The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(11)

After a particularly horrendous hand of cards, in which Nikolai sacrificed a painful sum of rubles, an unfamiliar voice piped up from behind a nearby building. “Can I play?”

“Who are you?” Stanislav, the leader of the gang, said.

“Uh, my name is Pasha.” There was a tremble as he answered, but that wasn’t uncommon around Stanislav, who at thirteen was already as stout as a dockworker.

The other boys turned to survey the new arrival. They looked him up and down, from the mess of his blond hair to the torn knees of his trousers. “It’s pay to play,” Stanislav said.

“I have some coins.” Pasha produced a small pouch. It clinked heavily.

Satisfied by the sound, Stanislav waved him over and began to deal him in. But there was something oddly familiar about Pasha, like Nikolai had seen him before. He couldn’t place him, though. Then he looked at Pasha’s boots, which were covered by a thin layer of dust. . . .

Nikolai flicked his fingers, just barely, and a small puff of air blew the dust away.

Pasha’s boots were shiny and completely unscuffed. And they weren’t fashioned from cheap leather. No, they’d been master-crafted from sumptuous burgundy calfskin, the kind reserved for nobility. Nobility with a lot of money. This Nikolai knew from a short stint polishing shoes for a cobbler.

And from the gleam in Stanislav’s eye, the extravagance of Pasha’s boots hadn’t slipped his notice either.

An hour later, Pasha had won a fair sum. “Thank you for the game,” he said too politely. “But I’m afraid it’s time for me to be going.” He gathered up the coins and crumpled bills from the center of the circle into his pouch and stood to take his leave.

“Not so fast, pretty boy.” Stanislav rose, and he towered over Pasha. “I think you cheated us.”

“W-w-what?” Pasha reddened. He jammed his hands into his hair, tugging frantically on it, and in doing so, flattened the blond waves into something neater than they’d been when he arrived.

Oh, blazes! Nikolai thought as he put Pasha’s fine-boned features together with the now-tamed hair. Pasha is the nickname for Pavel. And Pavel is the name of the tsesarevich. That was why he looked so familiar, despite the smudges of dirt on his face. Nikolai had seen Pasha with the rest of the imperial family in a parade only a week before. What the devil was the tsesarevich doing out of the palace, trying to pass himself off as a commoner? And in Sennaya Square, of all places.

Stanislav opened and closed a meaty fist. “I saw you slipping in your own cards,” he said to Pasha. “What d’ya think I am, stupid, just ’cause I can’t afford dainty shoes?”

“I—I don’t know what you think you saw. But I didn’t cheat.” Pasha backed into the wall of the building behind him.

Nikolai stepped forward. “Give him all the money,” he said to Pasha. “That’ll appease him.”

“Don’t speak for me, Kazakh,” Stanislav spat.

Nikolai’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t send Stanislav careening through the air like he wanted to. Instead, he held out his hand to Pasha, who dumped all his coins and bills into Nikolai’s palm. Nikolai set them on the ground in front of Stanislav. Then Nikolai emptied out his own pockets of all his hard-earned cash (true, Nikolai had actually cheated, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t worked hard for it—it took a great deal of restraint to charm the cards in his favor only once every five or so hands) and added that to the pile of Pasha’s money. “There, Stanislav, you can have my take, too, and consider the debt paid, all right? Besides, you don’t want trouble with Pasha. If he has fancy shoes, you can bet he has fancy parents, too, with connections to the sorts of people you don’t want poking around in your business.”

Stanislav crossed his arms. He ran his tongue along the bottom edge of his teeth. And then he scooped up Nikolai’s and Pasha’s money. “Fine, Kazakh. But get out of my square, and don’t either of you ever come back.”

Pasha and Nikolai took off running. They didn’t stop until Nikolai led them to the banks of the Neva River, to the Winter Palace, its green, gold, and white facade like a Russian version of Versailles.

Pasha gasped. “You know who I am.” His face was flushed from exertion and his hair wild again.

Nikolai shrugged, still breathing heavily from running so hard and so far. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I . . . thank you.”

“Of course. But one piece of advice,” Nikolai said as he glanced again at Pasha’s too-shiny shoes. “If you’re going to sneak out, you’ll need better disguises. For one, your boots. And . . . well, to be honest, everything you’re wearing is much too nice. Even the holes in your trousers are symmetrical. I could help, though. I know a thing or two about clothing. . . .”

They had been best friends ever since.

Now, on Ovchinin Island, Nikolai sensed his friend’s same fatigue with the pomp and protocol of court life.

Pasha sighed. “Oh, I don’t care what we hunt. Grouse, pheasants . . . Pick one and set the hounds off into the woods with the rest of them.” He gestured a gloved hand at the preening noblemen and horses behind him. “Then you and I can go off in search of adventure.”

Nikolai laughed. Pasha only participated in half the hunts that were organized for him. The other half he spent wandering through unexplored forests, skipping rocks in rivers, and dozing to the music of rustling leaves. For Pasha’s sake, Nikolai hoped the tsar lived forever. Pasha would wilt if he were ever locked behind the Winter Palace’s doors, forced to actually live like the royal he was born to be.