Romanov(76)

The sun flirted with the horizon, torturing us with its endless summer glow. Alexei stumbled, gripping a tree trunk and clapping a hand over his head. “I hope we’re not far,” he groaned.

“Can you sense anything, Zash?” I asked.

He shook his head. “All I know is that relief comes with each step we take east.”

It wasn’t long before we unrolled the stretcher again to give Alexei a break. “This isn’t humiliating at all,” he said with his eyes closed as we lifted him.

“Not around us, it shouldn’t be.” I settled the two wooden rods onto my shoulders and old bruises reminded me to bunch the fur of the reindeer coat beneath the rods. “Now, if we were carrying you like this through a party of lovely young girls . . .”

“Then I’d find the one girl who didn’t snicker at me and I’d make her my tsarina,” Alexei replied.

I giggled. “That’s all it takes to win a proposal from you?”

“That and a proper pastry. That might even get her a ring.”

Zash nodded serenely. “You can’t overlook a well-made pastry. May you dream of nongiddy girls with arms full of vatrushka.”

“What sort of girl would win your favor, Zash?” Alexei asked with a grin in his voice. My throat cinched. Alexei, you little snoop! I would pinch his foot if it wouldn’t bruise him for a week.

“Oh, I’m very picky,” Zash said.

“As your invalid former tsarevich, I demand that you reveal.”

“But of course, Your Imperial Highness.”

If anyone asked me in that moment if I was curious about his answer, I would lie and say absolutely not. But in truth I barely allowed myself to breathe as I awaited his response. I knew how I had felt about him in the Ipatiev House. Even now, with forgiveness on the cusp of my heart, my pulse galloped faster than Yurovsky’s horse when Zash looked at me. When he talked of his remorse or his reasons behind obeying Yurovsky’s orders.

Zash adjusted his grip on the stretcher. “I only accept advances from ex-princesses. Particularly bald ones.”

Alexei snorted. My face burned. When I finally glanced up, Alexei had pushed himself onto his elbows enough to make eye contact with me . . . and to waggle his eyebrows.

I was pleased to see the backs of Zash’s ears were red.

After a long, awkward silence of crunching leaves and labored breaths, Alexei lay back down, folded his arms over his chest, and said, “I approve, peasant.”





34


Zash called an end to our march first. He’d had the least sleep of us all, so I didn’t blame him. My feet and shoulders ached. Alexei grew heavier with each step, so I gladly set down the stretcher.

Zash unrolled the two bedrolls and placed them next to each other. Alexei crawled onto one, not yet ready to be moved to it by external help. But I pushed the second bedroll toward Zash. “You need more sleep than I do.”

“Absolutely not.” He lay down on the stretcher, bunching his Bolshevik coat under him like a pillow.

I kicked his foot. “The bald ex-princess would like you a lot more if you took the bedroll.”

“As tempting as that is . . .” He gave a giant yawn. “It’s too late. I’m already . . . drifting . . . off . . .” He released a giant snore and I turned away to muffle my laugh.

“Shvibzik,” I muttered.

His second snore rattled the branches around us. As fake as a snore could be. But as he continued to pretend, the snores toned down and morphed into heavy breathing with a few real snores here and there. He was out. Alexei was out. Joy was out.

The midnight sun was a sleepy light, hanging on to the horizon with sharp nails, refusing to dip and allow our eyes a reprieve of darkness. But we were all too tired to let it triumph.

I was alone.

So I pulled out the Matryoshka doll’s final spell.

The little nugget of a doll glowed in my palm, a shimmering gold and purple, pulsing magic. It hadn’t glowed this much the last time I examined it. We must be getting closer to Dochkin.

I turned the little doll over in my hand. No seam. No spell word. Just glowing and pulsing. I expected the spell to appear any moment now. Somehow I knew that spell would be our missing piece. It would be the name of the town Dochkin lived in or the final direction to go. Or a place to meet him.

I lay back on my bedroll, Joy snoozing at my feet, and rolled the doll around and around in my fingers above my head, until its shimmering light melded with the twinkle of stars peeking through the leaves and branches. Until its glow became a lullaby and I drifted off.

I was hardly rested when Joy barked a low, throaty warning. I bolted upright at the sound, blinking through the darkness to see. It wasn’t fully dark anymore. The midnight sun had set and risen again, pale and cold.

None of us had kept watch! None of us had even thought of it.

Zash was already on his feet. Perhaps Joy barked at him? But no, he looked as startled and disheveled as I felt. Alexei hadn’t moved. In fact . . . I wasn’t sure he was breathing.

I scrambled to Alexei’s side. “Zash! Alexei’s not—”

“Nastya,” Zash hissed. “Someone’s here.”

“Alexei’s not breathing!” We both seemed to register the other’s statement at the same time. He swiveled toward Alexei, and I stiffened at his warning.