Romanov(29)

I placed a palm over the word, closed my eyes, and kept humming. It was a short little tune—Rasputin always emphasized how spell magic was a blend of the ink and the master. Something awoke in me while I hummed. A delight to be doing. Helping. Learning.

If I couldn’t be a princess, I wanted to be a spell master, now more than ever.

The ink wiggled like an impatient worm beneath my hand. Activated. Ready to be used. “Oblegcheniye,” I whispered.

I lifted my hand in time to see the spell sink into Alexei’s skin. Alexei melted back against his pillow, a contented smile on his face. “Ah. So much better than Dr. Botkin’s apparatus.”

“It worked.” I stared at the spot of skin, amazed that I was still able to create a spell. I wanted to learn others. To grow stronger. But the remaining spell ink was barely an inch deep in the bottle. Zash had removed—or used—some before planting it in Avdeev’s office. It didn’t lessen his gift at all, but it did lessen the amount of experimenting I could do. I needed to preserve it for Alexei’s pain.

If we were going to be rescued soon, he’d need all the relief he could get.

“Maybe I’ll go into the garden without the chair tomorrow.” Alexei pushed himself to a sitting position.

“Now don’t give me away,” I scolded.

“You expect me to fake being in more discomfort than I am? Oh, Sister, you ought to know better than anyone that I won’t do that.”

I tucked the bottle into my pocket. “I had to try.”

Alexei watched my movements with a frown. “Where did you get the ink?”

I raised my eyebrows in mock offense. “You expect me to reveal my secrets?”

“You and I don’t have secrets.”

“True.” Could I tell him? Should I tell him about Zash? “I snitched it from Avdeev’s office.”

“Uh-huh.” He knew I wasn’t telling him the full truth. “Spit it out, shvibzik.”

I let out a gust of air and rolled my eyes. “Fine. Zash got it for me. When we left Tobolsk he had some in his pack, but he doesn’t know I knew about it. He tipped me off to search Avdeev’s office and then I found Zash’s bottle of spell ink in there. I think he put it there for me. For you.”

“I thought he hated spell masters. And Rasputin. And all of us.”

“He has some ideas about Rasputin. But . . . I’m still hoping to understand them more.”

Alexei waggled his eyebrows. “Does Soldier Zash liiiiiike you?”

I snorted. “Certainly not!”

“Oh. Well, excuse me for assuming that risking his life might be a sign of affection.”

My traitorous pulse quickened. “It’s not like that.”

Alexei folded his arms and adopted a snooty tsar expression. “Until you provide me with a believable alternative, I will hold to my own opinions.”

I feigned exasperation and left the room. But I dropped the banter act once I entered my own room. Maria was already climbing onto her cot. We kissed each other’s cheeks and I changed into my nightdress.

I couldn’t let myself hope for Zash’s affections. Even I could tell my desire came from the strain of exile. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t safe. But then again, what if he did end up helping in our rescue someday? Should I allow myself to entertain the idea of affection?

I rolled over, my back toward Maria. My thoughts felt more private when she couldn’t see my face. I redirected my pondering away from the dangerous waters of affection and back toward spell mastery. Back toward Rasputin . . . and what Zash had said about Rasputin and Mamma.

Maria breathed heavily in her cot beside me. I allowed myself to question. Even . . . to doubt. I had never doubted Mamma’s loyalty to Papa. But she had spent a lot of time with Rasputin. When he visited us at the palace, Maria and I were often not allowed to be in the same room while she and Rasputin discussed Alexei’s illness.

Rasputin never revealed how he had healed Alexei. He only ever informed me of the very basics of spell mastery—how to make the relief spell. How to apply it. But nothing more—no instruction regarding the history of spell mastery. No direction on how to make other spells or how to obtain spell ink.

Was he just soothing my curiosity? Keeping me happy so I would trust him?

I had seen Mamma’s letters to him when they were published in the Russian newspapers. They were endearing. They were loving. The people called it a scandal. But we Romanovs all loved Rasputin. We all wrote letters like that. The public didn’t understand.

Well . . . Papa never fully trusted Rasputin. Even Olga had disliked him on occasion. They never told me why. If there had been some sort of romantic tryst, wouldn’t they have said something? Wouldn’t they have done something?

The darkness took me into restless dreams, but I woke the next morning determined to ease my mind. I changed into my frayed black skirt and white blouse I’d worn day after day. We ate a quiet, tired breakfast.

Papa moved to his chair, reading a biography on Emperor Paul I that he’d probably read a hundred times already. Mamma stayed in bed, pale and wraithlike.

When the afternoon garden time came, I caught Olga’s arm. “Let me care for Mamma. You go enjoy the sunshine.”

Olga exhaled a gust of air. “Our little imp being an angel? What madness is this?”