Governor Letov shivered.
“No,” Nicholas dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand.
“It will be simple, clean. No different than simple assassination,” Kharzin pressed, presenting both hands palm up in supplication. “If you worry about rumors with the Church, I will be clandestine.”
“It is not so much your skills that worry me,” Nicholas answered, “but your finesse. I have not forgotten your failure with my sister’s child labor.”
Kharzin scowled, but smoothed his features quickly. “Some tragedies cannot be avoided, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Nicholas tapped his fingers on his desk, near the ink-stained paper, for several heartbeats. “Perhaps you are correct. But I will send Barinov to take care of these men.”
Slava missed a breath.
Kharzin huffed. “That pacifist will be less successful than a rat on the street.”
Slava’s eyes narrowed. He did not want the task, but he had never defied Nicholas’s father, and he would not defy Nicholas now. Already Kharzin bordered on insubordination, raising his voice to the tsar.
If Nicholas noticed, he didn’t pay the man any attention. Turning to the governor, he said, “You have the locations?”
“Yes.” Letov glanced to Slava. “I will provide them, and your mysticist may do as he pleases. I will ensure my officers leave him be should anything . . . strange . . . arise within the city.”
Slava raised an eyebrow. “These men are in St. Petersburg?”
“Nearby, yes. For how long I’m unsure, but I have a man I trust watching them.”
Nicholas let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair. His eyes passed over the frames sitting along the length of his desk before he said, “See it done, Barinov. I want these rebellions ended.”
Slava bowed his head in acquiescence, though how to complete the emperor’s bidding without betraying his own heart was another matter entirely.
The solution had been in front of him all along.
After two days of contemplating the tsar’s request, fearing he was waiting too long, Slava looked up from the armchair in his room and saw the answer: the dolls.
Standing, he crossed the room to the console and picked up the most recent set he’d made, popping apart the halves of the first doll and studying them. Although these revolutionaries ailed his sovereign and tore into the peace of the country, he had no desire to kill them. Life was the purest form of magic, no matter how a man squandered it, and he did not want any spilled blood on his hands, no matter how much easier it would make his task. Yet he couldn’t barge into the revolutionaries’ strongholds and tie them up like hogs to be carted out of Russia, either. Too far, too many resources. And to deliver them to the tsar would, again, mean certain death.
But perhaps he could exile Pavel Zotov and Oleg Popov without their ever leaving Russia.
There were spells—powerful spells—for locking things in seemingly ordinary places, the most renowned being the Greek myth of Pandora. There was also the Jewish tale of the dybbuk spirit that haunted a box, and the story of the African sky god who locked the tales of all the world within a single capsule. Perhaps Slava could do something similar. Perhaps he could simply make these revolutionaries . . . disappear.
He stroked his beard twice, then opened the next doll, and the next. Layers. A box with layers, each with its own enchantment. Yes, he could use that. But how?
He paced the room, stretching his legs, from door to window and back. To trap a man inside a dark space until his death was a crueler fate than assassination, so he would have to craft a place for each of the men to live. Or, perhaps, somewhere they could live together. Could he manage that within the confines of a doll? It would need to be sustainable, at least for the lifetimes of the revolutionaries.
How easily could they escape? The little world would have to be seamless, inescapable. But they would notice, plan. He could place a mask over their eyes.
Slava tugged on his beard. A mask, yes. Over everything. Cure them of their rebellious ways while preventing them from breaking his spell.
He returned to the console and opened the next layer of the doll. He would place a veil inside it, black and impenetrable, spelled to steal their memories of life before imprisonment. They would become docile. Harmless citizens. Not only that, but Slava would be freeing them of responsibility. Theirs would be a pleasant, harmless life.
He peered out the window, staring down at the snow-crusted world. Smoke from the new factories churned the air in the distance. How much better these peasants’ lives would be. Was it wrong to reward them with such ease? But it was better than killing them. And if something did go wrong . . . best to discover it with the lives of revolutionaries than with innocents.
