My Wild Horse King (The Russian Witch's Curse Book 4)

30. Gustav

Waking up as a horse when you’ve gone to sleep as a human is probably never relaxing.

Waking up as a horse who’s inside a car that’s driving down the road is downright terrifying. My front legs are almost immediately sliced to ribbons as they plunge through the window of the confounded SUV. It’s almost involuntary, thrashing around with my enormous body, trying to make room for myself.

Once I calm down enough to realize that I’m doing more harm than good, Aleks pulls the SUV over, and Kristiana and Katerina talk me through escaping the vehicle. It appears a tendon in my right front leg is severed, but thankfully Grigoriy can heal injuries that have just occurred.

Within moments, our only problem is that I can’t manage to shift back into my human shape.

That, and our car is essentially destroyed.

“Leonid will know where we are immediately,” Aleks says. “We need to buy a new vehicle—and a trailer—and get moving again right away.”

“But you said we’re out of money,” Kris says.

Things are going really well.

We’ve at least escaped from the side of the road, walking a good ten miles down the side of the road as seven humans and a horse, and have found what appears to be an abandoned home near the edge of town. The grass is nearly dead, and yet, I find it oddly delicious. Probably because I haven’t eaten in a week, but maybe because I’m equine.

Being a horse is straight up whack.

“How are we going to get him out of this form and back into his human one?” Grigoriy asks. “That should be our first order of business.”

“Yes, thank you genius,” Katerina says. “As always, the brain trust is working overtime.”

Mirdza, who’s usually pretty nice, looks ready to claw Kat’s eyes out.

I try to tell them all to calm down and it comes out as a very loud, very concerned whinny. Kat pats my nose. I find myself leaning into her hand, like I really am one of these ghastly big beasts.

I hate it.

And I kind of love when she scratches the fur along my neck.

It’s all very confusing. And the crappy, dead-brown grass is calling to me. While they argue, I find myself edging my way over to the brightest, shaggiest part of it. Once I start eating, my heart slows. My breathing steadies.

“—all it took was Kris telling us we could shift,” Alexei says, “but she’s tried that here, and it doesn’t seem to help.”

“Of course it doesn’t help,” Kat says. “He’s her brother—he’s the same bloodline. He shouldn’t ever be stuck.”

“Maybe it’s because he’s finally able to use all five powers,” Kristiana says. “Maybe once his body fully recovers, he’ll be able to shift back on his own.”

“Yes,” a new voice says from just behind me. A voice I don’t recognize. “That’s it—they figured it out.”

I lift my head and whip it around.

The others are still arguing as if the strange woman didn’t just speak. She’s odd looking, to be sure. She’s not tall or short, but she’s substantial in a way I can’t pinpoint. One moment she looks ancient, and the next, she looks quite young. She smells like that moment where earth meets the sky, and when rain on pavement meets a sunny day. Her eyes are unfathomable—dark, somber, hopeful, and bright all at once.

“Hello, Gustav. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” She leans closer and drops a hand on the side of my massive cheek. “My missing puzzle piece.”

I nuzzle her hand. I know there’s not a treat there—that would be crazy. But then, like magic, there suddenly is. A big, sticky ball of oats and molasses.

It’s better than any toffee, chocolate, or macaron I’ve ever tasted. I could eat treats like this all day. So of course she doesn’t offer me any more.

No matter how many times I nuzzle her hand.

Jerk.

“You’re all so much simpler as horses. I should keep you this way.” She scratches the area underneath my massive, hot mane, and it’s heaven.

I completely forget what everyone’s arguing about, stretching out my neck and turning my head just a little sideways to really enjoy it.

“You can use all five powers now,” the woman says softly. “And you can finally shift your form as well. It’s scary and strange and you’re not sure quite what to do, am I right?”

I freeze, remembering that we’re all in big trouble. I turn back to face her with one big eye, wanting answers.

“It took me quite a while to figure out where they’d all gone. You see, my sisters and I split up the world long ago, and I really only have the jurisdiction to manage things in Europe and Asia.” She snorts. “Baba Yaga, by the way.”

