slivered through the bare maple branches and landed in pale stripes on Vika’s face. It highlighted her delicate cheekbones. It emphasized her otherness. Pasha couldn’t resist stepping closer to her. He reached out to touch her face.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, I just—”
She didn’t move away as his fingers hovered next to her cheek, aching to brush against her skin. But she said, “I mean, you don’t want this.”
“What if I do?” He wanted to kiss her. And not just her lips, although he wanted that, badly. He also wanted to kiss her neck, to peel away her coat and touch his mouth to her pale shoulders. He wanted to feel the softness and warmth of her skin. Pasha leaned closer.
This time, Vika backed away. “Trust me, you don’t. I’m too complicated. I am bound by too much not in my control.”
Pasha sighed. He, too, was bound. By his father. By duty. By the people of an entire empire. He wondered what trappings hindered Vika.
“There’s no such thing as simplicity,” he said.
She took off her glove and ran a finger through the trickle of maple syrup, frowning at the crystallized lumps in it. “I’m beginning to fully comprehend that.”
“I like you,” he said. “More than like you.”
She shook her head slightly, but more to herself than to him. “I don’t want to like you.”
“But you do?” Pasha went to run his hand through his hair, but caught himself before he gave his nerves away.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I’m only asking about you.”
Vika focused on a deformed crystal of syrup on her thumb. “I’m not in a position to fall in love. With you, or with anyone else.”
If he could, Pasha would have sucked the sugar off her finger. But it wasn’t appropriate, and she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested, so he settled for removing his glove and wiping the sugar crystal off her fingertip, lingering for a second as their hands touched. Even that sent sparks through every one of Pasha’s nerves.
“Will you tell me if that ever changes?” he said, his voice a touch hoarse.
She frowned. “I doubt it will.”
“But if it does?”
She looked up at Pasha, and it took everything in him not to bend down and steal a kiss. “Yes,” she said. “If it changes, I will tell you.”
He sighed again.
“You have a lot weighing on you,” Vika said. “I’ll leave you to enjoy the island and sort through your troubles. I hope for the best for your mother.”
“You don’t have to go—”
But she had already vanished. How? Now Pasha allowed his hand to run through his hair. It was the third time in an hour she had startled him.
He dashed to the other end of the island to the pier, and there she was, already halfway across the bay on her leaf. He watched her all the way until she made it to the opposite shore.
She was unlike any girl he had ever known. And likely would ever know. His nerves were still on edge from their encounter.
He started to head back toward the main promenade, perhaps to sit on the steppe bench or the Ovchinin Island one. Vika was right. Pasha did have a great deal to ponder. But as he walked, he turned to look at the water one last time. She was gone, but her presence was not.
Tied to the dock was a gift. His own enchanted leaf.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
In his study, the tsar pored over his maps of the Crimea, as well as his generals’ most recent reports on the activities of the Ottomans. It was as Yuliana had warned. He should have made this trip south a while ago.
There was a gentle knock from the hall. Followed by a cough, weaker yet louder than the knock. The tsar hurried to open the door.
The tsarina smiled and coughed again into her handkerchief.
“Elizabeth, my dear,” the tsar said, offering his arm and leading her to the armchair by his desk. “Why are you here? It’s late. You ought to be in bed.”
She wore a white dressing gown with lace at the collar and sleeves. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun. When younger, she’d been known as one of the most beautiful women in Europe. But even now, older and ill, she was arresting. “I just wanted to see you, love,” she said.
The tsar kissed her on the top of her head. He had disregarded her for decades; they had married too young, when he was fifteen and she only fourteen, and the tsar