Page 127 of My Wild Horse King

“That would solve a few problems,” Gustav says. “We can’t stab him, but maybe we can drown him.”

“We should add that to the list of options,” Alexei says.

I’m happy they seem to be getting along, but this isn’t exactly how I hoped it would happen. “Surely you can’t mean to just leave him there.” I can’t help glancing back at where he’s lying on the ground. He looks, for all the world, like he’s dead.

“Not at all.” Gustav’s smile is warm when he turns around to face Leonid.

Finally, someone’s going to at least move him someplace dry.

Gustav’s brow furrows, and he lifts Leonid, making good use of what he learned about air, and starts floating him.

“So the strands of wind do work on him.” Grigoriy drop his staple-arm from the side of the house to stare. “That’s something you should add to the list.”

“Whatlist?” I ask. “What are you guys talking about?”

“We have a week, give or take,” Alexei says, “to figure out how to kill him. Or barring that, to work out a way to contain him long-term.”

I’m floored. They’re supposed to be the good guys. “You can’t really mean to kill him. I mean, I get why you tried in the heat of the moment, but now that it’s passed, and he’s incapacitated, there must be a better way.”

Aleksandr sighs. “We aren’t the imaginary ‘Federation of Planets’ or even a gutless organization like the United Nations. We have limited resources and an unknown amount of time before he’s back up and running. Baba Yaga herself told us to contain him.”

“But she didn’t tell us how,” Grigoriy says. “If she wanted us to keep him alive, she should’ve given us more information.” He shrugs. “I mean to try every single way to kill that sucker that I can think of.”

“Is this about getting your powers back?” I frown. “Because I understand the urge, but I went weeks without?—”

“Spare me, princess,” Grigoriy says.

I open my mouth to tell him where he can stick his terms of endearment, but Gustav’s shoulders are slumped, and I decide to let this one go. My sweet and exhausted boyfriend dumps Leonid—or, you know,horseLeonid—in an empty pasture that at least appears to be relatively high and dry. He also sets him in the center of a small covered enclosure in the corner of the pasture.

It’s not exactly a hotel room, but Leonidisa horse, and he did try to kill Gustav fifteen minutes ago. This is probably about as good as it’s going to get.

The others are almost done securing the side of the house when Gustav gets a strange look on his face. A second later, the tarp they took such pains to secure is ripped away.

“Whoa,” Grigoriy shouts. “What was that? Was that you, moron?”

But Gustav’s smiling. And then, slowly, right in front of all of us, the chunks of splintered wood, the clumps of broken tile, the shards of shattered drywall, all float up into the air, and then they begin to slowly knit themselves back together.

Gustav’s at it for nearly forty minutes, the last twenty of them with Steve, Abigail, and their entire brood standing behind him and watching, but when he’s done, you can’t even tell their house was hit in the first place.

“That was amazing,” Gabe says.

“You saved us,” Steve says. “Thanks.”

“We put you at risk in the first place,” Gustav says. “And to be honest, we aren’t out of the woods yet.”

We explain what happened with Leonid, and Gustav tells him where he put his unconscious form.

“The stallion paddock is the perfect place for him,” Steve says. “And we know what to do with horses who don’t behave around here. We’ll help you any way we can.”

“I don’t want to kill him,” Gustav says, “but it may be our best play.”

“And if you decide against that, we’ll help you come up with a way to keep him contained,” Steve says.

Then they all go inside the recently repaired house to shower and clean up. Just like that, it’s all settled.

I can’t help walking across the big field to the side of their house and peering over the expanse of mostly-dead grass at Leonid’s immobile form. Hedidwant Gustav dead. He wanted Kris dead, too. He’s definitely misguided.

A villain.

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