Slava took the dolls to his desk and began planning. Pulled old books from beneath his bed to study the enchantments within them. Let them take his imagination away.
He could create a better Russia. Russia as it should be, before industrialization. A world free of war and cold, of disease and greed, of locks and thieves. And he would watch over these men, guiding them, taking the rebellion out of their hearts . . .
A dark-haired man looked up from the crate in the dim room, atop which rested a dirty hand-drawn map he’d been inspecting. He wore a band on his sleeve, depicting a rearing white horse. Slava tried to mask his surprise—he’d pictured Pavel Zotov older. This man could be no more than thirty.
“Pavel Zotov?” Slava asked, and the two others in the room stiffened and looked toward the door, alarm on their faces. No one else was supposed to be here.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“I must speak with you. I have information about the Winter Palace I think you’ll want to hear.”
Slava squeezed the coercion charm in his right pocket. Pavel hesitated, then nodded. Slava squeezed harder. “Alone, if you will.”
Another hesitation, but Pavel nodded again. Without word or gesture, the two men departed, eyeing Slava as they went.
Slava released the charm and extended his right hand. In his left, beneath his coat, he clutched a doll.
Pavel, his forehead creased and eyes narrowed, took Slava’s hand.
And was gone.
Zhakar Kharzin sowed his seeds by candlelight.
“Why won’t Barinov simply tell you where the revolutionaries are?” he whispered into Nicholas’s ear as the tsar read yet another letter penned in Slava’s hand. “If they’re dead, where are their bodies? You deserve their heads on a platter.”
The parchment crinkled beneath Nicholas’s fingers. Through clenched teeth he said, “You disturb me, Kharzin.”
“It is Barinov who disturbs you,” the mysticist whispered. “What is he hiding? What has he discovered that he won’t tell you?”
Nicholas didn’t respond.
Kharzin leaned closer. “He’s hiding the revolutionaries. He hasn’t slain them as you directed. He’s helping them.
“You have the power to stop it, Majesty. For now. Slava Barinov, he seeks to take that power from you . . .”
Slava’s trek back to Alexander Palace was a long and wearying one. Pavel Zotov’s sudden disappearance had sent Oleg Popov into hiding. However, armed with spells, it hadn’t been difficult for Slava to track him. The mysticist knew how to make loyal men talk, even trace the steps of a man if his departure was recent. The revolutionary had made it all the way to Pushkin before Slava caught up with him. Fortunately, the hard travel had left Oleg both fatigued and alone, so capturing him had proved simple.
Slava was pleased with himself. He’d eliminated two threats to his tsar without spilling a single drop of blood. He would not call himself a hero, but surely Nicholas would decorate him as one.
However, Slava’s reception at the palace was not what he’d expected.
His troika had barely cleared the palace gates when a swarm of soldiers in bear-skin hats surrounded him, startling the horses. Slava didn’t even have time to jerk back on the rein
s before a burly soldier grabbed Slava’s coat sleeve and hauled him out of his seat. Slava’s knees slammed into packed snow.
“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, trying to right himself. One of the soldiers grabbed the tail of hair hanging down from Slava’s ushanka, and yet another wrestled with Slava’s arms, trying to get his wrists behind his back for binding.
“Slava Barinov, your plot has unfolded,” said the soldier who had pulled him from the troika. “You’re under arrest for treason against the crown.”
“Treason!” Slava elbowed the man trying to bind him. His companion readied a rifle, leveling the butt dangerously close to Slava’s forehead. “I have returned from eliminating enemies of the crown! I demand to speak to the tsar!”
The soldier snorted, his breath fogging before his mouth. “The tsar issued the order himself.”
Soldiers clustered around Slava, a shifting wall of bodies. Hands hauled him to his feet and again jerked his arms backward. Slava’s head spun. “Treason for what?” he asked, and when none answered, he shouted, “Tell me the accusation!”
