“What did you say?” Vanya whispered.

I swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the boulder in my throat. “I...”

Vanya turned to Mikhail. His gaze swept from his tattered clothing to his face. I could see him trying to piece together Mikhail’s contradictions, the same way I had—the refined lilt of Mikhail’s voice, his cold and distant bearing, the unscarred softness of his palms.

“You,” Vanya said. “You’re the Tsar?”

Mikhail took a step back, seeming at a loss about what to say. Even if he had lied, the truth shone clearly in his expression. In his silence. In the way his gaze flickered toward the rifle propped against the wall near the door.

“You’re the Tsar?” Vanya repeated quietly.

“We’re just passing through, Ivan,” Mikhail said, his voice low and wary. “We won’t impose on you any longer. Toma, let’s go.”

Vanya’s gaze chilled in an instant. He stepped in our way, blocking the route to the door. “No.”

“Vanya, we don’t want to fight you,” I said, suddenly conscious of the weight of the musket slung against my back. It would take Vanya only a second to load the rifle. By the time I slid my ramrod down my musket’s barrel to secure the lead shot, he would have already fired—and that was if he didn’t use his powers. This was wrong. All of this was terribly wrong.

“This isn’t about you, Toma.” His cat-green eyes remained on Mikhail. “This is between me and the Tsar.”

Mikhail took a velvet sack from his coat pocket and shook its contents into his hands. Two rubies and a diamond. The rest of the gems were hidden in his shoes and in both of our coat linings.

“In return for your kindness and your discretion,” Mikhail said, holding out his hand.

Vanya looked down at the jewels, his features darkening. “Is that it?”

“What?” Mikhail asked, befuddled. “You want more?”

“No, I want none of it. I can’t believe you’re going to try to bribe me and run away from everything you witnessed today like it has nothing to do with you!” Vanya’s eyes flashed with anger. “You think it was just a coincidence the Otzvuk targeted the Strannik side of town, or that this is the first time it’s happened?”

As Vanya spoke, the floorboards beneath his feet began to fissure, beads of ruby sap bursting like blood to the surface. Knobby branches emerged from the wood.

“Vanya, just calm down,” I stammered, shifting restlessly from foot to foot. My fingers strayed to the hunting knife secured to my belt. The musket would be too slow, but the blade would involve getting close. I prayed it wouldn’t come down to that.

“Even under your father, the imperial army and bogatyr militias terrorized us!” Vanya snarled as though he didn’t even hear me. “You know what it’s like to be marched out of your house at gunpoint, Tsar Mikhail, and be made to dig trenches in the dead of winter? To be harassed and beaten, and to know our attackers would never be court-martialed, Tsar Mikhail? To watch our neighbors be hanged because the imperial army thought they might be conspiring with the Groznaya Empire? No! You can take those jewels and shove them up your ass, Your Highness, because I’d sooner drag you back to the Fraktsiya myself than let you leave our country to tear itself in two!”