Page 27 of The Crown's Game
How did dirt cling to a shadow, when the shadow wasn’t really there?
Vika reached down to pick up the hat. It felt real in her hands, like silk and ribbon and rounded edges, and yet, it felt like nothing was there at all. It weighed as much as reality, and as little as fantasy.
She wondered what would happen if she put his hat on her head. Even just in her hands, his hat—his power—warmed her, like mulled cider on a winter’s day.
And then she wondered what would happen if she touched the shadow boy himself. If she ran a finger along the sharp line of his jaw. If she touched the scar beneath his collarbone. If she pressed her mouth against his shadow lips . . .
She flushed hot at the thought. Much, much hotter than mulled cider.
And then Vika bolted awake. The sun had just begun its upward creep into the sky, but the scar throbbed against her skin as if only just branded inside the wooden caves of Bolshebnoie Duplo. Oh, thank goodness it was the heat of the wands, not the heat of blush and infatuation, that had seeped into her dream. She was not as silly as her subconscious would suggest.
And then she realized that if her scar was burning . . . the Game!
Vika leaped off the sofa on which she slept—after several days in Saint Petersburg, she was still not accustomed to the luxury of the mattress in the bedroom and much preferred the sofa—and scanned the third-floor flat she had rented on Nevsky Prospect. The scar flared again, which meant it was her turn. The other enchanter had made his move, and although Vika didn’t know what it was, she was immediately on guard. Sergei had warned her that his sister’s student was likely trained as a killer. He’d try to end the Game quickly.
Was the front door locked? Yes.
Any movement in the drawing room: in the corners, under the card table, behind the chaise longue? No.
Was there magic in the air?
Yes.
Vika’s heart thundered in her chest, but she tried to breathe as quietly as she could.
She crept down the hallway toward the rest of the apartment. She’d used the money she found in Sergei’s hiding spot (under the valerian root in his garden) to pay for the flat. It was small by Saint Petersburg standards, but twice the living space she and Sergei had at home. And it had seemed perfect when she found it, full of eccentric mementos from the owners’ trips abroad, some so strange—like the taxidermied elk head wearing a Viking helmet or the garishly colored Venetian mask with mouths where the eye holes should be—that it seemed possible they were enchanted themselves.
But now, living in an apartment full of oddities didn’t seem like such a good idea. Any one of them could harbor a trap. She tiptoed to the first bedroom. Were there signs of an intruder?
But the bed was perfectly made, its satin sheets shiny in the early morning rays. The hat rack stood guard on the other side of the room. The dressing table, with its gilded bronze mirror and dozens of bottles of perfumes left by the flat’s owners, seemed as frivolous as ever.
The wands on Vika’s chest throbbed again. She slunk down the hall to the other bedroom, but it also appeared undisturbed. She slipped into the kitchen, her eyes darting from the stove to the oven to the cabinets decorated with scenes from Russian fairy tales, but saw no one and nothing alarming, other than the feathered talons that served as the dining table’s legs. Nothing, that is, except for the sense that there was magic other than her own floating about, as if the air were several particles heavier than it ought to be.
She flung open the windows in the kitchen. “Out!” she commanded the air, to cleanse it of anything dangerous her opponent might have planted. But instead, air even more enchanted tried to push in from outside.
“What? No!” Vika passed her hands over her head and up and down her body, fortifying the invisible shield she had cast around herself as she slept. She had protected the apartment from his enchantments, but his magic was trying to bully its way in. She doubled the charm around the window.
And then Vika saw the building across the street from her own. When she had gone to bed, that building had been a faded gray. Now it was a delicate powder blue, and its white trim, previously dull, had taken on a pearly tone.
If it had been only one home, she would have thought nothing of it. But she scanned the visible length of Nevsky Prospect, where the buildings, like many in the largest cities of Europe, were built right up against one another, and every single facade seemed a part of a candy wonderland. There were yellows soft as lemon cream, and greens like apples for pie. Purple like lavender marshmallow, and pink like rosewater taffy. Vika gasped. The buildings along the boulevard were the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen.
“This is his first move?” she said to herself. As if to confirm, the wands beneath her collarbone heated up, and she gasped again.
But the pain dissipated after a few seconds, and soon Vika’s shoulders relaxed. She let down the shield around herself as well. If it was her turn now, she needn’t worry about being attacked. And then it sank in that her opponent’s first move had been a peaceful one for the tsesarevich’s birthday. Vika’s heart beat out of rhythm at the hope that the other enchanter was less bloodthirsty than Sergei had assumed.
Then she noticed the tiny statues on the buildings, and she immediately cast the shield back around herself. The statues were stone birds, so small they could easily be mistaken for real sparrows hopping on the ledges and rooftops every ten feet or so. They hadn’t been there before, had they? Or was she just noticing them now because the entire boulevard had been brightened and was actually worth looking at?
She had to suspect the worst. As much as she’d wanted to believe that her opponent had laid down an amicable move, that someone as elegant as he wouldn’t resort to violence, the Game would in fact end upon one of their deaths. And there was something about the way he carried himself, she thought. Mesmerizing, but subtly perilous. Perhaps the stone birds were enchanted to attack as soon as Vika appeared on the street. But would they be able to do that if her opponent didn’t know who she was? She’d kept up her shroud diligently all the way home from Bolshebnoie Duplo. And Vika certainly wouldn’t be able to charm something into tracking an unknown person.
Then again, the other enchanter could be exponentially more skilled than she. It was an unnerving possibility.
However, she couldn’t remain in her apartment for the rest of the Game. She would have to go out and face the birds, whatever they were. Her father had prepared her well for this. He had taught her how to defend herself, from using the wind to blow dirt into a bear’s eyes to creating ice barricades for protection from flaming trees.
So Vika fortified the shield around herself and left the flat, taking the stairs one slow step at a time. When she reached the first floor, she opened the building’s door only a crack and poked her foot outside, like a tentative dancer testing the stage.
She waited. The stone birds did not fly off the ledges at her shoe. She slipped the rest of her body out the door, turning her head from left to right to take in all her potential avian assailants.
And then they attacked.
