Romanov(77)

Alexei groaned, weak. I released a relieved cry. His chest barely moved, but he was still alive. The numbing spell had worn off and I finally took in how swollen his head was. It pushed his forehead out like a shelf, and the skin around his eyes hung yellow and bruised.

Dying.

A crunch of leaves interrupted the tense silence. Joy’s barks increased. Zash drew his pistol, but a gunshot split the air and his pistol went flying out of his hand.

Alexei’s eyes fluttered open at that, bloodshot with pain. He tried to raise himself to one elbow but grimaced. “What’s . . . happening?”

I tried to tug him up so we could run. “I don’t—”

“You really made this far too easy, soldier.” Yurovsky stepped out from behind a tree. He was no longer the sleek, clean, dark-eyed man. His hair was mixed with foliage and ruffled like a wild beast. Dirt smeared his cheeks and holes dotted his uniform as if nature had gnawed on him in his sleep.

Unseen footsteps continued around us in the thickness of the trees. He’d brought Bolsheviks with him. I darted my gaze to Zash. Had he helped Yurovsky?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Zash waved a hand behind his back, signaling for me to run. But how could I leave Alexei lying helpless? And Zash without a weapon?

“You walked right into my hands.” Yurovsky twirled his pistol around his finger.

Zash’s eyes closed slowly. “The spell inside me . . . that was from you. At the Revda train station.”

“A tether spell. The last spell your dear babushka ever made, I’m afraid.”

Zash paled and he clung to a tree for support. I fumbled at my throat for the Matryoshka doll, but Yurovsky darted his pistol toward me. “Ah, ah, ah. You’ll hand those spells over to me or I’ll send a bullet into the body of that boy.”

That boy. Alexei. The tsarevich of Russia. I planted myself between Alexei and Yurovsky, but Yurovsky only laughed. “I can tell by your face that you know I’m not the only one here.”

The click, click, click of other pistols behind us, around us, thrust my hopes deeper into darkness. Iisus, what do we do?

“Give me the doll.”

I shook my head before he even finished demanding it. I would give up any spell he wanted, if only to keep Alexei safe. But this final spell was the only way to heal Alexei. If I gave it up, Yurovsky would kill us anyway.

“I don’t ask twice.” Yurovsky stepped left and fired. Alexei jerked and flumped onto his back. I screamed. Yurovsky fired again into Alexei’s stomach.

I threw myself over Alexei. “No! No, no no!”

“Give me the doll!” Yurovsky shrieked, brandishing his pistol. I was too busy trying to plug the two holes in Alexei’s abdomen to care if he shot me in the back.

“Alexei! Alexei!” My body yearned to collapse. My mind ached to shut down. But beneath the panic flowing over me came the calm logic that had guided so much of my life. It sped through my brain so quickly it was as though time stopped.

The only way out of this was to get us to Dochkin. And the only way to do that was with a tiny glowing bean of a carved doll I’d dropped in my sleep last night. It sat half buried by leaves beside Alexei’s ear, calling to me. Romanov. Romanov. Romanov.

There was still no seam. No word. But finally, there was clarity.

I inched my bloody hand toward the piece and wrapped my fingers around it as if physically grasping a final hope.

“Give him the doll, Nastya.” Zash’s voice crawled into the forest, bringing with it a cold silence.

“N . . . No . . . ,” Alexei whimpered beside me, beneath a blanket of blood.

I gripped the little doll even tighter. So this was it. Yurovsky was back—the main contender for Zash’s loyalty. And Zash was choosing him. Again.

We were always meant to be on opposite sides of a pistol.

“Give it to him!” Zash yelled.

“No!” I curled in on myself, hunched over Alexei’s body. In the darkness of my own shadow, I slipped the small doll into my mouth. It tasted of metal and was salty from the blood. But there was also the bright burn of magic. I fought a gag and forced a swallow. Down it went, leaving the spell in its wake on my tongue.

Yurovsky cocked his pistol, but Zash strode to me and yanked my arms away. “Give it to him or you’ll be shot!”

Didn’t he realize Yurovsky would shoot us anyway?

But then Zash snatched the bigger Matryoshka doll—the empty husk from the last spell—out of my sleeve and threw it toward Yurovsky. In the noise of Yurovsky scrambling for the doll, Zash whispered, “Now.”

He hadn’t been betraying me. He’d been using it as an excuse to get near me. To hold my hand so when I used the new spell, whatever it did would happen to all of us.

He took my left hand and I gripped Alexei with my right. But Joy still stood guard over Alexei’s head and I didn’t have a free hand. “Zash,” I gasped. “Joy.”

By this point Yurovsky had opened the doll husk and found it empty. “Not so fast,” he growled.

Zash grabbed Joy by the ear just as Yurovsky lunged forward. Pistols fired and pain exploded in my neck.

Drenched in my brother’s blood, I screamed out the final spell. A name. “Dochkin!”





35


The world dissolved around us.