45

I stiffened, fearing Anya would do as she had done the first time she saw him at the tsarytsya’s table. Run at him, claws out, snarling.

But she took one look at Aleksei’s face, streaked with tears, pale with horror, and rushed to his side. “What’s wrong?” Her hand was tense on his arm.

“Don’t,” he groaned, pulling away. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Aleksei?” Cobie sat up, voice cautious. “What happened?”

Anya’s brother wiped his eyes on his sleeve. I could hear his teeth grinding in his mouth. “The little pestykk—the children,” he said. “What happened tonight—”

“You mean forcing children to beat one another senseless?” Cobie said sharply. “That’s your job, Rankovyy. You were so proud of it before.”

“I wasn’t,” Aleksei said, shaking his head. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, as if he’d been drinking or crying, or perhaps both. Aleksei convulsed, then dashed for the scraps bucket in the corner, evacuating his stomach in low, choking gasps.

He was a horrible sight.

Anya bit her lip as he sat beside her on the hearth. “Why, Aleksei? Why did you take the position?”

“To prove I belonged here,” he said. “Because if I don’t belong here, I don’t belong anywhere.”

Aleksei had set out, as I had, unwanted at home, as I had been. He had thought he knew what to expect at Stupka-Zamok, as I had.

We’d both had our expectations set afire before our eyes.

“It wasn’t your idea to make the children fight, was it?” Anya began, uncertain. “If you didn’t propose it, then it’s not your—”

“No.” Aleksei cut her off swiftly. “I didn’t. But don’t make excuses for me, Anya. I’m guilty. I’m sick to death at myself.” He passed a hand over his dark hair, tugging the white band off his brow and looking as if he wished to toss it into the flames.

“You chose which children would fight,” I said. I tried to keep the accusation from my voice, but we had witnessed a horror.

Aleksei nodded, eyes on the bricks. “She had told me I had to. I tried—” He broke off, and I feared he’d retch again. “I hoped it’d be like sparring at home. I chose two friends. I hoped they’d be gentler with each other. Fairer. But this place ruins everything.”

“You tried,” Anya whispered.

It was strange to see Anya so changed in the space of a few hours. But if the Asgard siblings fought hard, they forgave quickly—especially if one of them was in pain.

But Aleksei refused to be comforted. “No. I knew. I knew it wouldn’t be like home,” he said, wincing at some invisible pain. “You tried to tell me what this place would be like. What kind of childhood Pappa spared me. What I’d be joining, if I joined them. And I could’ve stood up to her. I could have said no.”

Home. Pappa.

His heart was in Asgard again, as mine had been all along.

“So leave,” I said in a low voice. “Leave this place. You aren’t a prisoner. You can go home if you want.”

Aleksei smiled pityingly. “Ever the hopeful one, Selah.”

“Now is not the time to feel sorry for yourself,” Cobie snapped. Then she closed her eyes, softening ever so slightly. “I’m sorry. But you have freedom here. You can walk around unquestioned. You can get word to your father. You can get us out of here.”

“Pappa will take you back,” Anya urged him. “He’ll just be glad to have you home.”

“At the very least, he’ll take your information,” Cobie added. “You speak Yotne. I’m sure you’ve learned things here worth bargaining with.”

Aleksei raised his eyebrows, wry. “And, Cobie, ever the whimsical optimist.”

Yotne. My mind worked slowly, then stilled. “You speak Yotne!”

I dashed away to the laundry, hearing Aleksei’s question and Anya’s murmured explanation as I scrabbled for our dictionary and paper. But once I laid hands on them, I paused.

Could we really trust Aleksei?

He mourned the events of the night; that, I believed. But would he get over his tears tomorrow? Would he change his mind as abruptly as he had so many times before?

Would we come to regret putting our faith in Torden’s most unpredictable brother?

I forced the thoughts away. We had few enough allies here. We couldn’t afford to question each other.

When I returned with the paper, Aleksei was waiting.

“Tell me what you make of this,” I said.

Aleksei studied our translation, squinting once or twice at Anya’s rendering, pale fingers a little shaky around the paper. “Where did you get this?” he asked, tone bare with shock.

“Some papers in her room. What are the numbers?” I blurted. “Did we translate the words right?”

“More or less. I think—” Aleksei frowned, pushing a hand through his black hair. “But it doesn’t make any sense.” Quickly, we explained the route we’d taken from Yotne to Deutsch via the dictionary, then from Deutsch to English with Cobie’s help.

“And where did you get the—” He froze, seeing the volume in my hand. “Did you get the dictionary from her room, as well?”

I nodded, and he let out a slow breath.

“I need to think. Do some investigation of my own. But the tsarytsya will certainly know the book is missing,” he said. “You can’t be found with it, and you can’t risk returning it. You have to destroy it.”

Everything in me revolted at the idea. “What? No!”

Cobie and Anya exchanged a glance. “Selah, maybe we should,” Anya said tentatively.

“You cannot be found with this in your possession,” Aleksei said forcefully. “It is illegal property, and it is proof that the tsarytsya ignores her own law. She would put you to death without a second thought, regardless of whatever game she’s playing with you.”

My hands shook as they ran over its cover, an unfortunate mustard yellow, water-stained and spotted with age. But it was the only book I’d held in months. Just having it near had given me strength and comfort.

“I can’t even read it.” Tears sprang into my eyes. “But it felt like an advantage. Like a little bit of power to wield against all of hers.”

“That’s why she’s banned them.” Aleksei’s voice was dark. “If you have knowledge, you feel powerful, and you are powerful.”

“It made me think of another world,” I said, dragging my wrist across my eyes. “A place apart from her. That’s what’s anathema to her.”

No God but her. No story but the one she chose to tell. No world but the one she had built. And the poor little volume in my hand undermined it all.

Aleksei squeezed my elbow but didn’t speak. His mouth was a thin line in his bone-white, bone-thin face.

I thrust the book at him. “Here. I—can’t,” I said. “I know I should, but I can’t.”

Aleksei gave me a grim look, took the dictionary, and tossed it into the oven’s flames.

I wept silently as I watched it burn.

Anya hugged my head to her shoulder. “Don’t look, kultaseni. Don’t look at it.”

Kultaseni. She’d used the word before. She’d told us it meant “sweetheart” or “dear” in Suomi. Not quite elskede—“my love,” in Norsk.

Torden had called me that. Elskede.

The word had warmed me then. But it was a fire inside me now. I drew near it to keep from freezing.