Romanov(79)

Our one hope. Our spell master. Our life. Gone.

My body processed the hopelessness before my mind did. My hand slipped from Alexei’s wound. My eyes blinked against the flash of sun on Yurovsky’s raised knife. My knees slammed into the silver of the spell ink.

The ink mixed with blood—mine, Zash’s, Alexei’s, Dochkin’s.

Yurovsky turned a murderous gaze to me. My heart barely beat enough to process my end, let alone my smothered hope. There was peace in an end. Death would come as a relief . . .

. . . but not at Yurovsky’s hand. I couldn’t let him take that from me—not after he’d taken everything else.

Yurovsky stepped over Dochkin’s body—using it as though it were a mat for him to wipe his shoes. Dochkin let out a gurgle under the pressure of Yurovsky’s step.

Yurovsky’s boots splashed into the shimmering spell ink that still held its rainbow color despite the blood everywhere. The blood that chanted my name. Romanov. Romanov. Romanov.

The reminder startled me awake. The emotions and heartbreak flowed back into my body and I let them—I let them fuel me.

I was Romanov.

I would not kneel while this man cut me down. I had never surrendered to failure, and I wouldn’t start today. Yurovsky’s shadow fell over me, he was so close. I closed my eyes and hummed the hymn that Mamma and my sisters would sing each night. It wasn’t a spell song, but it was the only song I had.

I plunged my hand into the spell ink that had gathered in small pools in the cracks of the floor. Light awoke in my mind, like a flickering star falling closer and closer to earth, growing brighter and more stunning even though it fell to its death. The spell ink warmed between my fingers, like gloves on a winter day.

“The Romanov line is ended.” Yurovsky’s voice came as though through a pool of water. Muffled and distant, even though I felt the energy from his body hovering over mine.

A streak of white and red burst through the open door and launched itself at Yurovsky. Joy, sporting her own battle wounds, clamped down on Yurovsky’s meaty thigh. He roared, but I barely heard it over the song that now seemed to be singing itself in my mind.

I dove for Zash’s hand and yanked him closer. His body slid easily across all the blood. Joy yelped. I tangled my other fingers with Alexei’s limp ones. In a last thought, I pulled Dochkin’s arm out from where it was lodged under his body and clamped his and Zash’s together in mine.

Joy went silent.

Yurovsky dug his nails into the skin of my fuzzy scalp and a wet blade hit my throat. I let the spell ink turn to fire on my skin. I didn’t know what I was doing, just that I was doing it with all the hope and faith left in my body.

I yanked free of Yurovsky’s touch. And as his blade cut into my neck, I whispered a final word. The only word I had.

“Ajnin.”





36


I saw my body fall.

I watched my own blood join the mixture of three dying souls.

But it had not been silenced. I could still hear it. Romanov. Romanov. Romanov.

Yurovsky stood over me, his arm still raised, his knife still slick, his face still manic. As though he had not yet realized it was over. He’d cut the life out of me. I was at his feet—the way he’d always wanted me.

But I was also standing at his side. Tall. Ethereal. Alive.

It had worked. The spell worked—on me, at least. I didn’t know how. I didn’t understand why. But I rushed to Alexei’s side. I tried to shake his shoulder, but my hand went through his body. No. No. I needed his ethereal form. I needed him alive! This was my last hope.

Yurovsky stumbled away from his battlefield and plopped into one of the few kitchen chairs. He stared at our bodies. “It is done,” he said quietly. “I am most loyal.”

Let him revel in his victory. Let him think he’d won. Meanwhile, my heart was crumbling.

Zash’s own ghostly form raised itself to all fours, staring at his bashed body beneath him. My first breath of relief expelled from my lungs. He stumbled to his feet, a confused and terrified frown on his face.

Then he saw my fallen form—the one that Yurovsky had cut. And he fell to his knees beside it with a strangled cry. He moved to gently lift my head, but his hands went straight through me.

“I’m right here,” I choked, stepping from beside Alexei.

Zash’s head snapped up, his eyes wide as saucers. He pulled himself upright and I barely made it into his arms before the sobs came. “The spell worked. We’re ethereal. But . . . but I was too late. Alexei. He’s . . . he’s . . .”

“He’s not feeling too well,” came the young sarcastic voice.

I gasped and spun. Alexei’s ghost form sat up from his dying physical body. He swung his ghost legs over the edge of the bed and grimaced. “It’s not quite like last time, Nastya. I feel very weak this time.”

“Well, I should expect so.” Dochkin’s form rose from its lump of a body. “I’m surprised you’re alive at all.”

There was nothing else to do. I shrieked. Not in fright. Not yet in joy—the shock was still too new. But in . . . hope, maybe? “You’re all alive!”

Dochkin nodded. “For now. And only thanks to your quick thinking.”

I held tightly to Zash’s hand and took Alexei’s in the other. “How did I do that?”