised his own glass and muttered, “Myevo zdarovye.” To my health, and knocked back the shot. He washed it down with more than a sip of beer.

“Tell me I’m not losing my mind,” Pasha said again.

Nikolai squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. Pasha appeared to be tilting. Nikolai smacked himself on the cheek, and Pasha was righted. If anyone at the table was losing his mind, it was Nikolai. Especially now, since the alcohol had gone straight to his head. He hadn’t eaten a thing since the afternoon.

“Fine. Magic is real,” he said, before he could stop the declaration from trickling out. Zut alors! Why had he said that? What was this vodka made of?

Pasha sat up, his smile returned. “I knew it! But how do you know?”

“Uh . . .” Nikolai scrambled for a scrap of truth without revealing himself. “My mother was a faith healer.”

“You had a mother?”

Nikolai crossed his arms. “Has a single shot of vodka completely shuttered your brain? Of course I had a mother. Everyone has a mother, at some point.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend. I simply meant, I didn’t know you knew your mother.”

“I don’t. She died during childbirth.”

Pasha looked down at the table, roundly chastened. Nikolai sighed. He hadn’t intended to squelch his friend’s enthusiasm. But alcohol made his words clumsy, like lumbering giants attempting to construct a glass dollhouse. There were bound to be accidents.

“I don’t know anything about my mother, only that she was a faith healer, and the people in my tribe believed her abilities to be real.”

Pasha glanced up. “Are you a faith healer?”

“No.” At least Nikolai could say that without lying.

A few tables away, a chair fell over. Or rather, it had been knocked over, as a man stood and thumped his fist on the tabletop. “We have rights!” he yelled. “The tsar must know he cannot continue to treat the people like vermin! We need a revolution!”

“Shut your trap or we’ll all be tossed into prison!” one of his companions shouted.

Nikolai and Pasha watched as several men pinned down their friend, the mutineer.

“Should we report him?” Nikolai asked Pasha.

Pasha hesitated. He squinted to look at the man, and Nikolai wondered for a second if Pasha knew him. But then Pasha shook his head and sank back into the shadow of their booth. “He’ll sleep it off and come to his senses. I don’t want Nursultan in trouble for harboring traitors when he’s only guilty of harboring fools.”

“Present company excluded, of course.”

“Of course,” Pasha said. “But listen. I have an idea. Unrelated to that ruckus.”

“Another drink?” Nikolai reached for the vodka.

Pasha waved him off. “I’m going to hold a ball for my birthday. Father will think I’m finally rising to the level of pomp expected of a tsesarevich, and Mother will be thrilled that I might find a wife.”

“And your real purpose?”

“I’m going to invite the lightning girl.”

The bottle of vodka slipped from Nikolai’s hand, and he lunged to catch it and also charmed it at the same time so it would not crash and spill all over the food on the cutting board. But as soon as he snatched the bottle, his eyes darted up to Pasha’s. Had he seen? Nikolai should not have done that. In his tipsiness, instinct had taken over.

Pasha looked at the bottle and Nikolai’s hand for a few seconds. Then he shook his head and said, “Nimble catch, Juliet.”

Nikolai exhaled.

“So . . . ,” Pasha said, as he fiddled with the cutting board, “I went back to Ovchinin Island the other day. I discovered the girl’s name.”

Nikolai thumped the bottle of vodka onto the table. “You went to the island to look for her? Are you mad?” Perhaps Pasha was included in the fools whom Nursultan harbored.

“Are you afraid of her?” Pasha asked.

More than you’ll ever know, Nikolai thought. Not only because the lightning girl could very well kill him, but also because her Canal of Colors had stirred something in Nikolai he hadn’t known was there. Of course, her waterways were a swaggering jibe at his work on Nevsky Prospect. And yet, there was also something deeper there, something more untamed. All these years, Nikolai had been alone, with only Galina’s minor magic keeping company with his own. But now there was suddenly another enchanter in his life, and he felt a paradoxical kinship with her. It dissolved the edges of his loneliness, like finding the path home after years of wandering the wilderness on his own.

And although it was arrogant how she’d changed the colors in the canals just to taunt him, Nikolai also admired that she wasn’t afraid to do so.

Which made the girl all the more dangerous. She was the enemy. Nikolai could not afford to be drawn in.

He was also afraid that Pasha would fall for her, seeing as he had already gone far out of his way to track down her details on Ovchinin Island. How could Nikolai kill the girl if his best friend became infatuated with her?