“That was strategy.”
“Exactly.”
He accepts this.
The operation begins ten minutes later.
Vika is in the small blue drawing room, stretched across a chaise with her phone in one hand and a face mask on, which makes her look even more ridiculous than usual. She has one slipper hanging off her toes and the posture of a woman who believes civilization exists to keep her entertained.
Sofia goes in first.
I hear her before I see her.
“Aunt Vika! Nikolai says princesses can’t do cartwheels!”
That gets Vika upright immediately because there is nothing my sister loves more than being summoned as the highest authority on nonsense.
“What?”
Sofia launches into an explanation involving royalty, balance, and gross injustice. As planned, it’s impossible to ignore. Vika sets her phone down beside the chaise without even noticing.
At which point Nikolai, who has crawled in from the hall behind the low sofa like a tiny, deeply judgmental commando, slips forward, grabs the phone, and vanishes again.
I’m waiting in the corridor.
He passes it to me with the solemn air of a man handing over state secrets.
“I don’t approve of this,” he whispers. In answer, I kiss his forehead. He gives me a grudging smile at that, and for one second, he looks so heartbreakingly like his own father.
“What can I have for this?” he tries again.
“We’ll negotiate later,” I say, focusing on the phone.
The problem is that Vika has approximately nine hundred unread messages and thinks the best way to save contacts is by adding useless little symbols and names.
He’s saved, apparently, asR.
Of course, he is.
Of course, my sister would turn a dangerous man into an aesthetic choice.
I copy the number just as footsteps sound in the corridor.
I thrust the phone back into Nikolai’s hands.
He stares at me.
“Return it,” I hiss.
He does, moving with the speed of a child who knows he’s one second from being caught.
Vika comes out into the hall at that exact moment, face mask still on, frowning. “Have either of you seen my?—”
Sofia crashes into her from the side shouting, “I CAN DO A CARTWHEEL NOW.”
Vika staggers.
The phone reappears on the chaise as if by magic.
