Page 13 of My Wild Horse King

If saying he liked Adriana was a dagger, this feels like an evisceration. It’s partially my fault. If I had done something, could I have warned them off? I knew Leonid wanted the water powers most of all. I knew he meant to gain enough leverage to take them. It was all he wanted that night, and he’d have given up most anything to get them.

“You’re still strong,” Grigoriy says.

But even I can hear the lie.

I can’t change the decisions I made in the past. I can’t fix things I broke. But I might be able to convince Leonid to trade information about the man who poses a threat to him in exchange for releasing Alexei’s powers. I know he can do it—he granted my brother and Mikhail their powers back.

So it’s possible.

If I go back to Leonid on my own with useful information on Gustav, it might be enough. He might agree to release Alexei. With his powers back, would he look at me again? Smile at me again?

When he tires of Adriana, when he realizes howwrongfor him she is. . .it wouldn’t hurt to be in his good graces. It wouldn’t hurt to be the one who restored him to his former strength and abilities.

But to do that, I have to see Leonid again. After betraying him.

The very idea terrifies me. Leonid can’t be predicted. No one ever has any idea what he’ll do. Normal people can’t comprehend how he’ll react to things. It’s not even entirely his fault. His father was. . .

No one who was raised as he was turns out to be healthy.

Would he even agree to see me? He let me leave. I know he could’ve stopped me from leaving, and I know why he didn’t. I know all his biggest weaknesses, and I know the depths of his strength too. Will he let me back in? And how will he react when I tell him why I’ve come?

It takes me a few hours, and I’m worried I’ll wind up on a plane to New York before I finally get the information I need, but then I hear it.

Gustav’s legal name.

That’s information that Leonid could flail around for weeks and weeks before discovering himself. With this, I’ll be able to generate some goodwill. It’s not easy to escape—there are so many of them that it feels like someone’s always watching—but even Adriana’s distracted during the security line.

And after I duck away, the rest is simple.

Stupid Aleksandr made it simple. He gave me identification and money on my third day with them. He told me that no one should ever feel trapped. And thanks to him, I’m not. I waltz right out of the airport and hail a cab.

It’s shockingly easy to get from the airport to the new czar’s palace. Of course, once I’m outside, I realize how far I am from Leonid’s side. The place is even more heavily guarded than it was before, with external patrols of men with guns making sweeps, and as I sit and watch, I realize there are cameraseverywhere.

The cameras are still new to me.

Everyone in this time period is used to them. They’re no big deal to everyone now, but to me, taking exact recordings of everything that happens so you can watch it as many times as you want?

If I had been able to record that first night with Alexei, and if I could replay it over and over, how much would that mean to me? How much would he recall of our time together? Would recordings have made a difference? I think back to the first ball—how surprised my dad was—how beautiful Alexei was—how I cherished that silver and blue ball gown. . . Even a single photo would mean the world to me now. Reliving it in my head just isn’t the same.

A hand grabs the hair at the nape of my neck and yanks backward. “Katerina. I didn’t expect to see you.” It’s Mikhail.

I would know who it was even if his hand wasn’t blisteringly hot. Even if I couldn’t smell the faint whiff of brimstone that always clings to him. No one else has quite the same level of glee in his tone when he’s caught someone unawares. When we were younger, he used to do the same thing with lizards.

“I wish I could say Leonid will be happy to see you, but I’m not sure that’s true. He wasn’t pleased that you left when you did.”

I square my shoulders and send a little zap through my entire body—not a lot, but enough that he drops my hair.

“You’ve always been such a b?—”

“Watch yourself,” I say. “You can’t really go around flaming people in broad daylight, whereas I could fry you like a bug in a zapper and play it off as the effect of a taser.”

“We’re about to go inside where there’s far worse than me, and he’s very unhappy with you.” Mikhail tilts his head. “I don’t have to fry you. I can just sit back and watch what he does.”

“Alright, you two,” Boris steps through the gate. “No more bickering. Leonid heard you’re here.” My older brother really should be on my side, but he never has been. He’s always and forever only on his own side.

“I came here of my own volition,” I say. “I don’t need a police escort.”

“Alexei turned you down again?” Boris asks.

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