Page 95 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

“I’m kidding,” I say. “But by way of warning, if you propose to me right now, I think my dad might shoot you.”

“You usually call him Steve.”

I shrug. “I mean, sometimes I do. Sometimes I call him Dad. It’s complicated.” I think about the whole soul thing. “It’s not, like, soul-bond complicated, but it’s confusing, anyway. Sometimes calling him ‘dad’ feels right. Sometimes it feels like I’m betraying my real father, and so then I say Steve.”

“Does he care?”

“He’s never said a word about it if he does. He’s a pretty good guy—I think he knows that I love him, and that I’m sad he exists, and that I’m grateful my mom has him. Life’s like that. You have to take the good and the bad and be grateful for what you have.”

He keeps staring straight ahead, into my dad’s taillights.

“I think I don’t want our souls to be woven together,” I say. “I mean, it sounds romantic, but at the end of the day, I like the idea of you choosing me over and over. That’s actually why I chose to break the bond. I wanted to make sure you’re picking to be with me, and I’m making the conscious choice to be with you.” I can’t help my smirk. “Is that stupid?” I sigh. “Maybe it is.”

“Not at all,” he says. “And I’ll do that—happily. As long as you’ll allow it.”

“There’s something I didn’t mention.” I sigh. “I mean, I’m not sure what happened, or whether thereissomething to mention, but I have a question first.”

“Okay.” He raises his eyebrows and glances my way.

“It was a long time ago, I know, but back when your dad lost your relics, and those men beat you. . .”

“What?”

I shake my head. “Never mind.”

“Say it.”

“When that happened, do you remember anything weird happening? Because when I saw the whole thing, I’m not sure if it was a dream, or a. . .I don’t know what it was.”

“Did I see anything?” He frowns. “What would I have. . .” He freezes. “Like a woman’s face?” His hands tighten on the wheel so much that his knuckles go white. “Right when the man, Sergei, was going to stab me, I saw an angel stop him, an angel who saved my life.” He exhales. “I told my dad about it later, and he said I hallucinated.”

I’m not sure what it means, but. . . “It was me. I lunged at the man with the knife. I couldn’t allow you to be stabbed, you know, and it didn’t stop him. I couldn’t touch anything. But it slowed him, and you fell out of the way.”

“Youwerethere, then,” he says. “I wonder what it means.”

“Well, on that note.” I can’t help cringing a little. “After we broke the bond, I was dreaming again, and. . .” I sigh.

He grabs my hand again, lacing his fingers through mine and squeezing. “I never saw that angel again, at least, not until the day you drove onto the Brooks ranch and saved me. Should I have? Did I forget something else?”

I tighten my fingers. “No, but I saw something else. I was there, the day you tried to take the powers from Aleksandr, Grigoriy, and Alexei. I understand why you did it. Your dad. . .” I shake my head. “I’m so sorry you had to watch that.”

“I think he had scurvy,” he says. “I’ve researched it, and it was a simple disease, so easy to cure with the right nutrition, but the nobles just didn’t care. Alexei and his father and the others, they only cared about their own. They only cared about saving the right people, not all the people.”

“Not to discount your pain and all that,” I say. “But I watched as you kind of cracked a hole in the ground and got sucked into it.”

“That went very badly,” Leonid says. “When I woke up, a hundred years and change later, I still had no extra powers, and the world had completely transformed.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “But after you went down that well, something else came out of the crevice in the ground you cracked.” I wince. “Something big, something horse-shaped, and something very angry. It had eyes like fire, and it called me, ‘my child.’”

“My child?” Leonid turns around fully to stare at me. “Are you serious?”

“It was pretty freaky,” I say. “So when I woke up, I told my parents it was fine if they drove me to my apartment. I figured I could find you once I’d had time to think it over. But then you found me, and. . .”

“You knew you were half-witch and half-monster,” Leonid says. “Lechuza said as much.”

“I mean, not half,” I say. “A billion generations back or whatever, my ancestor was half and half. I’m like, mostly human, now.”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure how it works, but I’m going to guess that was Lechuza’s horseman boyfriend.”

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