But the other enchanter didn’t resurface.
Vika turned away from the water, even as she continued to direct it to hold her opponent down. Suddenly, she couldn’t watch. But drowning him was a necessity, a part of the Game. If she didn’t kill him, he’d kill her. And she wanted to be Imperial Enchanter; she’d wanted it all her life, to use her magic for the tsar.
And then there was Father . . . she had to see him again. If she lost the Game, she never would. It didn’t make what she was doing any easier. But it made it possible. Unavoidable.
Vika held on to the watery rope as long as she could, and then she collapsed against the boulder at the base of the bronze statue.
People were still leaning over the embankment, searching for the drowned boy. Vika gasped for air, as badly as if she were the one underwater. Something inside her felt like it had drowned, too.
And then, behind her, shouts erupted. “There he is!”
“He’s all right!”
“The damn boy gave us a scare, but he was just diving the whole time!”
Vika pulled herself up by the base of Peter’s statue and looked out onto the Neva. Sure enough, out in the river, the enchanter floated on what looked like a raft of sea foam. He reached the shores of Vasilyevsky Island, on the other side of the Neva, before Vika could use the water to reel him back in.
Not that she had the stomach to do it again. Her conscience was still waterlogged from the first attempt to drown him.
The crowd along shore realized the boy was all right and that the waterworks show was over. As they dispersed, they murmured their approval that the festivities for the tsesarevich were beginning ahead of schedule. They bounced as they walked, anticipating what other surprises the tsar had in store. And they wondered if the Neva Fountain would turn on again.
The Neva Fountain, eh? How nice that they’ve already given it a name. Vika smiled despite her morally dubious insides. Or perhaps she smiled because of them. She did not want to know which.
She looked again across the Neva to the other enchanter. He seemed to be staring straight back at her. And then he tipped his top hat, as if saying, Nice try. Thank you for the amusement. Have a wonderful day.
Why, that arrogant, insufferable . . . argh! “It’s not like you managed to kill me either,” Vika said, even though he couldn’t hear her.
All right. So the other enchanter had survived. Vika had created the Neva Fountain, which, enchanted once, would now retain the charms in the water and be able to replicate the show on its own, every hour. But she’d set out to far better the other enchanter, and if she couldn’t win outright, she would make sure her first turn shone exponentially brighter than his.
Vika’s eyes fluttered shut, and she imagined all the canals flowing in and out and through the city. Then she thought of the colorful building fronts along Nevsky Prospect. As she stood there, bracing herself against the statue of Peter the Great, the waterways throughout Saint Petersburg began to shift in hue.
First ruby red, then fire-opal orange. Golden citrine and emerald green. Sapphire blue, violet amethyst, then back to red to start the rainbow again. Even though the other enchanter had painted Nevsky Prospect first, Vika’s colors were so vivid, it was as if his palette of pastels were merely a faded reflection of hers.
The canals were a jewel-toned taunt, really, at his move.
Vika finished charming the waterways enough to cycle through the colors on their own, then sank to the ground. The base of Peter the Great’s statue was the only thing propping her up. But despite her exhaustion, Vika grinned.
The gleam in her eyes was one part gloat and ninety-nine parts mischief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Late that night, something hard struck Nikolai’s bedroom window on the second floor. Then another, and another, like hail hurling itself sideways at the pane. He peeked through a sliver in the curtains. Damn, how quickly the girl had played her turn! Even though it was his move, he was still wary of attack. She had tried to drown him in front of a crowd in broad daylight! Who knew what she’d do under the cover of moonlight?
Nikolai squinted out into the darkness. What in blazes was going on?
A pebble hit the window, right where Nikolai’s nose was. “Mon dieu!” He cursed as he stumbled backward, halfway across his room.
Another pebble smacked against the glass. “Nikolai, open up!” a boy shouted from the street.
Was that . . . Pasha?
Nikolai tiptoed to the window. It could be a trick. He cracked open the curtains. A pebble hit the pane at the spot in front of his nose again.
It had to be Pasha. No one else had such impeccable aim, other than Nikolai.
He lifted the window. “Cease fire!”
Pasha laughed. “Nikolai, you devil of a fellow! You’ve been avoiding me.”