12. Katerina
My plan is far, far easier to implement with Leonid than I expected.
Alexei’s definitely jealous.
I just can’t tell whether he’s jealous of my attention, or just jealous that there’s finally someone who’s better looking and also smart among us. Alexei’s had the luxury of being the smartest, the best looking, and the most talented since birth, essentially. And for someone who’s had none of life’s advantages, Leonid still manages to be good at almost everything.
Everyone else is coming in the next day, so we decide to play a little tennis to kill the time. It’s Czar Nicholas’ favorite sport, so his son plays pretty often.
“I’ve never so much as held a racket,” Leonid says. “This is going to be embarrassing.”
I show him how to grip the handle, and then we have to explain all the rules, one by one.
“You two can play together against me,” Alexei says, always the gentleman. “It should help give you a fighting chance.” His relaxed and yet cocky smile, the one I love so well, is firmly in place.
But it’s quickly apparent that Leonid has a natural knack for this. His hand-eye coordination’s stellar, and he picks up the basics quickly. “Ah, you didn’t hit it hard enough, so it bounced twice, and that means we get the point,” he says.
Alexei’s face flushes bright red. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Thanks for demonstrating,” I say.
“But I think I get it now,” Leonid says. “No need to slow down quite so much for me.”
Halfway through the set, I bow out and let them play one another. And when, at the end, it’s neck and neck, an experienced player against a novice, I can tell that Alexei’s hackles are up.
“The sun’s close to setting,” I call.
“Huh?” Leonid turns.
Alexei could serve then, when he’s distracted, but he’s too good of a sport to do that. Instead he lowers his head. “And?”
“Everyone’s coming tomorrow,” I say. “I thought tonight might be a good time to go to Vyborgsky.”
Alexei drops the ball, which bounces a few times and rolls into the base of the net. “Why?”
“Why do we ever go there?” I shrug, and then I stare. “To see.” Because if Leonid really is one of us, we may as well find out. And if he is. . .Alexei might really become nervous.
Nervous enough to be jealous.
Even when he finds out Leonid’s just a servant.
Alexei’s frowning when he tosses his racket to one of his attendants and starts walking toward the back of the palace. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Leonid’s following, but at a suitable distance. Like he’s a servant. I hiss and wave for him to catch up.
“What could happen to us?” I roll my eyes. “Between the two of us, we can stop anything bad, and it’s a great place to find a selfless act, don’t you think?”
“It’s not selfless if he’s doing it for the wrong reasons.”
Don’t I know it. “We’ll find out,” I say. “If he can find something to do, then we’ll know that he either doesn’t have the capacity, or his heart’s in the wrong place.”
“I guess.” Alexei’s moody through all of dinner, but when we’re done, once his parents dismiss us, he calls for a car.
“No need for that,” Leonid says. “I can drive—I hate having to wait for other people to take me places.”
“It’s why we brought the car,” I say, softening the implied criticism.
“Fine,” Alexei says.
Within five minutes, we’re en route to the roughest part of town. As Petrograd has industrialized over the past fifteen years, it has swelled to more than twice its former size. The housing quarters have not been able to keep up, so there are always little groups of vagrants who converge in the areas with the most factories.
When you put that many people together, there are always some who don’t behave properly. But we must’ve chosen an off night to come. Everyone we see ducks their head and walks away. Even when we leave the key unattended in the car and meander the other direction, no one seems inclined to do anything nefarious.
Finally, close to midnight, we catch a break.
I hope.
Someone’s screaming a block or so away. “It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll watch the car, and you guys go check that out.”
”Are you sure?” Alexei asks.
I hold out my hands and a bolt arcs from my right to my left. “I’m fine.”
They’re gone for a while. Quite a while, in fact. They’re gone long enough that I get bored. I shoot lightning bolts from one hand to the next for a while, but then even that gets old. Bored might be bad, but what’s worse is sleepy. I must not even realize it when I drift off.
The hand that wakes me up is not Alexei’s, and it’s not Leonid’s either. It’s someone much older, much rougher, and far more aggressive. “Hey. You came with the pretty boys, didn’t you?”
