The Crown’s Game (16 page)

“If it is anything like the other one at the tailor shop down the street, you fill it with old clothes, and it changes them into
something new. But not something ordinary. Something extravagant, for the masquerade.”

Ludmila clapped her hands, and cookie crumbs sprinkled down from them. “So we should use it.”

If only they could. If only Vika could give in and trust her opponent, enjoy his magic as a complement to her own. If only the Game did not exist. But no. She had allowed herself the pleasure of enjoying the wardrobe’s
wood carvings, but only with her shields intact. Using it to clothe themselves
was a more intimate matter. A dangerous matter.

“No,” she said to Ludmila. “We cannot use it.”

“Why not? It would save you some work.”

But that was another reason Vika couldn’t allow herself to utilize the armoire. She didn’t want to depend on the other enchanter. She didn’t need his help.

This couldn’t be explained
adequately to Ludmila, though, without telling her about the Game.

Instead, she said, “I’m not the sort of girl who likes to be dressed by a man, as if I were his doll. I think it would be best if the costumes we wore were our own.”

A
t thirty minutes past eight on Saturday evening, Nikolai arrived at the Winter Palace. He had enough pride not to arrive at the very beginning of the masquerade but also enough awareness that, despite being Pasha’s friend, he was enough of a nobody to require appearing before the real nobility arrived.

At the threshold of the ballroom, Nikolai adjusted his mask over his eyes.
It had red and black diamonds in a harlequin pattern, which matched his waistcoat and also matched the jack-in-the-box outside in Palace Square. Other than this small splash of color, however, his clothing was unremarkable—a starched white shirt, a black cravat, charcoal trousers, white gloves, and a formal dress coat. He did not feel like being particularly visible. Besides, it would be lovely to
blend in for once. Tonight, he didn’t have to be Galina’s “charitable project,” the poor orphan she’d refined into a gentleman and paraded around at her friends’ balls. He could be anyone.

The majordomo announced his presence—simply “Harlequin,” for at a masquerade there were no real names—and he smiled to himself as he proceeded down the carpeted steps.

The tsarina had had the ballroom decorated
lavishly. The ceilings were draped with richly hued fabrics, deep burgundy and midnight blue, giving the effect of being inside a sumptuous tent. The chandeliers were adorned with wreaths of tiger lilies and red dahlias, and the walls were hung thickly with curtains and garlands of peacock feathers. Divans with deep cushions sat around the edges of the room, a departure from the staid chairs
that usually lined the perimeter, and one corner of the ballroom had been transformed into a miniature café, complete with quiches and petits fours and coffee and tea from an army of copper samovars.

Many guests had already arrived, and a veritable menagerie whirled around the dance floor. A tuxedoed brown bear soared to the string ensemble with a butterfly. A rhinoceros wearing a bowler hat
waltzed with a bejeweled mouse. And a white tigress prowled the ballroom with a tottering dodo bird in tow. Nikolai shuddered at the memory of the tiger he’d had to slaughter.

Of course, Pasha and the rest of the imperial family had not yet appeared. They would wait until nine o’clock, or even later. Then again, it being a masquerade, they could very well be hidden among the guests. Nikolai scanned
the room again. No, it was impossible that Yuliana or the tsar or tsarina would do such a thing. It was highly likely, however, that Pasha would.

Nikolai smirked. How easy would it be to pick Pasha out of the crowd?

The majordomo announced General Sergei Volkonsky, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars, and his wife, Maria.
I did arrive just in time,
Nikolai thought.
Indeed, only seconds before the
real nobility.

Behind Nikolai, a man whispered, “I hear Volkonsky is not as loyal to the imperial family as the tsar believes. Some say he is in league with Pavel Pestel.”

“Pestel?” another man said. “The agitator who has been calling for democracy?”

“The very one.”

“
Mon dieu!
What a state Russia is in these days.”