Splitting up the geography of earth makes a strange sort of sense.

“My sister, Squannit, usually handles things on this side of the world. Like me, she goes by many names, but that’s her oldest. She and I don’t get along very well, so I don’t visit often.”

I’m not sure how to ask her to tell me more, but when I try, I make a weird whuffling sort of sound.

“I could spend a very long time talking about Squannit, including the horribly inappropriate relationship she had with one of the horsemen.”

Horsemen? That reference causes me to snort, which blows snot all over Baba Yaga. She can’t really mean the four horsemen of the apocalypse, right? Famine, pestilence, warfare, and death, from the Bible. That’s insane, right?

Surely.

“Anyway, I know you have some decisions to make, so I just wanted to mention something important.”

I really wish I could speak right now. I toss my head.

“Talking won’t help. You humans always ask the wrong things.” She purses her lips. “That’s why I came while you think you’re stuck.”

Think?Am I not really stuck?

“Listen carefully, Gustav Daniel Liepa Belmont. More than anyone else, you should understand that life relies on balance. Parents must keep their children safe, and that requires rules, but for their children to grow and learn to handle life alone, they need freedom. Those two things can’t exist in a vacuum. Where the one grows, the other shrinks.”

I blink, and she rubs my nose.

“Good boy. At least you’re listening.” She drops her voice, as if the others might notice her if she makes too much noise. “All of life exists in such a balance, and our job—mine and my sisters’—is to help maintain that balance.”

The balance between freedom and safety?

“Not freedom and safety, you simpleton, the balance between life and death. The balance between scarcity and abundance.”

Whoa. She can hear my thoughts? Or was it an accident she replied to them?

She sighs. “Gustav, you are yourself already a balance of sorts. You’ve left the life you knew, the place you were raised, and now you’ve rejected the life you ran toward as well. You understand in a way that those others never will that life needs both a pushing force and also a pulling one. Growth only comes when there’s resistance. If you truly eliminate the bad, the good ceases to have meaning.”

But what does that mean? What am I supposed to do to Leonid?

“Leonid’s beautiful and terrible. He’s pure, and he’s evil. He’s dark and light all rolled together, just as his forefather was, and his problem is that he’s not balanced in any way. One day, he’ll find his counterpoint. Until then, all you can do is contain him so he can’t offset the balance of the earth too dramatically.” She drops to a whisper. “Those kinds of imbalances always wake them up, and no one wants that, except maybe Squannit. They wreak enough havoc in their dreams. So I need you, my boy, to help contain the incomparable Leonid, alright?” She smiles, then, and it’s one of the most stunning smiles I’ve ever seen. It’s a study in contrasts.

The wrinkles of wisdom.

The tenacity of middle-age.

The hope of youth.

“I can’t stay much longer, or Squannit, that sly vixen, will feel me and come after you for my sake.”

Come after me?

“Trust me. She’s not someone you want to anger. In fact, neither Squannit nor stupid Osiris ever would leave me alone about Rurik, and what they did was way worse.”

Wait. Is she saying. . .

“If they find out you’re here, or that the humans I gifted with powers are still mucking around, well. It’ll get ugly. I can’t protect you from them both, and I can’t protect you from either of them here. Do you understand?” She looks around, then, as if she hears something on another plane. “They—I can’t fight them. Not in America. You need to make sure you don’t do anything really big or really stupid, not until you’ve gone home.”

Home, as in Russia?

“Eastern Europe is best,” she says. “Keep that in mind.”

Good grief. Our existence is apparently not even legal, and now our creator might get in trouble if we make a mess over here where her contemporaries might realize we exist.

“Yes.” She claps. “Exactly that. I knew you’d get it.”

We’re her bag of pot. Her dirty little affair.

“Not dirty,” she says. “And certainly not pot.” She shakes her head. “Just contain Leonid, and get him back home as quickly as possible. The longer you’re all here, the worse it’ll be.”

Can I stop him from using his powers? That’s what I need to know. And can I restore Alexei’s magic?