I reach out to zap them.
“I was going to kill them both—knocked them out cold—but then I thought about it. What if pretty boys like that has rich parents who could pay for ‘em?” When he smiles, I notice one of his front teeth is dark brown.
I shudder.
“Ghislain, the pretty girl don’t like us.” He stoops down closer, spit from his mouth spraying my face when he says, “I don’t care. Now, tell me if you got someone who’ll pay for ‘em?”
If I shock him, what will happen to Leonid and Alexei? How did he knock them both out? Before I can answer or knock the men senseless, a third man comes running, his sides heaving as he stops beside us. He doubles over. “Wait.”
“What?” the first man asks, yanking my head up and exposing my throat. “What’s all the fuss?”
“One of them boys is the tsarevich.”
The man’s response is crude in the extreme, but he drops my head in his shock. One second later, he whips me back up again. “Is that true?”
I don’t immediately answer, trying to decide what’s smartest, but he’s not someone who waits, apparently.
He kicks me.
All my patience gone, I reach out without thinking and shock them so hard, they curl up into fetal balls on the ground. I kick the big man right in the gut, and then I shock them both again. “Where are they?”
Their only answer is moaning, so I shock them again. “Where are they? If you don’t tell me, I’ll shock you every five seconds until you do.”
The big man’s foaming at the mouth in a very satisfactory way when he points and splutters out his directions. But by the time I get there, it’s too late.
Leonid’s awake, and he’s really taking a beating when I arrive. Two men are holding him, and two more are striking him. Blood’s streaming down his face, one of his arms is dislocated—maybe broken—and his left eye’s swelled up so big that I can’t see the eyeball at all.
Alexei, meanwhile, is tied up, both his hands and his feet, lying in the corner, apparently forgotten.
“Hey,” I shout. “Over here—what are you doing?”
The man who just slammed his fist into Leonid’s stomach smiles. “This is the tsarevich—he admitted it. Can you believe it? We have a chance to get a little of our own back.” As if he’s just now taking in my clothing, he frowns. “Wait. You’re—are you with them?” Now his smile widens.
The two men holding Leonid drop him, and he slumps in a way that isn’t very encouraging. I hope he’s alright, but I have other things to worry about currently. “Why would you think he’s related to the tsar in any way?” I laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”
“He dropped this.” The man holds up Alexei’s ring. It’s the signet of the tsarevich, and whenever we go out, Alexei takes it off and puts it in his belt pouch. His father isn’t very popular in this area right now, not with the high taxes, the lack of housing, and the backlash from the Potemkin mess.
Which means I’m stuck.
Things are about to get messy, and although we aren’t really supposed to use our magic in a public place, I’m sure Alexei’s father would prefer that I expose our powers to his son being brutalized by these goons and then ransomed while war’s looming on the horizon. The royal coffers are already dangerously low from what I hear. He wouldn’t appreciate forking over any of his diminishing funds to these idiots.
“Ooh, let me see it.” I hold out my hand.
The man laughs. “I’m not stupid.”
“Empirically disproven by your actions.”
While the jerk furrows his brow, trying to work out the meaning of my words, I strike. I can only split my power into two different streams at a time, which I’m supposed to be working on improving in the next few weeks here, but with just four men in the room, it’s enough. I hit the two closest to me first, shocking them for much, much longer than I did the last two. And just before the other two reach me, I release the first guys and slam the others with full force. They fly backward, away from me and toward Leonid.
Before their bodies collide with his, I release them.
All four slump to the ground, and I’m confident they won’t recover enough to harm us, but I still have to figure out how to get Leonid and an unconscious Alexei back to our waiting car.
If it’s even still there. I stupidly didn’t think to swing by and grab the key. I groan inwardly, and jog across to where Alexei’s body is curled up and tied. I lean close enough to confirm that he’s breathing—short, shallow breaths—and then I keep moving to check on Leonid.
