“But my lady,” he said to Ludmila, who was wagging the loaf of bread at him, “although you are as beautiful as Aphrodite, and your way with words as poetic as Calliope’s, I must regretfully decline your invitation. I would not want to anger your husband.”

The women in the bakery hooted and cackled, the eldest one did a little jig, and Ludmila clutched her substantial middle, her entire body jiggling as she laughed. She slapped the counter a few times in her hysterics.

Finally, when she had almost caught her breath and the other women had settled down to only occasional giggles, Ludmila said, “Touché, Frenchie. Now, about the girl, who is she?”

The other women quieted completely and looked up at him for his reply.

“Well, you see, therein lies the problem,” Pasha said. “I don’t know.”

“What does she look like?”

“She has red hair, like the most hypnotizing part of a flickering flame, and her voice is both melodic and unflinching.”

The women sighed, and if he saw correctly, the eldest one batted her eyelashes at him.

Ludmila smiled kindly, all jest in her expression gone. “Ah, to be young and in love.”

Pasha shook his head. “No, you’re mistaken. I don’t love her. I hardly know her. I saw her once, and then she fled.”

The women sighed again, but this time, they also nodded their heads at one another smugly.

“You don’t love her yet,” Ludmila said.

“I—”

She held up a spatula to shush him. “You’re looking for Victoria. Although she prefers to be called Vika.”

“Vika,” Pasha repeated softly.

“Da, Vika. She lives with her father on the far side of the island, in a clearing in the birch forest. But she and her father left on a trip several days ago. They passed through the bakery before they went to the harbor. I’m sorry to disappoint.”

The air leached out of Pasha’s lungs. To have come so close, yet still be so far. “Oh, well . . . that’s all right, Madame Fanina.” The eldest woman snickered at his slip into French. He course-corrected to Russian. “I appreciate your assistance. May I compensate you for your time?” He reached for his coin purse.

“No, my handsome young Frenchie, the pleasure was all mine.”

Pasha’s cheeks pinked as he bowed slightly. “At least let me buy some of your famed Borodinsky bread.”

Ludmila beamed. Then she grabbed a loaf of black bread and wrapped it in brown paper stamped with a picture of Cinderella’s pumpkin. She tied the package neatly with a string.

Pasha placed a coin on the counter and tucked the still warm bread under his arm. “Bolshoie spasiba,” he said, thanking not only Ludmila, but all in the room.

And with that, he left town and caught the next ferry, where he spent the slow ride to the mainland chewing thoughtfully on his bread and contemplating the horizon beyond the Neva Bay. He murmured “Vika” to himself, more than once.

When Pasha returned to the palace, and after he’d calmed his Guard with an innocuous lie about where he’d been—he snuck out rather regularly, so they were accustomed to his disappearances, but still, the disappearances were alarming every time—he commissioned the imperial glassblower to create an enormous glass pumpkin to be sent as a gift to Madame Ludmila Fanina. It would be signed From Frenchie.

And then Pasha strode into the palace library and asked not to be disturbed, sank into his armchair, and read Russian Mystics and the Tsars for the third time.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nikolai stared out his bedroom window onto Ekaterinsky Canal while he twirled the knife Galina had given him. The inside of the Zakrevsky house was quiet without his mentor. There was no yelling, and the staff simply took care of their chores and stayed out of Nikolai’s way. Outside the house, however, the city was riotous with preparations for Pasha’s seventeenth birthday. Up and down the canal, boats hauled sections of the grandstands to be installed for the imperial family and other nobility. Food kiosks popped up all over the city, selling blini crepes and fizzy, malty kvass to the workers. And signs were posted on all the streetlamps, reminding everyone that the birthday celebrations would last through the week. It was only Sunday now.

The frenetic energy on the streets and canals matched the chaos in Nikolai’s head. But while the people outside were driven by the promise of celebration, Nikolai was driven only by the specter of death.

There’s no escaping death. Either I’ll be defeated and therefore die, or I’ll triumph but live with the guilt of sentencing the girl to her end. There is no such thing as a winner in the Game.

There was a soft knock on his door. Nikolai startled and dropped the dagger, which embedded itself in his windowsill. Who was it? He had ordered no one to disturb him unless it was time for a meal. . . .

He charmed his pocket watch out of his waistcoat. Oh. Two in the afternoon. It was, indeed, time for a meal.

He crossed the room and unlocked the door, opening it a crack. He expected one of the older women from the kitchen with a tray, but instead it was Renata. Nikolai almost smiled—smiles were hard to come by since the oath—and opened the door wider.

“I thought you might like some company while you eat,” she said, slipping into his room with a tray laden with bouillon, chicken à l’estragon, and apple tarts. She shut the door behind her with her foot.

Nikolai furrowed his brow as he took the tray from her. “Are we expecting guests?” As Galina’s “charitable project,” Nikolai usually ate what the servants ate unless she had company. Only then did he get to take part in such lavish meals.

“I convinced Cook that you needed some cheering up, and that a nice lunch might do the trick.”

“You’re really too kind to me.”

“I know.” Renata smiled as she cleared a space on Nikolai’s cluttered desk, which was littered with crumpled papers full of discarded ideas for the Game. She folded a tablecloth to fit on the small square of free space.

“Will you join me?” Nikolai asked.

“I already had my piroshki and cheese in the kitchen.”

“I refuse to eat if you don’t.”

She wrinkled her nose and flattened a crease in the tablecloth on his desk. “Don’t be difficult.”

“I’m not. I’m being courteous.”