With Pasha and Nikolai reunited again and Saint Petersburg on the mend, Renata and Ludmila relaxed next to each other that evening, leaning against the warm stone of Ludmila’s pech. Renata drank the last drop of tea in her cup. She hadn’t tried to manipulate it, even though the magic danced in her fingertips, growing more powerful with each passing day.
Ludmila crowded her to peer inside. “What does it say?” she asked.
Renata studied the cup for only a second before she grinned. The short black leaves were arranged in perfect concentric spirals, each bigger than the next, like a chrysanthemum with hundreds of petals.
“It says that the possibilities are endless.”
“Our fates are not set in stone,” Ludmila said.
“Or, more accurately,” Renata said, “our fates are not set in our leaves.”
Ludmila laughed and refilled their plates with more cookies. Renata poured them both some more tea. Then Ludmila regaled Renata with tales of her circus youth, and they fell asleep by the pech, warm and hopeful and dreaming of acrobats and dancing bears, and fortune-tellers who could change the courses of fate.
And ordinary people who could change the courses of fate, as well.
EPILOGUE
Three weeks later, Vika looked around the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. The hall was resplendent in red and gold, from the intricately patterned canopy above the throne, to the rugs that lined the steps and the church floor. The Guard wore red on their breasts. The head of the Church—the patriarch—and the other clergy wore robes of gold. And all the other men and women lucky enough to witness the coronation looked on in their smartest uniforms and gowns.
Pasha stood in uniform in the center of it all. A heavy gold mantle was draped over his shoulders, trimmed from collar to hem in lush, black-spotted white fur. His posture was tall and proud, and his blond waves were neatly tamed for once.
Of course, after Pasha, Nikolai was the best dressed in the cathedral, not only because he was part of the imperial family, but also because he was Nikolai. His uniform was somehow cut more precisely than anyone else’s, the epaulets on his shoulders woven of brighter, nearly luminescent thread, and his boots polished to such a shine, his sword was reflected in the leather, just as the leather reflected off the blade. Vika smiled at him from her side of the dais. Nikolai attempted not to smile in return—to look proper—but his dimple gave him away. She almost laughed, and she clapped her normal hand over her mouth just in time.
Yuliana, seated on the dais, shot Vika a glare.
It only made Vika want to laugh more.
But she corralled her attention back to the ceremony, just as the patriarch finished a prayer.
The cathedral hushed. Pasha stood regally in the silence. This was the moment he’d been groomed for his entire life. The moment Russia wanted. That Pasha wanted.
He nodded to the patriarch, who handed him the Great Imperial Crown.
Its four-hundred-carat red spinel jewel and nearly five thousand diamonds sparkled as Pasha placed it on his own head. The patriarch said another short prayer, then bestowed upon Pasha his scepter and the orb.
“Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov, Tsar of all the Russias.”
Pasha allowed everyone in the cathedral to look upon him for a moment. Then he lowered himself onto his red throne, with the Great Imperial Crown on his head, his scepter in his right hand, the orb in his left.
And Vika Sergeyevna Andreyeva, Imperial Enchanter, to his right. Nikolai Alexandrovich Karimov-Romanov, Grand Prince of all the Russias and also Imperial Enchanter, to his left. They had beaten the rules of the Crown’s Game. They had freed themselves from the bonds of ancient fate and now lived—and served the empire—of their own free will.
They were more powerful and more valuable than any scepter or orb.
Now the coronation ceremony was near an end. It was time. Nikolai nodded at Vika.
Her bronze hand had taken some getting used to, but with Nikolai’s help, she’d learned to harness the new magic to do more than she’d been able to before. Now Vika wasn’t a master only of nature; she was also skilled at enchantments of the man-made, which had not been her forte before at all. And since her hand had come from metal, she found that medium particularly responsive to her command.
Vika flicked her bronze wrist, and the interior of the cathedral began to glimmer as thousands of tiny, double-headed gold eagles appeared from seemingly nowhere and fluttered beneath the tall ceilings. The audience gasped, but in awe, not fright, for this crowd had been carefully selected—and prepared—for the spectacle of magic today. It would take time to convince everyone else in Russia that Vika and Nikolai were united for the good of the empire, but they would prove it, day by day.
It had been explained to the people that the previous problems had stemmed from Vika and Nikolai fighting, but now that they had made peace, they would work together for the well-being of the empire. Of course, certain problems, like the catfish king, would be a bit trickier to resolve. There were other suspicious happenings around the empire, too, like rumor of Baba Yaga’s house stampeding through Siberia, and the volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula stirring simultaneously awake.
Vika and Nikolai had already been hard at work, though—including conjuring shields over entire villages along the portions of the Volga where Vodyanoy had allegedly appeared—while they figured out more permanent solutions.
The acceptance of Vika’s and Nikolai’s powers by both the tsardom and the church at the coronation—the most significant ceremony for both institutions—was also an auspicious start.
The choir began to sing a prayer for many years of health for Pasha, and a prosperous reign. Nikolai burst open the cathedral windows, and a hundred stone birds, modeled after different species from all over the empire, flew in and joined in the song.
Pasha looked upon his Imperial Enchanters and smiled so brightly, the crown and the Romanov eagles and all the gold in the cathedral could not compare.
Vika looked to her boys and smiled, too.
Even Nikolai cast aside propriety and gave in to a grin.
They had been through much together. They had resented one another, failed one another, scarred one another. But in the face of everything, there had been courage. And love.
Vika cued the church bells to ring. Nikolai commanded a 101-gun salute outside the cathedral. The double-headed eagles sparkled above Pasha and the throne.
Right before the ceremony, Nikolai had sent Pasha off with an embrace and an old Kazakh proverb:
Nothing is more remote than yesterday;
nothing is closer than tomorrow.
Vika smiled at the wisdom of the words. For although the past would always be a part of them, it was, in truth, the past. What they had to look forward to was the future, where anything was possible.
Anything.
And there was no greater magic than that.
AUTHOR’S NOTE