Romanov(2)

“I am ordered to remove the former tsar without delay.” Yurovsky clipped his heels, sending mud from his boots to the entry rug. “The rest of the family is not my concern.”

I gasped and it echoed across the room until it turned Yurovsky’s gaze toward me. He would take Papa without us? Our only solace during this time of exile had been our union. Our strength as a family. The bonds of our Romanov blood keeping us from despair.

Please. Please no.

Papa lifted his chin, and the guards in the room who had come to respect him all seemed to stand taller. He resembled a tsar again. “I will not be separated from my family.”

“Then you will be taken by force.” Yurovsky did not need to gesture to the Bolsheviks outside. We were outnumbered. “You may bring traveling companions, but we will leave by morning. The rest of your family will follow once the boy is . . . well.” He almost said dead. That word hung heavier in the room than any other.

Leave. Tomorrow. By force.

Yurovsky’s words were final. My control slipped through my fingers, threatening to break out in the form of a scream. They couldn’t separate us! Why? Why must they take Papa away so urgently? And without telling us where?

Yurovsky turned on his heel and addressed three Bolshevik soldiers. “Oversee the packing.”

There was no search. I’d burned my diaries for nothing. Instead they were tearing us apart. With Alexei ill and Mamma’s health declining . . . this might be the last time we were all together.

Perhaps Papa sensed my rising outrage, because he took my arm and steered me away. “Come, Nastya.”

“They cannot separate us,” I hissed as we left the Bolsheviks behind. “You cannot let them!”

“This is not the time to resist.”

“But where? Where are they sending you?”

“Probably to Moscow for trial.”

My throat burned hotter than the scorched pages of my diaries. “Curse those Bolsheviks. I ought to poke holes in the soles of all their boots!”

A smile entered Papa’s voice, hidden by his mustache. “That is why you must stay, Nastya. To cheer everyone up with your impish mischief.”

I ground to a halt. “I am to stay?” He’d made up his mind already?

“There are things I need you to do here—”

“Nikolai . . .” Mamma caught up to us, her composure held together by only the clasp of her brittle fingers on her worn handkerchief. Papa went to her.

I stomped away from them, from the pain, leaving him to make the necessary arrangements and decisions he needed to focus on. None of which involved stitching up the gash in my heart.

But I wasn’t the only one with a gaping wound inside. We would all have to carry this pain.

I found myself entering Alexei’s room and plopping by his bedside as he coughed—a weak, wheezing thing. But that was much better than the violent hacking last week that had caused a hemorrhage and damaged his kidneys.

Alexei had saluted death before. His hemophilia never promised him a long life. But when Rasputin had been alive, he could heal Alexei’s injuries with a single word, even from a different city through the telephone line.

Now there was nothing to save Alexei except his own will to live.

That would change if I could learn more about spell mastery. I itched to pick up that German spell book and read it right under the Bolsheviks’ noses.

Alexei’s coughing subsided and he blinked his hollow eyes toward me. “You look gloomy.”

I smiled, relieved by the one family member who understood that banter could dispel even the darkest mood. “It’s because you’re being so lazy, staying here in bed. I’ve had to do all your chores.”

“Lucky. Being lazy is incredibly boring.” He winked, but it seemed tired. “You’ve likely killed my poor chickens by now.”

“They had a hearty breakfast of boot felt.”

“Poor creatures. To be under your care is a frightening thing.” He nodded his chin toward the door. “What’s happening out there? I know the Bolsheviks arrived, but no one has told me anything.”

Every time Alexei was sick, the family avoided negative conversation around him. I understood the concept—that despair could affect his will to live or might send him into a gloom that slowed his healing.

But Alexei and I had a mutual understanding never to keep things from one another. We understood that being left in the dark was far more despairing than dealing with the weight of dark news. “They’re taking Papa away.”

Alexei, having spent time with soldiers on the front line when Papa was still tsar, took in the statement with a deep breath. It turned into a cough and I handed him the glass of water from his bedside.

“What . . . what about me?” he finally managed. “I must go, too. I am the tsarevich.”

“You’re not well enough.” I held back my wince.

Steel entered Alexei’s features. His body. His will. “Not yet. But I will be.”

And that was why he would have made a brilliant tsar. “They are likely sending him to trial in Moscow. Papa will leave tomorrow morning and we will follow once you are well.” I fixed him with a stern gaze. “The Bolshevik commandant thinks you’ll die. Survive so you can spit in his face.”

Papa’s voice came from the corridor. I shoved myself to my feet and hurried out, but not before I caught Alexei’s whisper. “Come back and tell me everything.”