Page 60 of My Wild Horse King

“To make matters worse, my father and my brother Boris couldn’t use theirs either. I hadn’t even thought of that—Leonid was angry with them for how things went down with his dad.”

Gustav cringes.

“Leonid wasn’t entirely unreasonable,” I say. “Before Boris or my dad knew the cause of all of us losing our abilities, I convinced him to restore our powers to us, but it took him all of five minutes to realize that he could cut us off at any point.”

“Okay.”

“And when Alexei found out what had happened, that Leonid could use my powers, he was even more unhappy. His father was livid. My dad had just made a petition for the Romanovs to help us, because we were in the middle of a drought.”

“A drought?”

“People were already starving—it was a really terrible one. Our family and the Kurakins both begged Alexei to defy his father and direct rain to our villages, but the whole Romanov family refused. The czar was so angry about the Leonid thing, and about my supposed relationship with him, that he thought we deserved to fend for ourselves. He told us to use buckets and pipes to water our crops, like the rest of the world. The drought wasn’t his problem, and he didn’t have an obligation to fix it.”

“I wonder what his face looked like,” Gustav mumbles. “Not light and bright, I’m guessing.”

“I don’t know whether he was a villain, or just on the opposite side of things,” I say. “But not knowing much about what happened with Leonid, the Kurakins saw the Romanov refusal to help as more preferential treatment for the magical families they liked—they were very angry. Not even a month later, when there was an uprising, the Kurakins took the chance to take their revenge on the Romanov-Volkonsky-Khilkov alliance. They sort of caused an uprising, and in the process, the Kurakins—Mikhail’s parents—killed both of Grigoriy’s parents, and it only got worse from there.”

We’ve reached the apartment building, so I push my way through the door and nod at Norm. His big smile makes me feel better. One day, when I have a job and a purpose and a place of my own to live, I really want a doorman.

“Once the Romanovs were firmly aligned against our family and the Kurakins, Mikhail came to visit. Leonid wasn’t living with us anymore, but he and I still talked. I would meet him in the town square a few times a week and give him food. He was practicing using his new powers, and I taught him things. I didn’t think he was a villain, honestly, just a man who had been dealt a very lousy hand in life. If I’d had more control over my own life, I’d have helped him more. Mikhail followed me once, and he caught us. Instead of being angry, he asked Leonid what he could do if he hadtwopowers. Mikhail wanted him to right wrongs and exact vengeance on the Romanovs in a way he and his father couldn’t.”

Gustav stares at me with wide eyes. “So you accidentally gave him your powers, giving him power over you and your family.”

I nod.

“But this other guy, this Mikhail, he surrendered intentionally?”

“I begged Mikhail not to do it, and I begged Leonid not to listen, but they ignored me. Actually, I think my begging upset Leonid further. He couldn’t believe that even after all that had happened, I would side with Alexei. I really just wanted everything to go back to how it was. I wanted to heal things, but they just kept getting angrier and angrier.”

“That explains a lot about Grigoriy,” Gustav says. “He lost his parents. That won’t be an easy injury to recover from.”

“But to make matters worse, Leonid followed through on his end of their bargain to attack the Romanovs,” I say. “Although, not quite as Mikhail had imagined, I think.”

The elevators open, and I don’t have time to say anything else. We both step inside. It’s time to tell everyone what happened—that Gustav has the powers they came to try and force on him. But before we can even step out of the elevator and into Gustav’s apartment, we’re wrapped in bands of air and floated into the family room.

“You accessed your power.” Grigoriy’s furiously pacing, his eyes flashing.

“You’ve been gone for almost an hour since you did it, too.” Aleksandr stands up and joins Grigoriy. They’re going to wear a thin spot in the rug at this rate.

“I brought dinner,” Gustav says.

“We have a lot to do,” Kristiana says.

“But how do you guys even know that I accessed them?” Gustav asks.

“We felt it,” Grigoriy says.

“Like a static shock to our brains, pulsing where our power usually rests,” Aleksandr says.

I look at Alexei to see whether he agrees.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I felt nothing.”

That’s not promising.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Aleksandr says.

“But I have meetings for another ten days,” Gustav says.

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