Up close, he looks even worse than I thought at first. His leg’s bent and looks broken. His nose is clearly broken, too. His eye’s swollen up like a grapefruit, and I’m worried there’s not much left under the damage. I can’t bring myself to poke around and check.
I’ve always lamented that the electric and fire powers don’t come with any healing abilities, but now it feels personal. I’m forced to watch as Alexei and Leonid suffer. I try to shift Leonid a bit—he slumped forward on his side. The only part of his face I can really see is the swollen eye, and I’d like to at least get him on his back. But when I try to shift him, the hand of his unbroken arm shoots out and grabs my wrist.
He’s still got some fight in him, which is good.
“It’s me,” I say. “Katerina.”
His hand loosens then. “You’re alright.”
“I am,” I say. “Which is more than I can say for you. Why on earth did they think you were Alexei?”
“I told them I was.” He groans. “I woke up—he didn’t. They found his cursed ring on the ground between us, and they were arguing. They hated his father.” He’s wheezing as he talks, and then he coughs.
Blood sprays all over my boot.
“There’s something wrong with my breathing.” He coughs again, and this time, it’s even worse.
I’m actually worried he won’t be able to make it to the car, even if I drag him. “Leonid, I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head.
“Don’t try to talk, okay? Don’t do anything.”
But he smiles, then. “I did something selfless.” His smile becomes even wider, and I realize that one tooth isn’t straight. “I took the beating for him.”
Oh. My eyes widen. “And?”
He should have some kind of powers by now.
“Do you feel water calling to you? Or maybe the earth beneath you?”
He shakes his head.
“Okay, what, then? Anything?”
He coughs again and soaks the entire bottom hem of my dress in red.
“Maybe we should talk about this later.”
He grabs my boot. “When I see people now, their faces look strange.”
“Strange?” I crouch down near him again. “What does that mean?” Could it be water? Maybe it’s not just their faces. Maybe it’s everything—Alexei says he can see the water in all living things. “Do you mean?—”
“Your face lights up.” His eyes brighten. “It’s beautiful.”
I frown. “I’m not sure?—”
“But the men who were beating me?” He shudders. “Their faces, it was like they were covered in tar. Like their faces were hidden behind a mask of evil. A mask of darkness.” He shakes his head. “What does it mean?”
I stand, my hand shaking. “I—I’m not sure.” I can’t bring myself to tell him that it doesn’t sound like any of our powers. It sounds. . .crazy. Useless and crazy. “Maybe don’t talk about this to anyone else, alright?”
Leonid, through the oozing blood, the swollen eye, the crooked tooth, and the bruised jaw, looks truly broken for the first time.
“I’ll get Alexei,” I say. “If I can wake him up. . .”
“Don’t,” he says. “I think I can stand.”
Watching him try and stand upright on a broken leg, with a broken and dislocated arm, with a face that’s swollen like a pumpkin, is the most painful thing I’ve ever seen. “Leonid.”
He shakes his head. “Maybe I haven’t done enough yet.” His speech is slurred. “Maybe it takes more.” He stumbles his way over to Alexei and reaches underneath him.
“Wait,” I say. “You can’t do that. Your arm.”
He straightens a bit, and then he turns to me. “I need some help.” His one visible eye looks terrible, burning brightly.
“What?”
“Hold my arm up.” He tosses his head. “Come over here, and hold my arm up.”
“I don’t think?—”
“With all this noise, if he’s not awake, there’s a reason. The last thing you should do is try and wake him.” He looks down at Alexei with concern. “Just do as I’m asking.”
I shake my head. “If you can walk, I can?—”
“Please,” he says. “Maybe it takes more pain, more sacrifice, or more good. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
I can’t argue, not with that. Not with his burning, desperate desire. I’ve seen the same look in his father’s face, and I’m pretty sure it hollowed him from the inside out. “Fine.”
The next forty-five seconds are horrible as he walks me through lifting his arm and rotating it—says he’s seen a healer do it. After an awful ordeal, his shoulder finally pops into place with a strange sound and a shift. He doesn’t even cry out or moan. He just shudders and exhales sharply.
