new friend? Someone else common and poor? Sometimes Nikolai wondered if that was the reason Pasha liked him, because he was different from everyone else in Pasha’s blue-blooded world.
No, it’s more than that, Nikolai thought. Isn’t it?
“Are you coming?” Pasha asked, practically bounding in the direction of the table. He might as well have had springs in the soles of his boots.
“Not if you’re going to call attention to yourself like that.”
Pasha threw his arm around Nikolai’s shoulder and winked, but the springs in his feet retracted. “Good point. I would be completely ungrounded without you.”
And as easily as that, Nikolai’s doubts about their friendship receded. For now.
They slunk into their booth in the back corner, steins in hand. Not a second later, Nursultan slid a pitcher of beer onto the table, its contents sloshing but not overflowing, along with two short glasses and an ice-cold bottle of vodka. With a thunk, he set down a cutting board filled with rye bread, smoked fish, and cucumber pickles. Then he grunted and stamped away.
Nikolai poured a shot of vodka for each of them, while Pasha filled their beer glasses. Then Nikolai raised his vodka and said, “Tvoe zdarovye.” To your health. At a tavern like the Magpie and the Fox, one toasted in Russian, not French. The boys knocked back their shots and chased them with sips of beer. Pasha grinned and bit into a pickle.
“So are you going to tell me why you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night?” Nikolai asked as he piled smoked sturgeon onto a slice of bread.
“You weren’t sleeping.”
“Perhaps I was.”
“Not unless you sleep in a starched shirt, cravat, and waistcoat. I could see your clothes full well from the street.”
“Damn you and your observations.”
Pasha laughed. Then the jest fell away, and he leaned into the table. The flickering candlelight in the tavern cast harsh shadows across his face. “Things are happening, Nikolai.”
Nikolai set down his bread and leaned away from the table, pressing himself against the booth’s wall. “What things?”
“The refacing of Nevsky Prospect. The Neva Fountain. The Canal of Colors.”
Was that what the city’s residents were calling their moves? Nikolai’s scar flared at the reminder of the Game.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it,” Pasha said. “Have you even left your room in the past week? Or are you keeping something from me?”
Nikolai poked at his bread. “Yes. And no. I mean to say, yes, I have left my room and even the house, and no, I’m not keeping anything from you.”
“Hmm.” Pasha scrutinized him. Nikolai charmed his own face so that Pasha wouldn’t be able to see the falsehood on him.
“All right,” Pasha said. “If you have, indeed, left the Zakrevsky prison, then you know what I’m talking about, yes?”
“The preparations for your birthday. Yes, I’ve seen them. The mechanics are impressive.”
“Chyort.”
Nikolai arched a brow. Pasha rarely cursed, especially not in Russian. (Nikolai was also unconvinced that Pasha was saying it correctly, but what did they know? They spoke mainly French.)
Pasha was unapologetic for the profanity. “Mechanics? That’s an utter lie, and you know it. This is enchantment, Nikolai. No one else recognizes it because they don’t know it exists. Russia used to be full of magic, but then it faded away because people either started fearing it or stopped believing in it. For example, did you know that the forests and lakes used to be rife with faeries and nymphs? But they’ve died out from neglect and disbelief.
“And yet,” he continued, “you saw that girl in the forest on Ovchinin Island, whether you’ll admit it or not. Tell me you believe me, that magic is real. Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”
Nikolai poured another shot of vodka for himself as he pondered whether to confirm or deny it.
He had actually considered confiding in Pasha many times before—both about his magical abilities and the related indignities heaped upon him by Galina—but he had always stopped short of confessing. For one, Nikolai knew Pasha looked up to him, as backward as it might be for the tsesarevich to admire a nobody from the steppe, and Nikolai was loath to have yet another thing that set him apart, for he wished to fit in with his friend, not stand out. On the flip side of that, Nikolai might work for Pasha someday, and he wanted to enjoy their friendship as it was for as long as possible, before that dynamic in their relationship shifted. And third, Nikolai did not