Romanov(45)

“Citizen Nikolai, I will speak with you in my office, please.” Yurovsky didn’t wait for Papa’s response. He left our rooms and entered his office. Papa followed. The rest of us sat at the table, staring after him.

“What does he want?” Alexei whispered.

“Likely to question him,” I said. “Yurovsky inspected our belongings. It’s time to inspect us.” I didn’t miss the fact that Yurovsky had waited until all our allies were sent from the Ipatiev House and we were at our lowest morale. Hopelessness and exhaustion were part of his inspection—to place us under his spyglass when we were weakest.

“He will likely question all of us.” Tatiana rubbed Ortipo behind the ears but didn’t dare pass her any of our precious rations.

Mamma’s head snapped up. “I cannot undergo an interrogation.” She rose gingerly, her food untouched, and retired to her bed. “If he wishes to question me, he can come in here.”

I stared at the closed door separating us from the opportunity to eavesdrop. My heart slammed against the Matryoshka doll. I needed to hide it. Or maybe Yurovsky would expect me to hide it, so I should leave it on my person. I still had Alexei’s relief spells in my pocket.

Papa returned, escorted by a soldier I’d never seen before. Yurovsky stepped in, his gaze fixed on me. “Citizen Anastasia.”

I rose slowly. He wasn’t giving me time to hide the doll. My feet carried me after him as I tried to maintain a semblance of obedience and suppress my panic. As I passed Papa, he gave me a nod—a nod to be strong. To not cower before this man.

Yurovsky’s office was the same mess Avdeev’s had been. I didn’t know if it was him or leftovers from Avdeev. Empty bottles lay everywhere with stacks of papers and latched boxes. Only the bed across the room had been cleared and replaced with Yurovsky’s belongings. The same belongings I had ransacked before leaving Tobolsk.

Yurovsky gestured to a chair. To sit would be to humble myself. To lessen myself. To reduce my courage because sitting spanned half the distance to bowing. A princess never sat in submission.

But I sat because Yurovsky sought compliance. And any tickle of rebellion would do me no favors.

“We did not spend much time together in Tobolsk, but I feel I know you, Nastya.” His use of my nickname pinched my throat. It felt too intimate—like he knew my secrets. Which he likely did.

“The feeling is mutual, Commandant.”

“Where is the Matryoshka doll?”

He certainly didn’t waste time. “Pardon?”

“The doll. You took it from my satchel. Don’t deny it.”

A flush rose to my face. I could barely hear through the blood in my ears. I swallowed hard. “I do not deny it, sir. It was wrong of me to take it.”

He paced before me. “Where is it now?”

“It was confiscated when I arrived in Ekaterinburg, upon my first search.” I tried to sound helpless, as though I wished I could help him more.

His pocket watch lay open on the desk in front of him and he examined it for a moment, as though wondering how to make me comply like the gears in his timepiece. “Do not lie to me, Citizen.”

“I am not lying, Commandant.” I was so lying.

As though to indulge me like a child, he gave a sickly smile. “Spells are illegal. Why did you want it enough to risk infuriating the Soviet?”

I let out a gust of breath. “I didn’t know what the doll held, but I figured it could be helpful for Alexei’s illness.”

He rose from his desk. “Where is the doll, Nastya?”

My voice spiked up a notch. Insistent. “It was confiscated! We and our belongings were searched. A soldier took it. I assumed he reported it to Commandant Avdeev.”

The lies felt like saltwater across my tongue. I was not in the habit of lying—my old mischief was more sophisticated than that. But truth was a gift that Yurovsky didn’t deserve. My family was the one thing I would lie for. Especially if it saved them. Forgive me, Iisus.

Yurovsky stopped in front of me, snapping his pocket watch closed, then open, then closed. “There is no record of it.”

“Perhaps you should ask your Bolsheviks.” I stared at the opening and closing of his pocket watch, hypnotized. Only then did I realize why it captivated me so. The hour and minute hands were loose. Instead of telling the time, they pointed sharply as one toward the edge of the watch.

Toward me.

Yurovsky stepped so close, I smelled the disgust on his breath. “You are not as good a liar as you are a pickpocket.” He gave me a mighty shove. My foot caught on a loose trunk and I sprawled onto the ground with a cry.

Yurovsky checked his watch and triumph crossed his face. I didn’t need to see the face of the timepiece to know . . . its hands had followed my movement.

That pocket watch didn’t tell time. It detected spells.

That was how Yurovsky found the doll in Tobolsk. That was how he knew I still had it on my person. All this time I thought he’d been checking the hour, to ensure his clockwork soldiers ticked and tocked and chimed to his will. But instead he was hunting for spells.

He shoved the watch in his pocket. Then he advanced. I scrambled backward, terror flowing through me. “Papa!”

I threw items in Yurovsky’s path—boxes, vodka bottles, whatever my hand could reach. Then, when I’d crawled into a mess of papers and boxes and crates near a cabinet, I curled into a ball. The position brought a sense of safety, but mostly it allowed me to shove a hand into my corset and pull the Matryoshka doll free.