Nikolai turned around, curious as to the identities of the speakers. But both
the men were masked, and one of them, upon seeing Nikolai, said, “Let’s not discuss this tonight,” before he herded his friend away.

If only they knew about magic and the Game,
Nikolai thought wryly.
Then they’d truly wonder at the state of Russia these days.

Nikolai brushed aside the men’s talk—it was not only Galina’s set that liked to whisper about gossip and scandal—and began to scan the
crowd again in search of Pasha. Surely he was here in disguise.

But before Nikolai had looked at an eighth of the room, a familiar swirl of braids caught his attention. She wore the same gray tunic as the rest of the servants, although she shouldn’t have, for she did not work in the Winter Palace. She did not belong here at all. Nikolai strode across the ballroom and caught her arm.

“What are
you doing here, Renata?”

“Nikolai!”

“What are you doing here?” he repeated.

Renata wrenched free of his grip and maneuvered so
that a divan stood between them. “What do you think?”

“If the girl tried to make a move in the Game tonight, there would be nothing you could do to stop her.”

“I could try.”

“By doing what? Distracting her by reading her tea leaves?”

Renata’s face crumpled, and
she looked away.

Damn it. Again with the clumsy words. And this time he didn’t have vodka to blame. Nikolai reached across the divan and put his hand on Renata’s arm, gentler this time. In the background, the waltz and its music came to a close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle your abilities.”

“It’s all right.” She rested her hand on his. “I know you’re under a great deal of pressure.
I thought I could help by coming and keeping watch on her.”

“Vika will be in costume. It will be hard to keep watch on anybody tonight.”

Renata inhaled sharply. “Since when did you start saying her name?”

Nikolai dropped his hand from Renata’s arm and stepped back. Had he said the girl’s name? He hadn’t meant to. Until now, it was a boundary he hadn’t crossed. The Game would have been easier
if she were unnamed, if she remained a stranger.

But it was already too late for that. From the moment she’d charmed the canals, it was too late. And then she had spared him from the lightning storm, and he’d made her the Imagination Box. . . . Yes, it was much too late. In more ways than one.

Renata stood on the other side of the divan, awaiting his reply.

He cleared his throat. “How did you
get into the palace in the first place?”

She gave a melancholy laugh. “Servants are interchangeable. They don’t keep track of us. I slipped in through a service entrance and picked up a tray, and they pointed me in the direction of the uniforms without even looking at my face.”

Nikolai frowned. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d been mistaken for a servant at one of Galina’s fetes, back when
he wore whatever rags she scrounged up for him, before he learned to make his own clothes. And if Galina had never plucked him off the steppe, he could have been someone in a gray tunic, permanently. So it seemed patently unfair to Nikolai that he could be here, on one side of the ball, while Renata, his loyal confidante, could be on the other, wiping up spills and serving tea.

“Come with me.”
He had an idea. Perhaps not a wise one, given his suspicions of how Renata felt about him, but he could not let her spend the evening slaving away when she had come for his sake.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere, and at the same time, somewhere better than this faux café.”

He came around the divan and led Renata farther into the corner. Then he raised his arm above them both and cast a shroud,
such that if anyone looked in their direction, they would see only the curtains.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but her voice was steady, her eyes large and curious rather than afraid.

Nikolai untied a peacock feather from one of the garlands and gave it to Renata. “Hold this.”

She clutched it to her chest, and he pointed his fingertips at it, then lifted his right hand up and pressed his
left, down, as if stretching the feather to Renata’s full length.

“If you are going to be here at the ball, you might as well enjoy it,” he said.

Renata looked down. “Oh, Nikolai!” Her plain tunic had metamorphosed into a green lace bodice and a skirt composed entirely of peacock feathers. Her shoes were patterned to match.

“And of course you’ll need gloves and a mask.” He clasped his hands,
and when they opened, white gloves and a mask of green, gold, and blue glitter appeared.

