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

by Evelyn Skye

A melody pealed out from the purple box again, this time for a pas de deux. The Jack led the ballerina to the center of their cobblestone stage, where they bowed once again to each other. Then he set his hands gently about her waist, and she lifted onto the points of her shoe, both arms arched overhead, and spun as ethereally as a fairy. They danced as the music played. The ballerina spun. The Jack leaped. And when together, he lifted her, light as the doll that she was. Then the music began to soar, and their dancing did as well, with the ballerina and the Jack whirling together so quickly they began to levitate into the sky. “How are they doing that?” someone behind Vika asked, as if he had forgotten they were not real people. “There must be strings,” another person said. But next to Vika, Ludmila said, “They’re like puppets manipulated by masters they cannot see.” Too true. Vika knew the ballerina represented her, and the Jack the other enchanter. Like the puppets, she and her opponent had never had a choice: their destiny was a pas de deux, a splendor and a torment fated for the two of them. And yet, there was something about the other enchanter, about the magic he chose, that drew her to him, as if the bond between them was not an altogether evil thing. It was more like a tenuous thread attempting to reconnect two halves of a whole. And although Vika hated to admit it, she’d dreamed of him more than once. Each time, he would appear as a shadow boy, but each morning, j...