Page 61 of My Wild Horse King

“Face it, brother,” Kristiana says. “Your IPO’s going to have to sink or float without you. Your days of pretending you’re normal are over.”

17

GUSTAV

This is ridiculous.

They want me to sacrifice my entire life, all my hopes and dreams, for a bag of parlor tricks, because of a threat that may never materialize.

“I’ll give you the horse thing,” I say. “You can shift into horses.”

“And harness the power of air.” When Grigoriy folds his arms, his already beefy arms get thicker, and I can’t help but notice that his face is not entirely light and bright. There are definite flashes of darkness in him.

He did drag me across the room right before we met. I suppose that’s not exactly a parlor trick, and his life hasn’t really been a party. Hearing about how someone he knew killed his parents. . .that sounded rough.

“But this is my entire life,” I say. “I left my home for this, gave up my name, my family, and my country?—”

“So you could kiss up to Grandfather in the hopes that he’d give you all his money?” Kristiana’s lip curls. Her face is, blessedly, entirely shiny. No more than flecks of occasional grey here and there.

“You can be disdainful all you want,” I say. “But would you have liked Aleksandr if he was broke?” I shake my head. “Money is security, and money is power, and I have spent the last eleven and a half years convincing Grandfather that I’m just like he is—that I can safeguard his legacy. I’m not about to. . .I’m not even sure what you want me to do. In movies, this is when there’s like, some kind of cheesy training montage. Swords flash and smash, and like, the hero struggles, and you can see sweat on his brow.”

“What’s he talking about?” Alexei’s mostly strands of shining light, but there are a few ropy dark lines as well.

“You need to show him more movies.” Kristiana looks smug. “I told you all that election crap took too much time.”

“We don’t want to drag you to Russia,” Grigoriy says.

“What, then? Because whatever you want to do, I’ll do it right here, around the meetings I have to attend to convince people to buy my shares. Cool?” I look around the room.

Other than Katerina, everyone’s glaring.

“I’ll just buy all the shares when they go live,” Aleksandr says.

“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “I’m not sure you know how much that would cost, but even if you were, like, a billionaire or something?—”

“He is,” Grigoriy says.

I blink.

“Actually, I am too.” Alexei waves, and the disgustingly good-looking man whom I’m discovering I don’t like very well lights up like a lantern.

I hate it.

“They’re kidding about being loaded, right?” I glance at Kristiana.

She shakes her head. “Not really, no.”

“But I can’t have you guys do that,” I say. “Because Grandfather needs to see this IPO as a huge success, and that means all the main banks and funds need to buy their portion of the shares at full price.”

Alexei’s sigh is very beleaguered, like I’m worse than a class full of kindergarteners who want to fingerpaint his beloved family palace.

“Just tell me,” I say. “What do you even want me to do, exactly?”

“Leonid has mastered electrical powers, and the power of fire,” Grigoriy says. “Those are very scary, very strong assault powers.”

“And now he has water, too,” Katerina says. “He’s been working on combining them to blow things up.”

“Of course that’s the first thing he’d do,” Aleksandr says. “Why does that not even surprise me? Everything’s a weapon to him.”

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