She picked them up as if they would vanish if she handled them too roughly. She slipped on the gloves, and Nikolai helped her fit the mask on her face.

He bowed and offered her his arm. “May I have the honor of dancing with you?”

“I—I don’t know how.”

“I will show you.”

The shroud covering them faded
away, and the harlequin led the peacock to the center of the ballroom, where the floor manager was filling the next set of dancers for a waltz. They took their places, and Nikolai rested Renata’s left hand on his right shoulder and wrapped his arm around her. With his other hand, he clasped hers and pulled her close. She held her breath.

“The beat is one-two-three,” he said quietly. “But don’t
worry. All you have to do is follow me.”

As the orchestra began, Nikolai led Renata forward, sideways, backward, whispering, “One-two-three,
one-two-three,” for the first few counts. She caught on quickly, and as they glided around and across the room, he dropped the count. “You’re dancing beautifully.”

Renata blushed.

They rose and fell with the music, whirling up and down and all around,
and when the song ended, Renata asked, “Can we do that again?”

Nikolai shook his head. “Not immediately. It would be terrible etiquette if I monopolized your attention.”

“Besides,” a boy’s voice said behind him, “I would like a turn with the beautiful peacock.”

Ah, there he was. Nikolai knew it was Pasha without even looking. For all of Pasha’s claims that he wasn’t any good at planning ahead,
he was masterful at it when it involved sneaking out, or, in this case, sneaking in. “I knew you would come early,” Nikolai said.

“I had to, before you stole the hearts of all the pretty girls.”

Renata blushed again.

Pasha stepped up from behind Nikolai to join them. He was an angel—white dress coat, white waistcoat, white shirt, white cravat, white trousers, white shoes, white gloves, white
mask. The only things not white were his silver wings and the gold halo nestled in his hair.

“Renata, may I introduce—”

“Dmitri,” Pasha said. He winked at Nikolai. “Dmitri Petrov.”

Nikolai tilted his head in a question. But then again, why not? It was a masquerade, after all, and tonight was the one night Pasha could truly get away with being someone else. Just like Renata could be more than
a servant girl.

Dmitri the Angel bowed, offered her his arm, and whisked her back to the dance floor. Nikolai watched them go. Then he retreated back to the edges of the ballroom, to wait for the real reason he had come.

W
hen angelic Dmitri finished his dance with Renata, he led her off the floor, where she was immediately swept up by a pirate. The angel stayed a minute to confirm she was amenable to the pirate’s attentions, and then, having ensured that she was, Pasha took advantage of his disguise and invited another young lady to dance. And after that, another. And another, and another.
Because as the tsesarevich, he never got to do this with such freedom, but as Dmitri the Angel, he could. Perhaps this would be the first ball ever at which he would dance with more girls than Nikolai did.

Eventually, the orchestra needed a break, and Pasha, flushed but content, decided to seek out Nikolai again. But his friend seemed to have disappeared from the ballroom.

What’s gotten into
him lately?
he thought as he made another pass by the dance floor, the refreshment station, and all the divans around the room.
Nikolai couldn’t have left. It seemed unlikely that there would be another event tonight more compelling than the masquerade, and even
more unlikely that Nikolai would have abandoned Pasha on the night of his birthday. Could he have? Pasha scanned the ballroom again.

However, his search was halted by the majordomo banging his staff at the entryway. The servants ceased their clearing of plates in the café area, and the guests around the dance floor stopped their chattering to turn to the entry of the ballroom.

“The Grand Princess Yuliana Alexandrovna Romanova!” the majordomo announced.

“What?” Pasha said. Beside him, a mermaid and a clown frowned.

Right.
He shouldn’t disrespect his sister. And since he was in costume, the mermaid and clown didn’t know Yuliana was his sister. But he could not be here when she arrived.

The entire room stood rapt as they awaited the grand princess’s arrival. Only Pasha ignored the announcement and slipped out a side door.

