Facing away from her, Aizhana smirked. Yes, follow me. She limped as fast as she could toward a mausoleum, as if she were wounded prey seeking a hiding place from her predator.
The doors were locked. But Aizhana didn’t need the key to get in. Her fingernails were as good for picking locks as they were for slashing throats. Galina closed the distance between them. Aizhana slid her nails into the lock, and a few seconds later heard the satisfying click of the mechanism giving way. She shoved the heavy mausoleum doors open and limped in.
Where it was completely dark. The faint moonlight outside did not penetrate the crypt. Aizhana stumbled into the marble coffin at its center.
There was a faint wisp of wind as Galina glided in.
“I should lock you in here,” Galina said, her voice echoing against the marble walls. “You’re mostly dead already. The tomb would finish the job.”
“I survived being buried for nearly two decades. I doubt locking me in here would be enough to kill me this time, either,” Aizhana said, partly because pride made her defend herself, and partly to draw Galina farther into the mausoleum, toward the sound of her voice.
Galina was too cautious. She remained near the doors.
But no matter. Aizhana’s eyes, being accustomed to living six feet underground, had already adjusted to the lack of light in the crypt. Especially with the faint moonlight in the background, she could see Galina’s silhouette perfectly. And Galina could not see her.
Aizhana pounced. She lanced a nail straight into the center of Galina’s chest, the needle tip of it spearing through pulsing, thick muscle. It turned out Galina did, in fact, have a heart, one bursting with energy like Aizhana had never felt before, because Galina’s energy was threaded through with the ability to call upon magic. It would be nowhere near as powerful as Nikolai’s, of course, for Galina was merely a mentor, but the surge of it was still enough to make Aizhana moan with pleasure, like absorbing fireworks along with Galina’s life. This energy was what Nikolai needed.
Galina gaped at Aizhana. “You . . .”
“I . . . what?”
“You don’t deserve Nikolai.”
Aizhana thrust her fingernail harder through Galina’s heart. Galina cried out. A moment later, she slumped as the last of her energy drained from her haughty body into Aizhana’s blighted one.
Aizhana tried to extract her nail, as if she were withdrawing a sword, but the movement was too violent, and her nail snapped off, remaining firmly lodged in Galina’s chest.
“Damn you,” she said. “Even in death you do harm to me and my family.” She spat on Galina’s corpse. And then Aizhana spat again, for good measure. “You don’t deserve Nikolai, either.”
But there was someone who might deserve Nikolai, if she could prove her worth, her willingness to help him. It was that servant girl he’d mentioned. Aizhana smiled.
She would find Renata next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next afternoon, Vika rode beside Pasha in the open carriage as they departed the Winter Palace. Pasha might have been a wreck on the inside—he purposely averted his eyes from where the Jack’s and ballerina’s boxes used to be in the square—but on the outside, he was nothing but regal serenity. He wore a crisp black military uniform with gold epaulets on his shoulders, red piping along the edges, and mirror-shined brass buttons down the front. His hair was neatly combed (this alone let Vika know that his appearance was but a facade), and a stately black feathered hat that marked his training in the cavalry.
I feel the same way, Vika thought. Composed on the outside, but a bundle of nerves on the inside. Yuliana had insisted that Vika could not appear by Pasha’s side wearing her favorite green dress. It was, apparently, “an out-of-date eyesore” that was “an affront to the empire.” So now Vika wore a tightly corseted blue gown, as pale as Pasha’s uniform was dark. The contrast, Yuliana had insisted, was necessary. Everything in how they presented themselves to the public had been calculated down to the last thread by the grand princess. Vika had actually suggested she conjure a dress like the blizzard she’d worn to Pasha’s birthday masquerade, but Yuliana had quickly squashed the idea. Vika was to demonstrate magic to the people, but not too much, or they would be frightened rather than reassured. (However, Yuliana had approved the use of magic to keep the carriage unseasonably warm, which would negate the need for heavy overcoats and better show off the outfits she had meticulously chosen. Vika had rolled her eyes.)
Their carriage arrived at the beginning of Nevsky Prospect, the very same boulevard where Vika had tamed the statue of Peter the Great. People already spilled out from shop fronts and leaned over their apartment balconies and windows, for word of the tsesarevich’s procession had come well in advance of Pasha’s arrival. But a collective gasp echoed along Nevsky Prospect as the citizens realized who else rode in the carriage beside their prince. Some of the windows slammed shut. Shouts sliced through the frigid air: “Witch!” “God have mercy upon us!” “Burn her!”
“I suppose Yuliana didn’t announce that I’d be in the procession,” Vika muttered.
“Sorry,” Pasha said.
Of course he’d known. But from the crowd’s reaction, Yuliana had probably been right to omit that part. Even Vika had to concede that.
Pasha’s Guard slowed their horses. Gavriil, the captain of the Guard, shouted, “His Imperial Highness, the Tsesarevich, Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov!”
The people, who would ordinarily fall to their knees and cheer for Pasha, remained eerily silent.
Unfazed—at least outwardly—Pasha rose in the carriage, which now moved at a tortoise’s pace. He offered his hand to Vika.
She tilted her head in question.
“Stand with me,” he said quietly. A soft smile reached his eyes.
Vika hesitated. But the cuff tightened around her wrist.
This was what I wanted, she reminded herself. To be Imperial Enchanter. To be free to use my magic without limit or having to hide.
But was that what being Imperial Enchanter really was? Vika looked at the bracelet. It marked her accomplishment. It also shackled her to less freedom than she’d had before. She hadn’t imagined that achieving her greatest desire would come true, but with the precise opposite of what she’d wanted: to fly without bounds.
“Vika?”