The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye Read Free Book Online Page B

“Nikolai, you’re shaking! Are you all right? Did something happen on the hunt?”
    Nikolai rubbed his face with both hands. He could tell Renata what he’d seen. Besides Galina, Renata was the only one who knew of his abilities. Not that he’d shared them with her purposely. Two years ago, he had forgottento lock his bedroom door while he was reassembling a music box with his mind—these disassembly and rebuilding projects had begun when he was a child as lessons from Galina—and Renata had walked in with clean linens for his bed while the music box’s cranks and gears were suspended in midair.
    “Oh!” she had said. “Forgive me, Master Nikolai, I—I—”
    The pieces of the music box had gone clatteringonto the desk. He’d snatched them up and stuffed them into the pocket of his waistcoat. “It’s not what it seems.”
    She looked down at the scuffed toes of her boots. “That they were floating of their own accord? Of course not, Master Nikolai.”
    “I could make you forget what you saw.” He raised a finger to his temple.
    She trembled. “No need, sir. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
    “How can I trustyou?”
    “I read tea leaves, Master Nikolai. I don’t fear what you do.”
    Nikolai lowered his finger. “You read leaves?” He’d never met anyone who could do that. Or anyone who’d admit to it. The Russian Orthodox Church had quashed magic as superstition and heresy centuries ago.
    “Yes,” Renata said.
    “Show me.”
    He followed her to the kitchen, and Renata poured him a cup of tea. When he drained it,she studied the gnarled black leaves that remained.
    Then she shook her head so violently, her braids lashed across her face. “Perhaps it would be better if you made me forget what I saw in your room, sir.”
    Nikolai frowned, then looked from the teacup to Renata and back again. “No. There’s something in those leaves that you’re frightened to relay. Tell me. I won’t hold it against you.”
    She swallowedhard.
    “I give you my word.” Which, to Nikolai, was a serious thing, because if your word could not be trusted, you were nothing as a gentleman, and that was its own dreadful shame.
    Renata nodded. But she took another moment before she spoke, her voice shaky. “You see there is a cluster of leaves on the left, but a single one, isolated, on the right? It means . . . It means you’re lonely.” Shehunched over the cup, as if waiting for Nikolai to cuff her. She had been hit on numerous occasions by Galina, for much lesser offenses.
    But Nikolai only chewed his lip. “I see.” It was an audacious thing for a servant girl to say, but it was nothing particularly remarkable. Any one of the servants could have made a similar observation; after all, Nikolai spent an inordinate amount of time inhis room on his own, doing what, they did not know. “What about the jagged leaf along the bottom?” he asked.
    Renata’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, jangling her braids yet again.
    “Tell me.”
    Nikolai restrained himself from reassuring her not to be afraid. He needed to know what the leaf meant.
    “The jagged one represents . . . death. You were born of death, and . . .”
    “And what?”
    “And death will . . . it will follow you, always. The bottom leaf is the path of your life, and this one is a long and jagged blade.”
    Nikolai had shuddered then, and he’d felt as if his heart stopped for more than several beats. But he had been grateful that she was willing to tell him, despite her fear of reprisal. Perhaps the fact that beneath the elegant clothing and practiced airs he was apoor boy from nowhere gave her a reason to have faith in him. In truth, he was as much a nobody as she was. Nikolai had smiled sadly at how clumsily he fit into this life.
    So began their friendship, and now they were huddled together in the kitchen once again, as they had been many times in the past.
    “Nikolai.” Renata pried his hands from his face. “Tell me. Did something happen