The Crown's Game Part 26

And yet this was what Vika had always wanted. To use her magic for the tsar. Perhaps she could heal the tsarina.

But, no. From what Pasha had told her on the island, the tsarina's condition was far more dire than anything Vika had worked on before. Mending the broken bones and stomachaches of animals was nothing compared to healing a sickness that even doctors could not cure. And Vika did not want to make a mistake. What if she made the tsarina worse? What if she killed her?

But the tsar hadn't asked Vika and Nikolai to cure the tsarina. He'd asked them to get her to the Sea of Azov.

"I can evanesce-magically transfer-you and the tsarina, Your Imperial Majesty," Vika said. But she didn't look at Nikolai. She didn't want to see if she'd upset him by showing him up.

"You can do that?" The tsar raised his brows.

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty."

"Will it hurt the tsarina?"

"I . . ." Vika wasn't sure. She'd only evanesced someone else once. And really, she'd only ever evanesced herself twice, if she didn't count the two-foot experiment at Preobrazhensky Creek when she was younger. Blazes, what had she just committed herself to?

"No," Nikolai said, his tone steady. "It will not hurt the tsarina when Vika evanesces her. It's mildly disorienting, but not painful." Nikolai glanced over at Vika and gave her a subtle nod.

She felt the tug at her chest again, that connection to him, and she smiled. He wasn't angry that her solution to the tsar's problem was better. He supported her. Vika stood taller. Nikolai's confidence in her sh.o.r.ed up her own.

"Very well then," the tsar said. "I shall make arrangements so the rest of our belongings will follow by coach, but the tsarina and I will leave tonight."

The tsar marched to the door that led to the hall and flung it open. He gave orders to the guards stationed outside. A minute later, he strode back into the room, straight past Vika and Nikolai, and walked through the other, interior door into a different room.

"I suppose everyone will just think they left in the night for a romantic rendezvous," Nikolai said quietly.

Vika flushed. Not at the thought of the tsar and tsarina running away together, but at the sudden fantasy of her and Nikolai, escaping the city and the Game for their own secret tryst. She remembered what it felt like even just holding his hand in the steppe dream, how keenly aware she'd been of every single point at which his glove had pressed into hers. How her skin had tingled beneath the satin. How her composure had dissolved to jelly.

Now she looked up to find Nikolai watching her, and the heat rose in her cheeks again. He couldn't know what she was thinking, could he?

He smiled, then looked away.

Oh, mercy.

Soft coughing came from the room inside. Then, a minute later, the tsar reappeared, his countenance much softened, with the tsarina clutching his arm. They were quite a picture, him in his formal military uniform with his brow knitted tight with worry, and her in her white nightgown, smiling kindly but looking anything but regal. Vika pulled herself together to refocus on the task at hand. Scandalous thoughts about other enchanters would have to wait.

"I am sorry to trouble you at this hour," the tsarina said to Vika and Nikolai. "But Alexander said you could help me."

Alexander. How humanizing to hear the tsar referred to by his name. For the first time, Vika saw him as simply another person, not the heaven-appointed ruler of an empire, and not the final arbiter of the Game.

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty," Vika said. "I believe I can help."

"Are you a doctor?"

Vika shook her head at this gentle, frail woman who had thought Vika's snowy gown at the ball had been a mere illusion of fabric. "No, Your Imperial Majesty. I am not a doctor."

"My dear," the tsar said, "these two are enchanters. They work with magic."

"Magic?"

He squeezed her hand. "Yes. Magic. It's real."

The tsarina's eyes widened, and Vika could see Pasha in her expression. That innocent wonderment at the existence of "otherness" in their previously ordinary world.

"I am going to evanesce you to the Sea of Azov," Vika said.

"Oh, my. What does that mean? And . . . right now?"

"It means I will magically transport you there, whenever you are ready."

"What do you need me to do?" the tsarina asked. "How will it feel?"

"You don't need to do anything," the tsar said. "Correct?" He directed the question at both Vika and Nikolai.

Nikolai stepped forward. "Your Imperial Majesty, do you like champagne?"

She smiled up at him. "I do."

"Well, evanescing is a bit like being transformed into champagne. Vika's magic will turn you into tiny bubbles, and you will fly through the air, a bit giddy and a great deal effervescent, all the way to the sea. And then when you arrive, you'll morph from bubbles back to yourself again, with the tsar by your side."

The tsarina smiled even brighter. "I rather like the idea of being champagne." She turned to Vika. "All right. I am ready."

"Your Imperial Majesty, just one thing, if I may . . . ," Nikolai said.

The tsarina nodded.

He flicked his wrist and transformed her nightgown into a burgundy traveling dress. A thick mink coat appeared as well and settled on her shoulders.

The tsarina gasped, but clapped her hands, delighted. "I should have thought to change. How silly to travel in a nightgown."

