Nikolai did not invite Vika onto the floor again. He stayed on the fringes, near the drapes and the café, and closed his eyes, as if both listening to and channeling the music. He might not have been there with Vika, but his magic was with her for every step. When the violins swelled, she would feel a surge of energy in her boots; when the woodwinds crooned, her feet would glide with equal gentility. It was as if each dance was a dance with him.
And with each quadrille and cotillion and gavotte, the warmth of Nikolai’s magic grew brighter. Like Vika’s own power, Nikolai’s pushed at the boundaries that contained it, yearning to burst like starlight and wash over everyone and everything with its glow. She wanted again to hold on to him, and have him hold on to her, so they could whirl together through the cosmos like galaxies that could not—and would not—be confined.
If only he weren’t the other enchanter in the Game.
Forget about it, Vika told herself. Just for tonight.
But the longer the ball went on, and the longer she allowed Nikolai to dance for her, the more undeniable the horror of her reality became. This one night is a farce, she thought. The Game hasn’t actually gone away.
Her gown grew suddenly heavier. The swirling flurries of snow in her skirt began to melt, and the snowflakes transformed to icy raindrops. Vika shivered as her gown shifted from blizzard to sleet, soaking through her petticoats. Weighing her down. Chilling her through and through.
At the end of the next song, she curtsied hastily to her partner and rushed off the dance floor, retreating to the side of the ballroom into the curtains. “Off,” Vika said as she ran her hands frantically over her gown. “Get off.” She could feel Nikolai’s magic on her, fine invisible threads everywhere, as if she were covered in cobwebs. “No more dances. I can’t. I can’t do this. Get off.”
His magic tangled and clung to her. She slapped and swiped at it. It was too much. He was too strong.
And then her fingers found a loose tendril, and another and another. His enchantment’s edge.
Oh, thank goodness.
Knowing where it began and ended, Vika could push it away. She gathered the threads of Nikolai’s charm and flung them all aside. Her feet were free. She recast her own shield. And she hurried off to find Ludmila.
“We have to leave,” Vika said, pulling Ludmila away from a conversation with a tuxedoed brown bear. Out of the corner of her eye, Vika could see Nikolai rising from where he’d been sitting in the café. There was concern on his face. Or so she thought. Was it possible to read his emotion even though he wore a mask? Regardless, Vika didn’t want concern.
“Why do we have to go?” Ludmila asked.
“We just do.” Vika flew up the stairs and out the doors of the ballroom, with Ludmila panting to catch up behind her. Vika didn’t even bid farewell to the imperial family. She certainly did not look back at Nikolai.
For it was too cruel of life to bring him to her now, only to remind her that one of them would soon be taken away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“What in the tsar’s name is wrong with you?” Galina asked, as she brought a steaming bowl of borscht to Sergei’s bedside. He lay on the mattress with his eyelids barely open, his book on medicinal herbs splayed on the pillow next to him but untouched in the last day.
“I’m . . . tired.”
“You had better not have a contagious disease while I’m locked up in this cabin with you.” Galina helped prop her brother up against the wall. It was like lifting two hundred pounds of deadweight. If it weren’t for her magic, she would not have been able to manage. “Here, at least eat something.” She scooped up a spoonful of the dark-red borscht and lifted it to his mouth.
Sergei opened and swallowed the soup. He screwed up his face. “What is that?”
“Borscht.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“Well, I tried my best!” Since Sergei had been in bed the last two days, Galina had had to do the cooking, which was a near-impossible task, seeing as she had a full kitchen staff at home and had never lifted a paring knife in her life. Add in the fact that most of her meals were French in nature, so she had forgotten what a proper Russian beet soup ought to taste like. She had attempted to make the borscht herself, but she couldn’t figure out how to get the hairy little roots off the beets, and the beets stained her hands and rolled off the cutting board onto the floor. In a huff, she had finally resorted to conjuring the dish, even though she knew Sergei despised conjured food. Still, she had made an effort.
Sergei pushed her hand and the bowl away and slumped back onto the mattress. His bare wrist hung off the edge of the bed.
That was when Galina remembered the leather bracelet that had been there at the oath. “Mon frere . . . what exactly did you give Vika that day in Bolshebnoie Duplo?”
“A bracelet,” he muttered.
“But not any bracelet. It was charmed, wasn’t it?”
“Of course it was. I’m sure the dagger you gave Nikolai was also enchanted.”
Galina set the soup bowl on the nightstand. “I would be a fool if it wasn’t. But the bracelet is the problem. It must be. What is it? What is it doing to you?”
Sergei grumbled and turned away from her to face the wall.
“Sergei!”