Romanov(26)

Perhaps after our exchanged smile yesterday he felt convicted to return to his stiff Bolshevik posture. Why was he so afraid of kindness?

I turned my face so he could not read my lips. “What of the doll? When will we be able to use it?”

No code words this time. I’d pulled the doll from its hiding spot in my corset this morning and still it wouldn’t open no matter how hard I twisted it. The spell wasn’t ready.

Papa stopped us in the far corner and I could feel the eyes of the guards on us. “Nastya, it is like the diamonds in your corset. The moment we use a spell shows we have been defying the Soviet government. It shows we are noncompliant. To use the spell might very well instigate our execution. This is why, even if it allows you to open it, you must use it only at the last possible moment.”

I thought of Yurovsky, the commandant who had almost taken the doll from me in Tobolsk. My hand drifted to my chest, ensuring the doll was still there and that Yurovsky was still far away in Tobolsk.

“The spell does not always do what we might expect it to. Mamma and I used one spell layer when she was pregnant with Alexei—asking for the baby to be a boy so I would have an heir. We did not expect to have a child with a degenerative blood disease who would likely not live long enough to rule.”

“Colonel Nikolai!” Avdeev called from a window above our heads. It was the first time I’d heard him use Papa’s proper title post-abdication.

Papa peered upward. “Yes, Commandant?”

“Keep walkinnn’. Annnn’ . . . cease your conversation.” Drunk again.

Papa gave a small bow. “As you wish.” We resumed our stroll, but not before Papa muttered, “I suspect the doll will have a spell for you on the day the White Army rescues us.”

He nudged me away. To avoid further suspicion I left him and joined Maria in the shade of one of the birch trees. She lay on her back, conveniently situated at the feet of Ivan and Zash. Ivan dropped little lilac leaves down on Maria, who tried to catch them between her fingers before they hit her face.

She giggled and Ivan wouldn’t stop laughing. The more he laughed, the stonier Zash became. Without stopping his leaf dropping, Ivan nudged Zash. “If you cannot handle the fun, go guard somewhere else.”

“I’m here to guard you,” Zash snapped back.

Determined to maintain the playful mood, I lifted my hands like a boxer. “From what? Our bony little female fists?”

He turned away and gave no answer. My hands drifted down. I was missing some sort of insinuation. Ivan rolled his eyes. “Zash is of the impression that your siren voices are brainwashing us.”

I snorted. “What?” I laughed at the absurd superstition, but the longer Zash stood with a determinedly emotionless face, the more my humor leaked away. I took a gentle step toward him. “I don’t exactly know what Ivan means, but . . . we have no power to do such a thing, Zash.”

Where did he get such an idea? Was it because he saw me searching for spells in Avdeev’s office?

Ivan wagged a finger at me. “Ah, that’s exactly what a siren would say. Especially under the tutelage of—”

“Ivan.” Zash’s reprimand cut the playful air like a snap of thunder.

I fit the pieces together. “Because of Rasputin?” No matter how often Mamma drilled us not to use Rasputin’s name, the people still knew of our involvement with him.

Maria sat up at this, all four of us now somber. “You think we can control your minds because of the spell master?”

“He was at your palace more often than the tsar himself.” Zash raised his eyebrows, the implications clear.

A spear of injustice twisted in my chest. “That’s what you think? That Rasputin brainwashed us? Controlled us? Taught us to control other people?” The garden seemed eerily quiet under the outrage in my voice. But maybe that was because I could hear nothing beyond the angry pulsing in my ears.

“He. Caused. The revolution!” Zash’s face flushed. “Why do you think the people revolted? No one could trust your father to run the country anymore.”

Maria sprang from her spot on the garden floor. “This is ridiculous. Come, Nastya.”

The fact she was willing to leave Ivan told me just how upset she was. But I held my ground. “No. I want to understand. I thought surely even the common man knew that spell mastery does not work in that way.”

“Then why was Rasputin always at the palace?”

“To heal Alexei from his injuries! He was the only one who could!” A burn of tears pushed from the inside, more from frustration than sorrow. How could Zash not see, especially after I revealed Alexei’s illness to him?

“You truly believe he came only for your brother?” Zash’s voice sounded sympathetic. “Your mother adored him. The papers published her letters. We saw what she wrote to him. Everyone knew she visited his residence. Alone.”

I’d seen the letters. Zash’s insinuations proved that gossip had become a more influential tsar than my wholesome papa. And there was nothing I could do to reverse that. “You read propaganda, Zash, but we lived there. We saw the day-to-day. And all we have are our voices to speak truth . . . if you’re willing to listen to them without thinking we’re trying to control your mind.”

Everyone went silent for a long breath. Ivan wore a half smile, as though challenging Zash to respond to that.