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I realize I’m trotting after him. I want to stop, because that feels sycophantic, especially when he’s trying to do something nice like carrying a saddle I don’t need him to carry for me, but I also want to hear what he’s saying. “What did you think of him?”

“His dad was crazy, I think.” Alexei drops the saddles on their racks like they weigh nothing. “Certifiably, I mean. Mentally ill. I think that’s what Aleksandr said people say now.”

“It is.”

“He wasn’t well, that’s for sure. They were starving. I don’t know all the details, but Boris’s little sister, Katerina, found him first. She said he was starving, and she took him in. At first she really liked him, and they spent several years studying and spending a lot of time together—he was educated and fed by her family. Later they had some kind of fight.”

“And?”

“That’s when he started pushing for things. Demanding things. Most of it happened with her family, but after they had a permanent falling out, he came to my father. He made some petitions, aggressive petitions, and when Dad refused them. . .”

“You’re not sure what happened next?”

Alexei shakes his head. “Not entirely, no. It was a turbulent time, and Dad was trying to keep up with the social tornado that was sweeping through Russia. I think part of the force behind that wind might have been Leonid.”

“But what does that have to do with—”

Alexei grimaces. “Boris’s sister, Katerina, really liked me. I think Leonid liked her, and since he was around after we were all cursed, I imagine he made a few changes to the history book’s records.”

“You think he made it look like you were sickly?”

Alexei shrugs. “I’ve seen dumber things happen.”

So have I.

It’s the historical equivalent of drawing a mustache on the face of a movie star on a poster. “I think that may tell us more about Leonid than it does about anything else.”

“Interestingly, people are very confused about Rasputin. I couldn’t believe they thought he was a magician. I saw some reports that he was an evil mastermind.” He chuckles. “That guy was a real weirdo.”

“I did hear that he was magician. I thought it might be true, especially once I realized you guys are magic.”

“Hardly,” Alexei says. “He was quite talented with healing, especially for rare, difficult cases. Dad’s cousin actually had a bleeding condition, and he’s the one we brought Rasputin to court to treat. Once, my mom stormed into his room to yell at him about something and he was wearing a woman’s ball gown and posing in front of the mirror.”

Catching him up on current medical stuff and politics is going to be a whole thing, apparently. “He might have just been a little misunderstood.”

Alexei shrugs. “Maybe, but the gown was Mother’s, and she was not the slightest bit pleased to find that he had taken it.”

I suppose she wouldn’t be.

“Are you ready to start our training?” Alexei asks.

I nod. “Thanks for helping me today.”

“I love riding,” Alexei says.

“It’s too bad I can’t turn into a horse then,” I say.

He laughs. “It really is.”

“You’re both here.” Kristiana breezes into the stables like she owns the place—which I suppose she does. Alexei must’ve seen her coming, because he’s already ducked into a stall, and he tosses his clothes over the side of the wall. I can’t help swallowing and turning away—but the image of him naked still flashes through my mind. I shake my head to clear it. The last thing I need to be thinking about is Alexei without clothes.

The very, very last.

When he bumps the door with his big, dark grey nose, pushing it open and walking out, one of the grooms at the end of the walkway startles. I grab a halter and swing it over his head.

Quicksilver snorts.

I do not expect Grigoriy, Mirdza, and Kristiana to all be loitering along the side of the track while we’re warming up. Once Quicksilver’s really puffing, I pull him up short along the fence line. “What’s with the audience? You planning to do this every day for the next three weeks?”