Romanov(82)

I nodded and took a breath to say the spell. At the same time I said, “Ajnin,” Zash whispered with a desperate edge, “Don’t leave without letting me say good-bye.”

I was glad I didn’t have a chance to give an answer.





37


This time, there was no disorientation. I was back and instantly my hand gripped the river rock. Yurovsky’s back was to me. Though Zash, Dochkin, and Alexei had returned to their dying bodies, I still felt as though Zash was behind me—in my ear—whispering strength into my limbs.

My neck stung from Yurovsky’s knife prick before the ajnin spell was enacted. But it was only a prick. A nervous swallow proved that my throat was intact. I straightened, my heart beating to the rhythm of a chant. Alexei, Alexei, Alexei.

I cocked my arm back and let the stone fly. Unlike with Papa’s paperweight, my aim was perfect this time.

Maybe it was my intake of breath, or the whoosh of stone through air, or the prickle of defeat flying his way . . . but something alerted Yurovsky. His soldier instincts sent him ducking.

The stone whizzed past his head and sailed through the window above the two spells, clipping the top of the vial holding my memory spell. The glass vial teetered . . . and then toppled off the sill, disappearing into the garden shrubs outside.

I didn’t stand or gape at my failure. I’d known there was a chance I’d miss, so by the time Yurovsky straightened and spun to face his attacker, I had scrambled to the space near his feet and risen with the knife in my hand.

Alexei, Alexei, Alexei.

“How?” Yurovsky growled. “Why won’t you die?”

“Because I have a story I was meant to live. And not even you can unwrite it.”

Wild and feral, Yurovsky dove at me. I swept the knife in front of me. It met flesh but then spun from my hand. He slammed me to the ground. His weight crushed the air from my lungs and he straightened, keeping me pinned. “I don’t know what spell you used to survive, but I will finish you.”

His fist connected with my face and a flash of black blocked my vision.

I dug my fingernails into the skin of his forehead, but he hit me again. All the while, my mind kept screaming, Alexei’s dying!

Yurovsky got his meaty hands around my throat and squeezed as though to snap me in two. He trapped what was left of my breath in my lungs. My chest heaved. But with his two hands occupied, mine were now free.

I could go for his hands.

I could go for his eyes. But his wild fury told me no amount of pain would distract him from his mission.

So I went for the knife.

I threw my hands over my head and sent my fingers searching, my mind praying, my feet kicking. If I didn’t find it within the next seconds, my muscles would liquefy. My mind would shut off. My brother would die.

Yurovsky squeezed harder. Spots swam across my vision. I made it halfway through a prayer before my fingers felt metal instead of wood.

I gripped the blade with both hands and slammed it against Yurovsky’s face.

No one could withstand a knifepoint to the eye. Yurovsky screamed and reeled backward. My own hands still gripped the blade, gushing blood of their own, though I didn’t feel the wounds yet.

I scrambled to my feet, unable to fully see the room, but I stumbled toward Yurovsky’s scream as I sucked in air through a pinched windpipe. He pulled at the edges of my skirt, clawed at my ankles, trying to bring me down. I tore my foot free and stomped on his temple with my heel. He went limp as a blini.

I wanted to retrieve the knife. To plunge it into his heaving chest. To watch his blood leak out of him the way Alexei’s had. But that would be a false victory. Yurovsky’s death was not the end goal. Not yet.

Alexei, Alexei, Alexei.

I tripped over his body to the windowsill, grabbed the spell for Alexei, and then sprinted to Alexei’s spot on the bed, unstoppering the spell as I ran. His shirt lay open, but blood created a vest of death over what should have been his skin. I upended the bottle and sent the spell ink dribbling up and down his torso.

In a last frantic moment, I stopped the pour so there was only a tiny splash of spell left. Everything in me wanted to dump the rest onto Alexei, but I heard Alexei’s voice in my head. Demanding I do what I could for Dochkin.

I spread the spell across Alexei’s body and his wounds with my palms, making sure it touched all the skin it could. “Romanov, Romanov, Romanov,” I muttered, hoping to feel some sort of magic pull in my chest from the spell working.

I felt nothing except blackened hope.

I hurried to Dochkin’s body and rolled him onto his back, not sure he was even alive. Then I poured the last bit of this powerful healing spell directly on his slit throat. “Romanov.”

Please, Iisus. That seemed to be the only prayer coming from my mouth these days. I left Dochkin to the will of the spell and returned to my brother. I hovered over his body—prayed over his body—but nothing seemed to be happening. No increased breathing. No action from the spell ink. Alexei lay with his mouth open but no inhale.

“Work,” I croaked.

I bounced on my toes for a moment longer before tearing myself away to the other healing spells. I had more injuries to take care of. I unscrewed the tin that Dochkin had pointed out and applied one to Zash, then one to Dochkin in case that would couple with the last splash of the healing spell. I also applied one to Joy, who still lay limp against the wall. I didn’t know how spells worked on animals, but it was worth a shot.