Sergei let out a low moan. Buzzards screeched outside. And then the light in Sergei’s eyes snuffed out.
Her brother was gone.
She buckled on the bed beside him and cradled him in her arms. And for the first time since their father died, Galina cried.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The night was shaded in midnight blue, and quietude kissed the air. Moonlight shimmered upon Saint Petersburg’s streets, and sleepy ripples rolled through its canals.
There was no one out at this hour but the two enchanters. Nikolai smiled as Vika’s footfalls on the cobblestones fell into sync with his. Unintentional and yet so inevitable.
After the tsar and tsarina had gone, he and Vika had taken a winding path through the city. Neither of them spoke, but they were both content with having no real destination at all. The Game was still upon them, of course, but the restlessness, the disquiet it normally inspired, had lifted, at least for now.
Nikolai watched as Vika moved beside him, impossibly light, impossibly strong. She had evanesced two entire people to the southern edge of the empire. She was a marvel. She was magic itself.
She glanced over at him and smiled.
If only tonight could stretch on forever, Nikolai thought.
But suddenly, Vika gasped. She grabbed onto the leather bracelet around her wrist. Her knees gave way beneath her, and she collapsed.
It was so fast, Nikolai didn’t have time to catch her. Her head slammed into the cobblestones. If not for the embankment, she would have tumbled into the canal.
Nikolai rushed forward. “Vika, are you all right?”
But she didn’t move or even murmur. She lay limp on the ground with one arm hanging over the embankment, her fingers dangling over the canal. Nikolai’s own heart pounded as he reached to take her pulse.
It was there. Stuttering, like a broken metronome, but there. Barely.
Thank the heavens.
He scooped her up and cradled her against his body, and for a moment her magic, albeit weak, meshed with his, and he felt again that hot jolt like their connection at Pasha’s ball. And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and Vika was just an unconscious girl in his arms.
Nikolai held her tighter. “It’ll be fine,” he said, both to Vika and to himself, as he hurried toward the Zakrevsky house, which was only a few blocks away. “Everything will be fine.”
But that was a lie, for there was nothing about him and Vika that would ever be fine. What a fool he’d been to think tonight could be any different.
When they arrived at his house, he charmed open the front door, hurled away all the protection charms he’d cast, and rushed her straight upstairs to his room. The door swung shut behind him.
“Vika,” he whispered.
She didn’t respond. Her head lolled over his arm. She was a rag doll.
He laid her down gently on his bed and covered her with a wool blanket. “Vika,” he said, louder now. But still there was no response. He checked her pulse again. It stammered, but it was there.
He tried shaking her softly, careful not to jostle too hard.
Nothing.
If only he could see inside her, like she could when she healed animals, then he could figure out what had gone wrong and how to fix it. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried. But he couldn’t; it was all just a mass of red muscle and pink organs and crisscrossing veins. Living things were messy. It wasn’t like seeing through the straight walls of a library at all.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Think. If I can’t use magic, then what? What would an ordinary person do?
There was a girl who worked in the kitchen, one of Renata’s friends, who constantly fainted. The cook kept smelling salts around to revive her.
Yes. Try that.
Nikolai opened his eyes and snapped his fingers. A silver vial of smelling salts appeared. He fumbled with the cap, and it clattered to the floor when he finally wrenched it off.
He wafted the salts under Vika’s nose. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”
After a few passes, she stirred, and her eyes flickered open. “Nikolai?”
“I thought I’d lost you.” He dropped onto the bed beside her. The knot in his chest unraveled.
“Where am I?”
“In my room. Thank goodness you’re all right.” This wasn’t the death Vika’s tea leaves had foretold. Nikolai threw the smelling salts onto his nightstand. He didn’t care that they spilled.
“What happened?”
“You fainted.”
“Oh.” Vika’s eyes fell closed. “Yes. I remember now.” The red of her hair spread like blood