Page 72 of My Wild Horse King

“I know,” I say. “And it’s amazing, but Leonid, it’s a still a bad call. You can’t fight them all.”

“Unless I could get their powers, too.”

“We read all the documents,” I say. “They’re not about to offer them to you, and that’s the only way.”

“There’s one thing I didn’t show you.” His broad shoulders droop a bit. “I—I knew you’d be upset.”

After Mikhail followed me to the clearing at the edge of our property where I’d been meeting him, we had to change locations. The abandoned hut Leonid’s been living in is pretty depressing, but I wasn’t sure where else to meet him. Leonid’s managed to scavenge some things—mismatched chairs. A scarred and pitted, rough-hewn table. A pitcher and some matching clay cups made by a somewhat skilled artisan, but chipped and worn down by time. The hut isn’t welcoming, but it’s at least got a lived-in feeling. I brought him a pile of blankets when I came this time.

Leonid rummages around underneath the chair I piled the blankets on, and then he stands.

He’s holding an old book.

Averyold book.

“What is that?” I’m nervous, because it looks an awful lot like the journals we were studying in secret at the palace. “Please tell me you didn’t steal that.”

“It belonged tomyancestors,” Leonid says. “They stole it from us first.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “Leonid, that all happened hundreds of years ago. You have to let it go.”

“But we’re still dealing with the aftermath now,” he says, his eyes bright. “Your family’s being punishedright nowby the people who stole it. They’re ignoring you and your people, and they’re not doing what they were tasked to do, which is serving the people of Russia, keeping them safe and healthy.”

“Right, and I plan to keep telling them?—”

“They ignore you.” He balls his free hand into a fist. “They mock you. They don’t respect you.”

“I know they aren’t perfect, but they had reasons for?—”

“Stop defending them!” Leonid’s beautiful face is smudged with dirt. His hair, pulled back with a leather strap, has come undone, and now it streams around his face like sunlight surrounding a work of art. How he can be so ungodly beautiful in the midst of such squalor, I don’t know.

But it makes him look even more unhinged.

No one that gorgeous should be living in a hut like this, shouting. No one like him should be raging about the injustices of the world. He should be ruling it. It’s plain when you see his face. He’s the kind of person who was created for others to bow down to.

And judging from his face, he means to try to take his rightful place.

I have to at leasttryto stop him, because no matter what his bloodlines said, he is where he is, and he’s going to smash himself against the cliffs, trying to fix the injustices he’s fixated on.

“Mikhail’s using you,” I say. “They won’t notice the book is gone, so if you just make sure?—”

“Katerina,” he says. “I kept this particular book for a reason.” He kicks the chair toward the table, and then he straddles it, slamming the old book down on the pitted surface. “Look.”

The writing’s ancient. I’m not sure how he can even read it. I squint.

“Here.” He points. “Read this part.”

“To summon the all-mother?” I look up at him. “What does this even mean?”

“I think it’s her. You know the journals make it seem like she chose Rurik for a reason? This is how we find out what that reason was. We can summon her!”

“The All-Mother?” I shake my head. “That sounds very, very inadvisable. I think it’s a bad plan. It’s either complete nonsense, or it works and we’re even worse off.”

“I think it’s talking about the witch known as Baba Yaga.”

“So what?” I ask. “You know what the stories say about her.”

He rolls his eyes. “I hardly think she travels around in a house with chicken feet and eats small children.”

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