Nikolai dipped his head and smiled. "Even evanescing ought to be done in style, Your Imperial Majesty."

She smiled back kindly at him. "Indeed." She turned to Vika. "I believe Alexander and I are truly ready now."

The tsar nodded, himself pulling on a fur-lined greatcoat.

Vika glanced at Nikolai. Again, he gave her his subtle nod, his confidence. She turned to the tsar and tsarina.

One breath. Two breaths. Three . . .

And she evanesced the tsar and tsarina out of the Winter Palace, all the way to the sea.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN.

Sergei cried out from his bed. Galina dropped the armload of firewood she was moving near the fireplace-with nothing else to do in Siberia, and with Sergei indisposed, she had begun finding solace in the daily ch.o.r.es of their household-and rushed to his side.

His forehead beaded with sweat, and his black eyes were open but seemed not to see her. "Galina . . ."

"Shh, mon frre." She dipped a nearby washcloth in a basin of water and dabbed it on his head. "I'm right here."

"Something happened. There's no more." Delirium tinged his whisper.

The composure Galina had been trying to keep fell from her face. Her jaw tightened. "No more what?"

"No more of me left." He rolled toward the sound of her voice, his eyes still unseeing. "Tell Vika the truth about who I am. Who she is. And tell her I loved her."

Galina dropped the washcloth back in the basin. "Sergei, no."

"I am finished."

"No! I shall write to the tsar. I'll request that he declare a winner and end the Game. You will recover."

"Hm?" Sergei grunted.

"You'll get better."

But he ignored her. It was as if his ears were failing him, as well. "Tell Vika I am proud of her. And not to be upset at me for the bracelet, and for not telling her about me, or about her mother. I did it all because I love her."

"Sergei . . ."

His eyes drifted closed. Then they flitted open again, only to droop and fly open once more.

"Please don't go," Galina whispered.

"Sing to me," he said.

She swallowed the dread lodged in her throat, and she began to sing his lullaby. Her voice carried out from the cabin across the fields of snow.

Na ulitse dozhdik, S vedra polivaet, S vedra polivaet, Zemlyu pribivaet.

Sergei sighed when she finished, and she tucked the sheets tightly around him. "Sing again," he said.

So Galina did.

At the end of the song, Sergei let out a low moan. Buzzards screeched outside. And then the light in Sergei's eyes snuffed out.

Her brother was gone.

She buckled on the bed beside him and cradled him in her arms. And for the first time since their father died, Galina cried.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.

The night was shaded in midnight blue, and quietude kissed the air. Moonlight s.h.i.+mmered upon Saint Petersburg's streets, and sleepy ripples rolled through its ca.n.a.ls.

There was no one out at this hour but the two enchanters. Nikolai smiled as Vika's footfalls on the cobblestones fell into sync with his. Unintentional and yet so inevitable.

After the tsar and tsarina had gone, he and Vika had taken a winding path through the city. Neither of them spoke, but they were both content with having no real destination at all. The Game was still upon them, of course, but the restlessness, the disquiet it normally inspired, had lifted, at least for now.

Nikolai watched as Vika moved beside him, impossibly light, impossibly strong. She had evanesced two entire people to the southern edge of the empire. She was a marvel. She was magic itself.

She glanced over at him and smiled.

If only tonight could stretch on forever, Nikolai thought.

But suddenly, Vika gasped. She grabbed onto the leather bracelet around her wrist. Her knees gave way beneath her, and she collapsed.

It was so fast, Nikolai didn't have time to catch her. Her head slammed into the cobblestones. If not for the embankment, she would have tumbled into the ca.n.a.l.

Nikolai rushed forward. "Vika, are you all right?"

But she didn't move or even murmur. She lay limp on the ground with one arm hanging over the embankment, her fingers dangling over the ca.n.a.l. Nikolai's own heart pounded as he reached to take her pulse.

It was there. Stuttering, like a broken metronome, but there. Barely.

Thank the heavens.

He scooped her up and cradled her against his body, and for a moment her magic, albeit weak, meshed with his, and he felt again that hot jolt like their connection at Pasha's ball. And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and Vika was just an unconscious girl in his arms.

Nikolai held her tighter. "It'll be fine," he said, both to Vika and to himself, as he hurried toward the Zakrevsky house, which was only a few blocks away. "Everything will be fine."

But that was a lie, for there was nothing about him and Vika that would ever be fine. What a fool he'd been to think tonight could be any different.

When they arrived at his house, he charmed open the front door, hurled away all the protection charms he'd cast, and rushed her straight upstairs to his room. The door swung shut behind him.

"Vika," he whispered.

She didn't respond. Her head lolled over his arm. She was a rag doll.

He laid her down gently on his bed and covered her with a wool blanket. "Vika," he said, louder now. But still there was no response. He checked her pulse again. It stammered, but it was there.

He tried shaking her softly, careful not to jostle too hard.

Nothing.