Baba Yaga sighs, for all the world like I’m an errant toddler, yanking my diaper off and smearing the contents on the walls. “I already explained this. Your power came after his. That means that you can’t stop him, not once he’s been granted the magic. All you can do is contain him—wall him in. Got it?” Her head whips to the side, and her eyes widen. “You need to shift and get out of here, immediately. I’m not sure how long I can keep Squannit from noticing you.”

And then, without any warning, she’s gone.

One moment, she’s here, rubbing my neck and patting my muzzle, and then she’s just gone.

It never occurred to me that the person who gave us our powers wouldn’t be able to help us if she wanted to. I thought she was fickle, but I’m beginning to think it’s more that she’s limited. When Mirdza told her story on the train, I thought it was callous of Baba Yaga to leave the woman and child to be protected by a crippled girl. But now, I wonder if she has to be careful what she does.

She knows too much about how things work, so she’s limited in ways we aren’t, but she did give me a clue. I may not be able to destroy Leonid, and I may not be able to steal his powers, but I can contain him, whatever that means.

While I was busy listening to Baba Yaga, the fighting among the others escalated. Kat’s shouting in Kristiana’s face when I turn back toward them. “He’s not a gun to shove in Leonid’s face. He’s a person.”

“Not right now he’s not,” Kris says. “And I think I know he’s a person. He’s my brother. You’ve known him for what? Like, two minutes?”

My forehead, where my magic usually kind of sits, feels empty. Nothing at all. But my heart, which usually beats like mad, feels large, slow, and steady. I wonder whether. . . I focus all my energy inward, and I think about how it feels to be me. I’m tall. I’m strong. I walk with long, slow strides. My heart beats in the center of my chest, not behind my front legs.

I think about how I felt when I kissed Kat, and how much I want to do it again. Then, like a jolt of lightning running through my entire body, I shift.

It’s a brisk October day in I-have-no-idea-where, and I’m now standing entirely naked in a patch of scratchy grass.

“Bravo, little Gustav.” Mirdza’s smirking. “You grew up right.”

“Not so little anymore.” Adriana whistles.

I throw my hands up in front of my body, hunching forward a little, but it’s too late. Adriana, Kris, and even Katerina have all spun around, and they’re all staring at me, slack-jawed.

“Oh, come on, man,” Grigoriy says. “All you have to do, if you have your magic online, is think about what clothing you want to be wearing and it materializes with you.”

“So all those times you were naked?” Kris is glaring at Aleks.

“I mean, most of them were because I had to be touching you to use my magic,” Aleks says.

“Most?” Kris looks like she’s going to tackle him.

“Clothes, guys?” I groan. “Come, now.”

“They’re back in the car,” Alexei says. “So, I’m not sure. . .”

“Oh, for the love.” Aleksandr shifts into a horse. Thirty seconds later, he’s shifted back and he’s holding a pair of jeans. He chucks them at my head.

“Jeans? That’s the best you could do?” I’m grumbling, but I’m also stuffing my legs into the pants.

“It’s hard to make clothing you’re not wearing,” Grigoriy says.

“I don’t think I could even do it,” Kat says. At least she has the decency to look apologetic about it.

“We do need to get some kind of new vehicle,” Alexei says. “But what can we possibly buy for. . .how much did you say we have left?”

Aleks coughs. “Seven hundred and thirty-six dollars.”

“Unless you idiots have lost my wallet, I’ll buy it,” I say. “Because while you were fighting, Baba Yaga paid me a visit, and I don’t think we need to hide anymore.”

“What?” Aleks looks around like she might still be hiding somewhere close. “When?”

“Just now,” I say. “I’m not sure how none of you could see her. I’d like to master that trick.”

“But when we reach Birch Creek,” Katerina asks, “what will you do?”

“I’m not sure you can defeat him right now,” Grigoriy says. “We should take some time first and?—”

“I can’t beat him,” I say simply. “Baba Yaga already told me—he’s stronger. His line got the magic first, and she didn’t say this, but I almost wonder whether he can choke me out if he tries.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Kris asks. “Then why would we?—”

“I have a plan, and you’re going to have to trust me, for once.”