He ducked in and out of the service passageways, deftly avoiding the servants carrying trays
of sandwiches and fresh coffee to the ballroom, and reemerged through another service door into a small chamber his mother occasionally used for holding audiences with those who wished to speak to her.

The room was simple by Winter Palace standards—a cherrywood desk and a few cushioned chairs, lilac-painted walls, and cream drapes held back from the floor-to-ceiling windows by gold tasseled rope.
It was unfussy and very much his mother’s style, and Pasha could breathe here, so he paused for a moment and tried to shake the tension from his shoulders. Then he continued onward, out the door and
into a proper hallway, until he’d circled back around to the entrance outside the ballroom.

His father and mother stood there, tall and proud, her hand on his arm. Yuliana must have already entered,
and the majordomo was giving her due time to enjoy the guests’ attentions before he announced the tsar and tsarina. Upon hearing Pasha’s footsteps, they turned.

“Oh, darling, thank goodness you’re here. They are about to announce us.” His mother wore a deep ruby gown brocaded in gold, with glittering diamonds and sapphires on her ears, neck, and wrists, and a crown studded with diamonds and pearls
on the blond ringlets atop her head. She waved a jeweled red-and-gold mask on a baton, holding it as regally as if it were a scepter. She looked every bit the role of tsarina. If it weren’t for the cough that racked her body every few seconds, Pasha would have smiled. She had had the cough for months now, and it was not getting any better. Worse, actually.

“Are you sure you’re well enough to
attend the ball?” he asked. “Perhaps you ought to rest instead.”

“It is your birthday, my love. I wouldn’t miss it if it killed me.”

“Mother.”

“Darling, don’t fret. It won’t kill me. I promise.” She released the tsar’s arm and glided over to smooth Pasha’s hair, which must have gotten unruly from the dances he had snuck in.

“Where have you been?” the tsar asked. Unlike the tsarina, he did
not move to greet his son. He had also made no effort to change his usual attire for the masquerade; he’d donned his ceremonial military uniform as always. “Your
Guard has been frantic, yet again, and frankly, I am weary of it.”

Pasha bowed low to the ground. “My apologies, Father. I required some time to myself before the festivities. I do not have your natural ease at being in the public eye.”

The tsarina patted Pasha’s arm. “It will come with time, my dear.”

“He turns seventeen tonight,” the tsar scoffed. “The time to grow into his position has long since come and gone.” He turned to Pasha. “You have already been inside the ballroom, haven’t you?” He scowled at Pasha’s hair. That traitorous, traitorous hair.

Pasha looked at the floor, in part to avoid his father’s glare, but mostly
to avoid the disappointment he was sure had settled on his mother’s face. The scene of horses and soldiers woven into the carpet had never seemed so interesting before.

“You do realize how inappropriate your actions are, do you not?” The volume of the tsar’s voice remained low and steady, but the tone had picked up a bitingly sharp edge.

“Yes, Father.”

“Even the lowest-ranking nobility must
be announced.”

“Yes, Father.”

“There are rules governing with whom you interact and how. Your sister has never had a problem comprehending this. And yet, after seventeen years, it has somehow still not been impressed upon you that the conventions and ceremony of the tsardom matter. You are the tsesarevich of all Russia. I suggest you start acting like it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now go upstairs and
change.”

Pasha looked up from the carpet. “What? Why?”

“For a multitude of reasons, the foremost being that you have already been seen in that ridiculous costume, so if you march in as an angel now, the whole of Saint Petersburg’s nobility will know that you had previously slunk among them, unannounced, like a gutter rat. And also, your costume is unbecoming for a man of your station.”

“But
it’s a masquerade. . . .” Pasha’s voice wilted. There was no fighting the will of the tsar, and he knew it. He had always known it, which was why he tried to live so much of his life when his father was not looking.

“It is a masquerade for all of them.” The tsar flung his hand in the direction of the ballroom doors. “But it is an imperial state function for
you
.”