wait in the queue.”
“Ah, and here I thought Ilya meant you were merely watching the boats as boys do when they dream of becoming sailors.” Ludmila chuckled. “Don’t you have a harbormaster whose job it is to manage this?”
“I do, and the tsar has asked me to meet with him several times, but he knows nothing except what’s written on his timetables. But that’s just paper. And reality isn’t paper, is it?”
Ludmila shook her head.
“So I came to see the situation for myself. Also, I just like looking at boats and dreaming of becoming a sailor.” Pasha flashed his famous smile. “But you did not seek me out to discuss river traffic. What can I do for you today, Madame Fanina?”
“It’s about Vika.”
Pasha inched closer to where Ludmila stood. “I’ve been wondering where she is. There haven’t been any new enchantments in a fortnight. I thought perhaps it was because the festivities for my birthday had concluded.”
Ludmila hung her head. “Vika’s father passed away.”
“Oh no.” Pasha left the cover of the pavilion now and came out to the main part of the bridge.
“She received word two weeks ago. I haven’t been able to convince her to leave the flat.”
Pasha continued to stand still and steady, as a tsesarevich should in the face of tragedy, even though he wished he could fly to Vika’s apartment that very instant to gather her in his arms. “What can I do?” he asked Ludmila.
“Will you talk to her? Invite her for a walk, or do anything to take her mind off her father for a short while? I realize it’s bold of me to ask, and you have the boats to observe—”
“No. I’m glad you came to me. I shall send a coach for her straightaway.”
His carriage pulled up to the Winter Palace, hopefully with Vika in it. Pasha had returned home to shave and put on neater clothes, and to have pity on his Guard and actually inform them of his location and intentions. Now, as he passed Ilya in the courtyard, he patted him on the back and whispered, “The boats at Chernyshev Bridge. Well done. I’ll best you next time.” The guard laughed before he snapped his mouth closed and attempted to look stern again.
Pasha slipped into the carriage as soon as the coachman opened the door. Vika indeed sat inside, dressed in all black. She had even changed her hair so that it was no longer a single stripe of ebony, but an entire mantle of it. Her mien managed to darken even the white paneled walls and cream leather of the carriage. Good gracious, Ludmila had been right. This Vika was a different girl entirely.
“You requested my presence?” She hardly glanced up as Pasha slid onto the seat across from her.
“I heard you needed a change of scenery.”
“The scenery in my room was fine.”
“Ludmila said you’ve been staring at the face of an armoire with only an evil-looking rat as company. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fine.’”
“His name is Poslannik.”
“Pardon?”
“The rat. The rat’s name is Poslannik. And he isn’t evil.”
“Ludmila is concerned about you.”
The carriage started with a lurch, and the sound of horse’s hooves—both those that led the carriage and those that belonged to the Guard—surrounded them.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we might go for a ride in the country. I asked the coachman to take a scenic route to Tsarskoe Selo, my family’s summer residence. No one is there now, so the gardens will be all yours. Perhaps the fresh air will do you good.”
“My father is dead. Or the man I thought was my father. And my mother, whom I thought had died, apparently did not, but abandoned me instead. My entire life has been a lie. I doubt fresh air will do a thing to change that.”
Pasha sat back in his seat and looked at her scowl. She was still beautiful, but with her expression as black as her hair, her beauty was of a fiercer kind. An almost frightening kind. After Vika’s warnings about the danger of magic, Pasha wondered if he’d taken the recent enchantments too lightly, and if he’d fallen too easily under Vika’s spell.
“I’m sorry.” Vika sighed, and the furrow of her brow softened. “I appreciate you coming to see me. I shouldn’t take my grief out on you.”
“It’s all right. It must have been quite a shock.” His concerns about her ferocity fell away. Instead, he wanted to protect her. But that was foolish. A girl like Vika didn’t