And then he nods. “Alright.”
He crouches down, putting very little weight on his left leg, and reaches under Alexei. Then he lifts him up, his good arm straining, and his teeth gritted, and he carries him. Not just a few yards. He carries him on and on, step by stumbling step. Blood runs down the side of his face and drips to the ground. The furrows in his brow deepen. The redness in his cheek and eye darken.
And still he trudges along.
Until finally, miracle of miracles, we reach the car, and it’s still there, the key untouched. We load Alexei into the back, and I drive them both back to the palace. Just as we arrive, Alexei starts to moan. The sound’s horrifying, but I take it as a good sign. It means he’s still alive.
In the end, Alexei’s father heals them both.
It’s as miraculous to watch that day as it ever has been. Sure, in the moment it’s painful, but all healing is. It’s so fast, so complete, and so wondrous that I nearly start to cry.
Once he’s done, Alexei’s father asks me what happened. There’s no way he would condone our trip, not without more evidence that Leonid might be able to use magic. And if we were doing it, we should have gotten permission.
So I lie.
I tell him that we were out looking at the area, because Alexei was worried about some reports he’d heard from friends that the people didn’t have the best living conditions. Then I tell him that the men who attacked us saw Alexei’s ring on the ground and that they became even angrier. It’s not exactly comfortable, telling the leader of Russia that his citizens don’t like him, but I’m pretty sure he already knows. I’m about to tell him about Leonid’s bravery in protecting Alexei, but Leonid’s eyes widen and his head shakes just a small amount, so I don’t share that. I change course.
“I’m sorry I didn’t recover the ring,” I say. “I didn’t think to get it—we were really struggling to get Alexei back to the car. He was too heavy for me to carry, and as you saw, Leonid was badly injured.”
Alexei’s father doesn’t yell or rant. He places a hand on my head and bows his own. “I’m glad you’re all safe, and I’m sorry things are in such a state of unrest.” Then he walks away.
His calm, understated nature always stands out to me—it’s there inside of Alexei, but his mother Alexandra’s tempestuous temperament rises to the surface more often. Once I’m sure Alexei’s fine, and once we’ve answered his questions about the men and how we got him away, we bid him good night.
“I’ll see Leonid to his room,” I say. “You rest.”
Alexei’s too tired to argue, so I manage to trot after a now-healed Leonid alone.
“That was amazing.” Leonid’s practically skipping. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You were in a lot of pain,” I say. “For a really long time. I’m so sorry.”
He spins around so fast that I stumble backward. “Who cares about the pain? Did you see the way the czar healed us? Did you see how, between one second and the next, what was broken, what was dying, was simply. . .” He snaps. “Restored?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah, that’s the best thing about the water power. You can fix things with it. A lot of things.”
“I need to figure out what I can do.” He’s nodding as he walks now, and I’m forced to jog to keep up. “We have to find out what all this means.”
Except, even after several hours of questions, I’m no closer to guessing. He has no affinity to any of the things I know about. No ability to manipulate water. He burns easily from fire—proven by both a candle and his room’s hearth. He’s got no connection to the earth, the wind, or electricity.
His power appears to be limited to seeing what he believes to be the goodness in other people and possibly the evil, too.
“What a useless ability.” He drops into the wooden chair in the corner of his room. “That can’t be all of it.”
“I’m not sure what more?—”
He shoots to his feet again and starts pacing. “That can’t be it.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like this, so we’ll need to ask the czar?—”
His head whips toward mine. “No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “That you must not do. There must be books or recordings we can search.”
“Why not tell them what you did for Alexei and what you can see now, so that if they know something?—”
“No.” He sits again, staring at his hands. “The only thing worse than having no power is having a useless one that no one values. Believe me when I say that being different, being a freak?” He looks up at me, his eyes blazing. “That’s the worst possibility of all. Promise me you’ll keep quiet. Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this.”
I don’t want to agree. I try to put him off, but in the end, I promise.
And I keep that promise.
Or at least, I did.
Until today.
When I betray it to all the people who want Leonid dead.