“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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When 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.”