The Crown's Fate
Page 33

“Well, that’s a good thing, that they’re beginning to accept magic,” Pasha whispered to Yuliana.
She clutched his arm a bit more tightly. “It would be if you and Vika had truly created this fete. But it’s Nikolai’s. Something is bound to go bad.”
Pasha shivered again.
Someone cleared his throat behind them. Pasha nearly jumped out of his boots.
“My apologies, Your Imperial Highness,” Ilya whispered as he leaned in. “But I only wanted to make my presence known in the event that you need me.”
Pasha settled back into his boots. He’d made the decision to tell the Guard that he and Yuliana would arrive at the fete later, around midnight, which was partly true, for he’d only meant to steal through the party right now as reconnaissance before making an official appearance, as himself, later on. But of course, if anyone would discover that he’d snuck out of the palace early, it was Ilya. This was, after all, why Pasha had chosen him to spy on Volkonsky and the constitutionalists. Ilya was awfully good at knowing and seeing things he wasn’t supposed to know and see.
Pasha’s stomach growled.
“Perhaps you’d like something to eat while you investigate?” Ilya asked.
“Not a bad idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea,” Yuliana said.
A life-size porcelain doll skated by carrying a fresh tureen of borscht. Pasha inhaled deeply, the warmth of the beet soup wrapping around and through him, just as another doll glided up to him with a plate of miniature tarts, filled with caramelized onions, gruyere cheese, and thyme.
“Tarte à l’oignon?” she asked in a dainty voice perfectly suited for a porcelain doll.
He smiled. “Merci.” He popped one into his mouth as Yuliana cried out, “Pasha!”
He swallowed and shrugged. “I couldn’t resist. It’s been so long since supper, and tarte à l’oignon is one of my favorites.”
Yuliana flung herself at him and shook him by the shoulders. “I know! And Nikolai knows! Why else would he serve a French country tart at a party where all the other food is Russian?”
“Sacré bleu,” Pasha whispered.
The sweetness of the onion was already turning acrid on his tongue. No, not acrid. Metallic. Yuliana was right. Nikolai had done this on purpose. He must’ve seen through Pasha’s disguise—of course he knew most of what Pasha had in his wardrobe, since they’d snuck out innumerable times together over the years—and sent a doll specifically with the tart.
“Yuliana—” Pasha clutched at his throat with one hand and his stomach with another. His knees gave way beneath him as something sharp lanced through his insides.
Ilya lunged and caught him.
“Quickly, we need to get him out of plain sight,” Yuliana said to Ilya under her breath. She laughed—forcibly—and said loudly enough for those nearby to hear, “You really shouldn’t drink so much before eating.”
Ilya hoisted Pasha’s arm around his shoulder, and the two staggered back toward the palace with Yuliana close behind.
But Pasha doubled over after a few yards. He convulsed and coughed into the snow.
“I think I’m bleeding,” he whispered when the fit had passed.
Yuliana gasped as Pasha’s hand came away from where he’d covered his mouth. It was slick and deep crimson.
“Here,” Ilya said, steering them to the other side of a snowbank. It wasn’t much, but it was some cover from the partygoers.
Pasha collapsed. He coughed some more, and red spattered the dirty snow. His consciousness rapidly bled out with it.
But just as everything was about to go black, Pasha grappled at the collar of his uniform and yanked the basalt necklace out. He clutched his fingers around it.
“Vika,” he whispered. “Can you hear me? I need you.”
His voice and his lungs gave out. And then everything went as dark as the basalt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Vika jerked upright from the log upon which she sat. She was home on Ovchinin Island, next to Preobrazhensky Creek, but Pasha’s voice was as clear as if he were sitting right beside her. He sounded like the bewildered boy who’d stumbled upon her here in the woods, in the middle of lightning and flame. The one who’d asked her for her first dance at his masquerade. The boy who’d almost kissed her in the maple grove.
Unlike Nikolai, who had become increasingly, painfully unfamiliar, this sounded like the Pasha she knew. Vika’s remaining resistance against him crumbled like a fortress made of sand.
“I hear you,” she said. “And I’m coming.”
Vika appeared at the snowbank along the Neva moments later.
“He ate a tart that Nikolai tainted,” Yuliana said.
Vika took in the crimson snow. It was all she needed to know that whatever Pasha had consumed had been a tart only in appearance. Nikolai, what have you done? Her heart stopped beating.
It resumed several seconds later, but the rhythm was different. Their mazurka was forever done. Vika’s entire body drooped.
“Can you evanesce him back to the palace?” Yuliana asked.
Vika stared, half here but half still lamenting the loss of Nikolai.
“Vika!”
“What? Oh.” Vika shook her head, jostling away the heaviness that was Nikolai. She had before her a boy who was still here and who needed her attention, right now. “The tsesarevich is too fragile. I don’t want to risk it. But I can cast a shroud so that if anyone comes upon us, they’ll see only a mound of snow.” She enchanted the air around them, then dropped to her knees.
“Pasha, it’s Vika. I’m here.” She was fully aware this was the first time in a long time that she’d called him by his name, in his presence. But that was because it finally felt necessary and right again. He wasn’t just “Your Imperial Highness.” He was Pasha.
He stirred, eyes closed and body limp. “Blood . . . Nikolai . . . fitting this is how it ends . . . ,” he muttered.
“This is not how it ends,” Vika said. “I’m going to strip you from the waist up.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Yuliana said. “He’s the heir to the throne.”
“Well, he won’t be heir if he dies, and I’ll be much better able to see whatever it is inside him if I strip off his clothes. So I’m going to do it whether it’s proper or not.”