“Wh-what are you?”
Aizhana paused. “I am a faith healer. A woman who clawed her way back from ante-death. A mother who cares for nothing else in the world but her son. Nikolai needs energy, Renata. He may have returned to reality, but his hold on this life is tenuous. If he is to have a chance of defeating the tsesarevich, Nikolai will need more energy soon.”
“How am I the answer?”
“You are merely the means. I possess the energy he needs, but he refuses to take it from me. You, however . . . he thinks it was your presence that helped him escape the steppe dream, and you must mean a great deal to him if he sought you out at the countess’s house. Therefore, I am going to transfer some of the energy I possess to you. You, in turn, will find a way to convince him to take it from you.”
“I—”
“No more idle chatter. Will you assist my son willingly, or shall I force it upon you?” Aizhana brandished her hand in the air. Her fingernails extended like blades, all save the one on her index finger, which appeared to have broken off. She began her advance toward Renata again.
Renata’s foot found the rolling pin on the floor next to a sack of flour. But it would be no use. There was no stopping a mother motivated by love, even if the love was awry. Or especially if it was awry.
There was also no reasoning with a girl who was in love. Even if the boy she loved wanted to do something with which she did not agree. It was Nikolai. Renata would give herself to whatever he needed.
She stepped over the rolling pin and around the counter. She put on her bravest face. “I’ll help Nikolai willingly,” Renata said. “Just tell me what to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nikolai had slept nearly an entire day, and when he woke in the early evening, he felt brighter and more buoyant than before. Yet, paradoxically, he also appeared deeper gray. He rolled out of his bed at the Black Moth and tried to use his revitalized power to cast a shroud about himself, such that he would appear like an ordinary person, but his silhouette form seemed to fight back, and the shroud kept sputtering.
Nikolai furrowed his brow. It was both a relief that his edges were no longer blurred and a concern that his shadow form seemed to be growing more stubborn. And how? Was it simply rest that reenergized him? Yet he’d slept plenty in the steppe dream, and he had woken only once feeling more powerful, as he did today.
But did it matter? The more powerful the energy that coursed within him, the less Nikolai seemed to care. In fact, as he stretched himself fully awake, a cold swell rushed inside him, and he laughed as he remembered he had a throne to take. And a tsesarevich to kill.
Speaking of which, Nikolai needed to visit a toy shop on Nevsky Prospect. He had something fun in store for Pasha. Well, perhaps “fun” was not the right word for how Pasha was about to feel. But it would be fun for Nikolai.
The thought made him colder—and stronger—still.
He made his way from Sennaya Square to the nicer part of Saint Petersburg, to a shop with a window display that featured a dolls’ holiday fete. “C’est parfait,” Nikolai said as he slipped inside the store. He cast a quick enchantment to topple a stack of boxes in the back to draw away the shopkeeper’s attention, and while alone, Nikolai pocketed the miniature tables, tiny platters, and Christmas garlands from the window display. He took the dolls in tulle gowns and frock coats and trousers, as well as a small orchestra.
He snuck out of the shop before the boxes in the back had even been gathered.
A little girl and her father approached, and Nikolai pressed himself into the narrow alley next to the store.
“The dolls’ party is gone!” the girl said as she peered into the window.
But I’m going to give you something even better in its place, Nikolai thought.
“Someone probably bought the set,” her father said.
The girl pouted but followed her father as they continued on their way.
Their shadows lingered.
Nikolai squinted at them. The shadows stretched out, thinner and thinner, like black taffy, one end connected to the girl and her father, the other end stuck to—or attracted to—Nikolai.
“Shoo!” he whispered, waving them off.
They stayed a second longer. Then the shadows suddenly retracted and sprang back into normal shape behind the people they belonged to. Nikolai blinked. Had that really happened? Or was he losing his mind?
He shook his head. He must have imagined it; shadows didn’t have wills of their own.
Or did they? He looked at his own shadow hands. But he quickly shoved them into the pockets of his greatcoat.
His fingers grazed his coin purse. Oh. I didn’t pay for the dolls, did I?
But Nikolai paused before he went back inside the toy shop. Never before would it have occurred to him to steal from a store. And yet here he was, paying for the dolls as an afterthought.
What’s gotten into me? he thought, as he retrieved a stack of rubles. He set the money in the window, where the display had been. He left and hurried down Nevsky Prospect.
“What do right and wrong mean, anyway?” Nikolai asked aloud. Could something seem wrong when isolated—such as helping oneself to a dollhouse set—but be right in the larger scheme? It was like fighting a duel. Gentlemen fought them to rectify insults and to defend their honor every day. Sometimes a duel resulted in death, but it was unquestionably the right thing to do. Which was precisely what Nikolai was doing now by challenging Pasha: protecting his honor and making Pasha pay for his betrayal.
Besides, I’d make a better tsar. Nikolai could offer a perspective to ruling the empire that Pasha couldn’t, for Pasha had grown up in the opulent confines of the Winter Palace, whereas Nikolai had scraped his way up from nothing. He’d supported himself by doing odd jobs—delivering packages for Bissette & Sons, sharpening swords and knives for the officers in the Imperial Army, assisting with dance lessons from Madame Allard. Unlike Pasha, Nikolai knew what life was like for ordinary Russians. And they deserved to have a tsar who understood their lot.
That was what Nikolai told himself, anyway.
He reached the embankments of the Neva River, now a vast expanse of empty ice. A blank slate on which to host the most spectacular fete the city had ever seen. Nikolai snapped his fingers, and a heavy note card appeared:
PAVEL ALEXANDROVICH ROMANOV
Invites all of Saint Petersburg
To a holiday fete
ELEVEN O’CLOCK TONIGHT
19 DECEMBER 1825
UPON THE FROZEN NEVA RIVER.
Then Nikolai snapped his fingers, multiplying the fake invitation. When ready, he would send them flying away to every person in the city. The people were barely pacified by Vika’s Christmas tree. It wouldn’t take much to tilt them to the other side of the scales, to fear and hysteria, again. “Let’s see what they think of ‘Pasha’s’ party and his supposedly good use of magic. . . .”