His gaze shot to the palace, its walls glittering with sunlit ice crystals. He saw a shadow on the white stairs. Kharzin, wearing a smile.
Slava understood. It was not the first time the devil’s man had spoken ill of Slava, only the first time his words had, apparently, convinced the tsar.
Slava growled. Someone tried to push his head down; Slava pushed back. “In aethere,” he growled, his arms shaking as he resisted binding, “ad locum meum. Vola!”
The magic prickled as though he’d swallowed a horsefly’s nest. It didn’t used to hurt, but spells didn’t take kindly to growing years. The weight of the soldiers’ hands vanished. Slava appeared inside the troika, grabbed his dolls, and vanished once more.
He had little time.
Kharzin had poisoned the tsar’s mind. It would not be possible for Slava to right that wrong now. Not when the heat of the empire bore down on him. Kharzin would expect him to try to escape, but surely he wouldn’t expect Slava to linger in the palace.
He had risked appearing in his room, traveling bag in tow. It still contained soiled clothes, a half-empty water skin, and the two layered dolls painted in the likenesses of the peasant rebels. Outside, the shrill cry of whistles pierced the air.
Slava dropped to his knees at his bedside, pulling out his old spell books. They were too large and too heavy for him to take them all; Slava selected one and shoved it into his bag, mourning the loss of the others. Before sunset, Kharzin’s greasy fingers would no doubt ravish their pages.
“In aethere,” he began, but the Latin caught on his tongue as his eyes met the chest of drawers. The one that held the Japanese doll and his remaining supplies.
They would follow him out of St. Petersburg. Kharzin or another mysticist would catch up with Slava eventually, and if he could not cleanse the tsar’s mind of lies, Slava’s neck would meet a rope, if not a pike. He would run forever, or find himself banished.
Yet Slava had another option, one Kharzin did not know about. He had the dolls.
Raucous footfalls bellowed beneath him. His time was slipping away.
Rushing for the drawers, Slava wrenched them open. Two pieces of wood left, his carving utensils, a silver paintbrush. He grabbed whatever could fit into his bag and began to sing in Latin.
The door to his chamber burst open on the last syllable.
Slava worked in a dark room, spinning the wood and carving, carving, carving. He cut and sanded until his fingers bled, chanted spells until his tongue dried and threatened to crack. For it would not be just him.
He would not be content spending his days with brainwashed rebels. Such a world would be a place of deep loneliness, no matter how pretty he painted it. No, he wanted more. A future, a community.
Betrayed as he’d been, by both Kharzin and the tsar, he deserved it.
He cut, sanded, carved, painted.
They would thank him one day. He would save them—all of them. The peasants wanted food? Shelter? Sunshine? He’d give it to them. He would save them from the harshness of the world, and in return they would be his comrades. His community. His family.
When he was finished, half-mad from the ceaseless work, Slava carried the dolls into the village called Siniy Kamen and uttered the spells to the families there, then settled the magic onto himself.
Chapter 17
Matrona stumbled into the wood, blinded by the surge of secrets flooding her senses. She stubbed her shoe on a root; a twisting hornbeam branch snagged her braid. She tripped and weaved through the trees until she reached the children’s glade and collapsed at its edge, breathing hard. Slava hadn’t followed her haphazard path. No footsteps dropped behind her. In fact, there was hardly any sound at all. Even the glade was eerily absent of laughter.
The sun shined brightly in the glade, but shivers coursed up and down Matrona’s body. Russia. The word was foreign, yet familiar. She blinked away the face of Tsar Nicholas II, of Pavel. Sacred heavens, Pavel! And Oleg! Revolutionaries? Rebels?
She swallowed against a dry throat and gasped for air, her heart pounding hard in her chest. The images summoned by the third doll . . . snow and thunder, marching feet and the younger face of her mother. Those were memories. Memories of this other place. Of Russia.
Pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes, Matrona took several deep breaths. The village, this village, existed somewhere else? Or it had, until they’d all been brought here by Slava’s hand. Because of Oleg and Pavel . . . No, because of Slava. Because he had feared what the tsar’s men would do to him. Because he hadn’t wanted to be alone.
