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As they take off for the reception on horseback—a solid two and a half miles away—I walk hand-in-hand to the car with my fiancé.
“Do you want to chase them?” Alexei asks.
Part of me wants to say yes, but we’re the hosts. We can’t exactly run into a corner, have him shift into a horse and go racing across the countryside. Surely one of the guests would notice. Right?
But not fifteen seconds later, my jaw drops as Mirdza whoops and flies down the side of the road on top of her massive bay with the face stripe. She’s riding freaking Charlemagne, so by golly. . .
“Yes.” I point at the side room where Kristiana changed. It must be where Grigoriy just shifted. The side wall’s blocked by a huge copse of trees. “Only, hurry. I know a shortcut, and I really want to beat them.”
Quicksilver’s definitely the fastest of the three, but we take so long to get his clothes off, folded up, and tucked into a bag that we’re hopelessly behind when we finally start. The wind whipping through my hair knocks all the pins out, the dust from the road coats my Robin’s egg blue dress in uneven patches, and I accidentally drop the bag, upending Alexei’s clothes in a mud puddle.
Still, it’s worth it.
By the time we rejoin the reception, everyone’s already dancing and eating and smiling, and Kris and Aleks, and Mirdza and Grigoriy look just as disheveled as we do.
I take a moment to marvel at the fact that the three of us, all horse-obsessed idiots, managed to find the perfect men. Solid, steady, kind, and always willing to take us for a wild ride through the surrounding countryside.
Mirdza picks a few pieces of grass out of my hair, and then she smiles. “I’m not sure I could be happier than I am in this moment.”
Grigoriy flings her into the air and spins her around, dropping her back down without having to use extreme care. Some days, I still forget her leg was healed until I see her do something she hasn’t done in a decade. It’s been a strange month, but a wonderful one in many ways. My sister’s in love, and she’s been healed. I’m in love, and in a lot of ways, it feels like I’ve been healed even more than she was.
The next day, I hang on to as much of that calm and peace as I can while we fly into Russia at an ungodly hour. I cling to it while we’re dressed up by a whole host of people. I’m still grasping it while we smile and wave and make stupid canned speeches.
And then as we sit and wait as the votes are counted, I try too.
But it’s awfully hard to hold on to my joy when, in spite of our best efforts, in spite of Alexei’s brilliance and generosity and in spite of my attempts to repair the damage I did by being who I am, the referendum passes.
We lose.
And more frightening, Leonid wins, fair and square. The Russian people voted to give up their freedom because they liked his vision for a stronger future. They’re dumb, but we’re the real morons for believing in them.
29
After Dad died, Mirdza and I lived in a rotation of homes that changed monthly. Only after meeting Kristiana’s family did we find a home. And when Mom met Martinš, that changed again. I stayed with Mom as much as I could manage it, in an attempt to keep her safe.
Or you know, safer.
When Mom married him, she thought her money problems were over. Wrong. They were just getting started. People like him don’t know how to do things that are hard. They’ve given up on everything difficult for the entirety of their lives. I did learn how to pack up quickly and head out when danger threatens.
Only, no one in my new group of friends wants to do that.
“In ten days, Russia transitions to a tsardom again,” I say. “We need to be gone by then.”
“We just got our homes back,” Aleks says. “You haven’t even been to see any of the palaces Russia agreed to give back to Alexei. Some of them are pretty nice.”
“One was a church, one was a boarding school, and one was a hotel,” I say. “Who cares? We can build a new house. We can’t grow new heads.”
“Have you forgotten?” Grigoriy asks. “We’re powerful. Leonid’s afraid of us.”
I’m not at all sure that’s true now that he has a massive standing army of innocent-ish soldiers at his command. “Even if he is, will you use your powers to kill his armies? Thousands and thousands of soldiers?”
I remember Alexei telling me what he could do to humans—thousands of them. I’m not the only one who thinks that through, because all three men frown.
“I’m telling you. We need to leave.”
Aleks is staring at his phone.
“What now?” Grigoriy asks.
