Slowly, still coasting, I crane my neck around.
A silhouette made of black leather fills the backseat. The stranger is sitting quietly, out of place in a full motorcycle helmet. A moan forms deep in my chest as he reaches up with both gloved hands and deliberately tugs off his chin strap.
My foot off the accelerator, the cruiser slows.
I can’t make myself look away.
Long fingers lift the scratched-up helmet. Silver-blond hair spills out over the man’s shoulders. Delicate features appear on skin so pale it’s nearly translucent. His cheekbones are high and arrogant below sapphire eyes, teeth as white as bathroom tile. His skin is too perfect, without wrinkles or blemishes—a flawless beauty that gives him the appearance of a doll come to life.
Seeing my reaction, the thing stretches its grotesquely perfect face into the shape of an amused smile. “Hello, June,” he says.
10
SAINT PETERSBURG, 1725
My world ends in the predawn light of February 8, 1725. In a final moment, the great bellows of Peter’s lungs push the last breath past his lips. His massive head is tilted on the pillow, eyes closed, a relieved expression on his face for the first time I can remember.
He hid the illness. Our emperor hid the illness until it was too late.
Elena and I did not arrive in time. The empress was already beside him, in her nightgown. Watching her rise from Peter’s bedside, I sense she has already maneuvered into position. A handful of her guards have accompanied her into the room, armed and clad in full armor. Outside the bedroom window, I hear the hoarse shouts of the imperial guard regiments, echoing against the stone courtyard. They have already been summoned to the capital and massed near the palace.
Over his chest, Peter holds a piece of parchment on which he has scrawled “I leave all to—”
He never finished the sentence. I am not sure the emperor truly believed he was capable of dying, having never failed at anything in life.
I put a hand protectively over Elena’s shoulder. Together, we served the great man. Yet we never contemplated owing allegiance to this woman.
Catherine looks up from the corpse. She has one palm over Peter’s still chest. Her hair is wet with tears, the brown locks hanging limply over Peter’s face. Under sharp black eyebrows, her face buckles with anguish and anger.
“You…abominations,” she says. “Did you know he was sick? Did you say nothing?”
“No, Empress,” I say, my deep voice thrumming from the cavern of my chest. “I am the Word.”
“Pravda? You are not pravda, you poor thing. You are a blasphemy. Peter was deceived into calling you an eternal tsar. Tricked by that scheming mechanician.”
I tap Elena on the shoulder and she understands immediately. Find Favo. The girl scurries toward the door.
“Stop her!” shouts Catherine, climbing over Peter’s body. “Don’t let either of them leave.”
At the door, one of the guards snatches Elena by the hair. Her wig comes off, and she struggles as he grabs hold of her with both hands. I cannot act outside my honor, and the guards serve royal blood. My duty is to the emperor, and in his absence, the empress. I can only watch as the man gathers the small machine into a bear hug and pins her thrashing against his armored cuirass.
The shouts of the guard regiments are growing louder outside.
“Do you hear that?” asks Catherine. She is smiling at me, her small canines flashing. “My guard has rallied to me. Peter wished for me to succeed him. His wife. Not you. Not a soulless version of himself.”
I hear a crack as something snaps inside Elena. She is not struggling as hard now. Her cloak is pulled up around her face and her thin brass legs are swinging, kicking uselessly, wooden heels scraping against the floor. I feel a sweep of anger and sadness inside my chest.
My sister.
Nothing I can do is within pravda. For I am the Word. And I will be broken before the Word is.
“Please,” I say to the empress.
“Our father is dead,” shout the guard who are mobbed outside, faint voices booming from the palace walls. “But our mother lives.”
Catherine smiles wider.
Elena’s whalebone ribs are snapping. Gears are grinding against bone and wood. The girl whimpers, and I know she may only have moments left before the damage is irreparable.
Pravda.
“How will you honor us?” I ask Catherine. “Will you obey Peter’s wishes?”
Catherine slips a strap of her falling nightgown back over her shoulder with one thumb, climbing off her husband’s bed. She strides to me and stops only when her anger-pinched face is inches below mine. Wild dark hair stripes her forehead and her nostrils quiver with each breath.
“Honor you?” asks Catherine. “I am not even sorry for you. You must be destroyed—”
A stated intention to break pravda is enough.
I step back and reach out with my right arm, gauntleted knuckles crunching into the face of the guardsman who holds Elena. The flimsy nose squashes beneath my fist and his head knocks against the wall. Elena lands scrambling on the ground as the man crumples, unconscious. I can already feel my sister tugging at my cloak.
“What!?” shouts Catherine. “What have you done?”
Our father is dead.
Catherine is too close to me. I could kill her with a swipe of my hand. She knows this. The other guardsmen in the room watch us closely, hands on hilts. Four of them, ringing the walls. I hear the slow grind of a blade leaving its sheath and I shake my head. The sound stops and they wait for my move.
But our mother still lives.
Catherine will be the empress of all Russia. I shall not harm her—cannot harm her—and yet to honor my duty to Peter…I cannot allow my death, or Elena’s.
I take a step back, my full height perfectly fitting the enlarged doorway to Peter’s bedroom. In light mesh armor and kaftan, I look uncannily like the dead man lying across the room—as I was designed to.
Elena has repositioned her hair. Hunched and damaged, she stands at my side. Her small cool hand locks onto mine.
“By Peter’s command, we will live, Empress,” I say. “We cannot accept death, but, please, for Peter’s honor…allow us to accept exile.”
And with that, we fly.
11
OREGON, PRESENT
The man with an angel’s face is staring at me from the backseat, smiling patiently. The police cruiser continues to coast along the damp highway, my hands welded to the steering wheel. I can’t turn my eyes away from the fascinating wrongness sitting behind me.
My mind is struggling to figure out what is the matter with him. Something hideous in the way his skin folds. An unnatural stillness to his body. The dead light behind his dark blue eyes.
“It’s not polite to stare,” he says conversationally.
His voice is tinged with a Nordic accent, cultured and European. A soft whirring pulses underneath it—the phantom of a whisper. As he reaches for the Plexiglas divider, every instinct in my body is screaming at me to get away from this…this thing.