Page 57 of The Crown's Fate
The figure in the room hissed and jumped from the bed. A patch of moonlight illuminated her face, and it was not, it turned out, much of a face at all. Nor was it a girl.
Vika gasped and evanesced herself away.
The last thing she saw was the thing’s golden eyes, narrowed with drops of black at the corners, oozing like viscous ink.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Nikolai woke with a shock, his head disconcertingly fizzy. Was it from kissing Renata? Perhaps taking energy from her was less like drinking tea with lemon and sugar, and more like wine spiked with stars. He rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on the bed to get his bearings. He couldn’t have been asleep long.
His fingers gripped for the sheets but found themselves in a pile of loose feathers. But not loose, exactly, for although there was no mattress holding them together, they stayed in place in the shape of a bed. As if by magic.
“What is this?” Nikolai scrambled off the feathers and onto a rug of purple flowers, as soft as the finest Persian rug in the Winter Palace. “Andwhereis this?”
He spun in a circle. He was inside a room, that was for sure, for there were walls painted blue with a pattern of small white spirals. But the wall was strangely arched, as was the ceiling. Nikolai ran out of the bedroom into the hall.
It connected him to a parlor and a small kitchen (no stoveor oven, he noted), both decorated with furniture as if the craftsman had never heard of nails or upholstery. Rather, there were enormous abalone shells with smooth, iridescent indentations suited for lounging, and lamps powered by glowing moths. And a desk made not of wooden boards, but of a single, polished boulder, with volumes about architecture and clock making, as well as memoirs of travelers from abroad, lined up on the stone.
“Am I in another dream?”
“I’m afraid we’re both completely awake,” Vika said.
Nikolai spun again.
There was no one else in the room.
“Vika?”
“I’m on the outside. I’ve sealed you in, which also means I can’t enter, or I’d risk a breach in the enchantment and you could escape. You are under arrest for attempting to kill the tsesarevich.”
Oh. How foolish to think this was merely a dream.
Nikolai let out a long breath. Then he cast a charm that allowed him to see through the walls.
The sun was not yet up—it did not rise till rather late in the morning in winter—but there was enough moonlight... .
And there she was, her hand and forehead pressed against the other side of the curved wall, her eyes closed. Vika didn’t look angry, though, as her words had suggested. Was she tired? Frustrated? Resigned? Nikolai couldn’t tell.
He crossed the room. He stood only inches from the wall and placed his hand against it, so that it lined up with Vika’s, palm to palm, his shadow fingers longer and slightly curled as if they could cup over the tips of hers. She wouldn’t know; seeing through obstacles was Nikolai’s forte, not hers.
He wasn’t happy that she had trapped him. But then again, she’d captured his heart long ago, so he’d already been her prisoner anyway.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“In an egg.”
“In an egg?” Nikolai laughed despite himself.
Vika laughed a little, too. A sad laugh, but it was something. “Araspisnoye yaitso. A giant one.”
“I can see that.” He glanced up. The fact that this was an egg certainly explained the arch of the walls and the ceiling. As well as the blue and white paint. There was also a long streak of gold that began in the parlor and probably ran along the entire side of the egg. He’d have to look later. And if Vika’s enchantment was strong—which Nikolai did not doubt—he’d have plenty of time. “A painted egg ... It’s an interesting choice for a jail cell.”
Outside, Vika bit her lip but didn’t respond. Behind her, a gray stone pillar rose into the sky, and beyond that, the ice of the Neva. Nikolai’s mouth set in a thin line as he recognized where they stood. Enchanter against enchantress again, at Candlestick Point.
“An interesting choice of location, too,” he said.
Vika opened her eyes. “You can see through the shell.”
“Yes.”
