Pasha poked the Russian Mystics book. “Have you nothing to say? Nikolai! I’ve just informed you that there’s an ancient contest of magic taking place in our midst, and that the girl I almost kissed is in the center of it and might die.”

Nikolai groaned and brought his head back down to the incomprehensible French poem. “You almost kissed her?” he asked into the table. Jealousy blazed inside him. So much for trying not to think of Vika in that way. “When? Where?”

“On the island, soon after the benches appeared,” Pasha said. “I tried to kiss her, but she told me she wasn’t ‘in a position to fall in love.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But she promised I’d know if it changed.”

Nikolai wanted to disappear into the table. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you sleep too damn much and never come out with me anymore. But I’m telling you now, and you’re flat on the table, falling asleep again.” Pasha thumped his hand on the book.

Someone nearby shushed him, then made a fuss of standing up and relocating to a table much farther away.

“I’m not falling asleep,” Nikolai muttered. It would have been impossible to. Pasha had (almost) kissed Vika. How could Nikolai have even thought he’d have a chance with her? Of course she would fall in love with Pasha. Pasha was the heir to an empire, and he was smart and dashing and could win a war with his smile. He was also not at risk of dying in the Game.

And that explained why she’d told Pasha she wasn’t currently in a position to fall in love. She still didn’t know how the Game would end. But if she won, then she would be in a position to fall in love. She would be Imperial Enchanter, and she would no longer fear commitment to Pasha, for she would know she could live happily ever after.

And Nikolai would be alone. No, dead. Exactly as his tea leaves had predicted.

Pasha knocked on Nikolai’s head. “Then if you’re not asleep, talk to me. You’re my best friend. I think I love her, and she might die.”

Nikolai peered up from the table. “You cannot love her. You hardly know her.”

“If there were ever a girl a man could fall in love with without knowing, it would be Vika. I have to stop the other enchanter. Say you’ll help me.”

Were the library truly a ship, this would be the moment that it sank.

“Nikolai.”

He shook his head.

“Say you’ll help me.”

Nikolai exhaled deeply. Why did Pasha have to get involved?

And yet, Nikolai had to respond. He couldn’t hide against the table forever.

He pulled himself upright and charmed away the nausea and despair from his face, although it cost him what felt like the last of his integrity to do so. Instead, he put on the facade of being the same Nikolai he had always been, the practical one to Pasha’s whimsy.

“I told you the first time we saw her, Pasha, that Vika is not the kind of girl you can give a glass slipper to and expect to turn into a princess. Likewise—assuming this Crown’s Game is not mere legend—you cannot interfere. She wouldn’t want you to.”

“But perhaps in this instance—”

“No. She would not want your help. And regardless, you would be of no assistance. What would you do? Murder the other enchanter? For what other way is there to stop him?”

“I don’t . . . I admit I didn’t think it through quite that far.” He tugged on his hair, and the fisherman’s cap fell off.

Nikolai picked it up and tossed it back at him. “I’m right, you know.”

Pasha turned the fisherman’s cap in his hands.

“Let it go,” Nikolai said, as much to Pasha as to himself. “Forget about trying to control the Game, and let it take its course. It will end how it needs to end.”

Pasha frowned. “I wish there were something I could do to change it.”

Nikolai closed his eyes. “Me, too, Pasha. Me, too.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Vika sat on the floor of the apartment and stared at the Imagination Box. She had brought it inside the flat after the ball, a rash and likely imprudent carryover from dancing with Nikolai, and it had been there ever since. And unlike the Masquerade Box, the Imagination Box’s magic hadn’t been extinguished. Vika hardly blinked as she looked at it.

One panel was covered with the word Father carved over and over, followed by the words lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.

Father, Father, Father, she thought.

I miss you, Father. I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t know, Father.

Lies, lies, lies.

I don’t know my father. Or my mother. Was everything you ever told me a lie?

The other panel on the Imagination Box was covered with angry slashes, and the words the Game and Galina and Nikolai and blame.

It’s your fault. Without you, without the Game, he’d still be alive. It’s all your damn fault.

Vika growled through her tears. Then she reached out and touched the Imagination Box.

She obliterated the words with a single, violent swipe.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

The bridge spanned the Fontanka River, composed of two stone arches with a wooden drawbridge in between. Four Doric pavilions housed the drawbridge mechanisms, and it was in the corner of one of these pavilions that Pasha stood, hiding. He’d grown out some of his blond stubble into a two-day-old beard, shadowed the rest of his face with a wide-brimmed hat, and donned a frayed coat over a common laborer’s rough tunic and breeches. He’d even sewn lopsided patches onto the knees.

“Hello, Frenchie,” Ludmila said as she approached the opposite side of the pavilion.

He peeked out from under the hat. A grin spread across his bearded face. “Why, if it isn’t my Aphrodite of the pumpkin. How did you find me here?”

“A hunch.”

“Ah, it was Ilya, wasn’t it?” Ilya was the youngest member of Pasha’s Guard, but the best one at guessing his whereabouts. “I’ll have to be slyer to outwit him. Though he doesn’t inform the rest of the Guard, which I appreciate.”

“He thought you’d be watching the boats.”

“Indeed. I’m trying to work out the inefficiencies in the water traffic around the city. There are times when there is too much traffic, and others when there is none at all. The delays cause all manner of problems, from spoiled goods to missed connections to accidents while the boats wait in the queue.”