Page 82 of My High Horse Czar

“Burgers are really good,” I say. “I did pick this place to taunt you a little, but they’re not disgusting.”

“I’m not accustomed to mashing things together.” His lip’s curled.

“Oh, please. What’s soup, then? Or dumplings? They’re all just food, mashed together.”

“This also looks quite messy.”

He picks up the burger, carefully peeling back the paper that has fallen down across the front. “If you say so.”

He watches everyone else eat a bite or two first, but eventually he brings his to his mouth. When the ketchup squishes out the side and drips onto the front of his shirt, I can’t help laughing.

He drops his burger to the tray immediately.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “It’s funny. You’re all prim and proper, but the rest of us can eat burgers without making a mess. You’re like a toddler.”

His scowl looks utterly real—no feigning there.

“You aren’t a czar anymore, Alexei,” I say. “You’re going to have to learn how to wallow around in the mud with the rest of us pigs.”

“I’m still a lord,” Aleksandr says.

“As am I,” Grigoriy says.

Kristiana shoves a handful of fries in Aleksandr’s mouth, and Mirdza’s rolling her eyes when she bumps Grigoriy’s shoulder.

He may still be scowling, but I notice that Alexei finishes his bacon burger and wipes his mouth thoroughly.

“The burger’s good, though, right?” I can’t help my self-satisfied grin.

“It was edible.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” I turn to Mirdza. “He didn’t like it. So next time, we’ll go without them.”

“It was decent,” Alexei says.

“Decent?” I stand up and toss my trash on the tray. “I’m sure Aleks and Kris can find a personal chef for you while you’re stuck here, and after you return to your rightful position, you’ll be able to hire your own.”

He sighs. “The burger was pretty good, but I don’t like being bad at things.”

Mirdza and I exchange a glance and start laughing.

“What’s funny about that?” Aleksandr asks.

“I mean, that’s nice,” I say. “But if you’d lived our lives, you wouldn’t have had much choice. Without private tutors and special magical powers, we were bad at everything. Until we worked hard enough to become better.”

We’ve lived very different lives.

I reach to grab his tray so I can take mine and his at the same time, but he stops me. “I can clear the table.”

He takes both trays, piling his trash on mine and stacking them, and I decide he must have been watching other customers to figure that out. There’s no way they had trays and communal trash cans back in 1917. At least, not that he would have ever used.

I’m a little bit proud of him, which is stupid.

The others are already heading back out to the car—mine wouldn’t start, which is hardly surprising. We all rode with Kris and Aleksandr. We’re nearly to Aleksandr’s Land Rover when I almost step on a stick—that isn’t a stick, because it’s all striped.

Danger noodle. Ugh. I can’t help my shriek. I hate snakes.

“Whoa, there. It’s dead,” Kristiana says. “Look.”

---