“So you took us with you,” she whispered, lowering her hands, staring at the boulder in the glade as colored spots faded from her vision.
But how did she know? She hadn’t opened Slava’s doll, so why had his secrets flooded her mind? Had he opened it? But no, the tradesman had chased her from the doll room. Unless he had snatched up his doll before following her, he couldn’t have opened it at the exact moment she’d burst out the back door. That, and Matrona had searched for the tradesman’s—the mysticist’s—doll several times. If he had one, she knew it did not sit with the others.
She stiffened, then clambered to her feet, looking wildly into the wood behind her. Had someone followed her into Slava’s house? Found his doll and opened it? Or was this another spell entirely?
“Jaska?” she called into the wood. Only insects and starlings answered.
She stepped backward into the glade and turned around, searching for any lurking faces, straining to hear any sounds beyond the forest. Finding nothing, she gazed skyward, staring at the imprint of the wood grain against the blue. She took a few more steps, watching it, the brightness of the sun making her eyes water.
She knew where the edges of the doll were—the loops in the wood. Slava had mentioned teaching her about the loops. What did he know? How could she escape this place and go back to Russia? Back . . . home?
She paused, turning toward the village. If it was a doll spell that had spilled Slava’s secrets to her, then the others would all know the truth, too. Her parents, the Maysaks, Feodor and Luka and Pavel . . .
Grabbing a fistful of skirt, Matrona rushed for the village, taking the well-worn path from the glade. Her thoughts raced faster than her feet. Surely Slava hadn’t willingly revealed his secrets. If not him, who? And what would Pavel and Oleg do, knowing who they really were? Matrona could finally explain Roksana’s condition. Maybe, maybe, if she could get Roksana outside the loop, her mind would become whole again.
She slowed after the wood opened up to the village, not far from the school where Roksana taught. Smoke wafted from a few chimneys. The bleating of sheep sounded far to the east. Baked bread scented the breeze.
Matrona scanned the village, unease churning in her gut. Something was amiss, but she couldn’t determine what. Clenching her fists, she walked toward the village center, casting glances in the
direction of Slava’s home. What should she do if he appeared? Demand he tell her the mystery of the loops, or run?
She neared Zhanna’s home. Laundry hung from the clothesline. A half-filled basket of damp clothes sat unattended beneath it. The next izba’s front door had been left open. Matrona knotted her fingers together as she approached the Grankins’ potato farm. Their best labor horse was hooked up to the plow, without a driver. A stray goat slipped through the fence in search of something to eat, dragging its rope leash behind it.
Matrona paused.
She was alone.
No villagers. No Zhanna, no Georgy. She could see the Kalagin izba from where she stood. It appeared empty.
Stomach tightening, Matrona changed direction and followed the goat across the potato farm, leaving footprints in the plowed rows. Her family’s cow pasture lay across the path. The cows chewed on cud or swatted flies with their tails. Hurrying through the gate, Matrona came around to the back door of her house and called, “Mama? Papa?”
No answer.
She hurried past the milk barrels and into the kitchen. “Mama?” The front room was empty, and she checked both bedrooms to no avail. Her palms and the ridges of her spine began to sweat. What have you done with them, Slava?
Backtracking, Matrona cut through the front room toward the door. Her toe hit something, sending it rolling across the floor. A marble or a stone, she thought, but her eyes glimpsed yellow and gray.
Pausing, Matrona bent over to pick up the item and gasped.
In her hand, no longer than her pinky finger, was a wooden doll painted to look just like her mother, albeit a couple decades younger.
“Mama?” Matrona whispered. The details were vague, but she recognized her mother’s face, nonetheless. She drew her thumbnail over the doll’s center, searching for a seam, but she found none. This doll didn’t open.
Matrona felt the weight of Slava’s hand on her shoulder as though he stood in the room with her. “Five,” he had said.
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