At some point, the aides leave. The room doesn’t have any windows, so I’m surprised when I look at the clock and it’s almost nine. Most of the motion on the maps has stopped. Not all the volki have been rounded up, and there are problems besides them, but it’s not a bad day’s work.
We sit in silence and watch. I feel wrung out from the day, from the heart-stopping terror that started it to its long, slow descent into tedium. Not with a bang but with a whimper, that kind of thing.
But Kostya’s okay, I think. Everything could have gone so much worse.
All day, in the back of my mind, I’ve been replaying the morning. The meeting, the vodka, Kostya running. The explosion, horrifyingly silent on the screen, flames expanding and then blackening into a column of greasy smoke.
A few blips on the monitors move, but nothing noteworthy.
I think of Kostya saying I just wanted to tell you.
I swallow hard and fight tears.
He knew he might die, I think. The thought makes me nauseous, even though right now he’s at the hospital, visiting Pavel. It looks like Pavel’s going to pull through, so that’s good.
“What’s that?” Yelena asks, pointing at the screen.
There’s one blue dot, an official car, making its way along the seaside road and toward the palace.
“Sung here,” I say into my headset. “Who’s driving toward the palace in a government vehicle?”
There’s a second of silence, then Kostya’s voice.
“Niko and I,” he says.
My toes tingle. Yelena looks over at me. I try not to smile and fail miserably.
“You mind if we come in?” he asks.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I say.
“How many more times do I get to use because I’m the King?” he asks.
“Zero, and it was a bullshit reason in the first place,” I say, but I’m smiling.
Yelena’s looking at me. I clear my throat.
“Drive safe,” I say to Kostya, and my headset goes quiet.
Yelena looks forward and bites her lip.
Say something. Just say something.
I take off my headset, then reach over and switch hers off. She looks at me.
“I’m sorry about Kostya,” I say.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m sorry for. All they did was attend official events together. They weren’t dating. Kostya never even asked her out himself, it was always his father.
All I did was start sleeping with someone who had been in the company of another woman. I don’t think he and Yelena ever kissed.
But I still feel like I’ve done something cruel, because I think Yelena might have had higher hopes for her and Kostya.
She looks down.
“Thank you,” she says. She taps her finger on the console. “In hindsight, I don’t think it was going to work even if you hadn’t come along.”
No, I think.
“It was my father’s idea to begin with, and Kostya can be very stubborn,” she says. “He was nice to me, and I confused that with liking me.”
“I’ve made that mistake before,” I say. “God, have I made that mistake.”
“It’s an easy mistake,” she says, and I just nod. She looks at the screen, where Kostya’s car is getting close.
“I’ll stay here in case something happens,” she says. “Go say hello.”
“You’re sure?”
“Go,” Yelena says.
I don’t ask again.
Chapter Forty
Kostya
I hit the button on the SUV’s console and the gate slides open, my headlights shining through to the dark shrubbery behind. Niko and I are silent. I think we’ve said everything we have to say to each other, and now we’re just out of words.
The palace is up ahead, and in front of it, a roundabout with a fountain in the middle. There’s a person sitting on the edge of the fountain, and as we approach, she stands, squinting into the headlights, her arms folded across her chest.
I smile like a moron. Niko glances at me and then almost smiles.
“She’s good for you, you know,” he says.
“I know,” I say.
I stop the car in front of Hazel. She shades her eyes against the headlights so I cut them and we both get out.
“I’ll walk,” Niko calls.
He nods at Hazel.
“Good work today,” he says.
“You too,” she says, nodding back.
He disappears behind the fountain and then it’s just me and Hazel, standing in the driveway. She takes a deep breath.
“Are you fucking crazy?” she whispers.
“Maybe,” I say.
Then she’s in my arms, squeezing me as hard as she can. I’m holding her against me, her head right under my chin. I kiss her hair. She squeezes harder.
“What the hell,” she says.
I smile into her hair and don’t answer. It’s not a real question, anyway.
“And you wouldn’t even tell me,” she mutters.
“You would have tried to stop me,” I say into her hair.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “I was afraid someone would try to kill you. Which they fucking did.”
“I’m harder to kill than that,” I say. I stroke her hair, and she snuggles into me harder. “Even Pavel is harder to kill than that.”
I don’t say you’re safe and sound so it was worth it, because I know I’m not supposed to base huge decisions like this on one person who’s not even a citizen.
But I finally feel like I did something right, maybe for the first time since my father was killed. The volki are mostly rounded up. I’m in talks with the other side, and they’re reasonable people.
We’ll make progress. We’ll move forward.
Best of all, Hazel’s still here, in my arms, totally unhurt. For that, I’d face down ten more car bombs. Hell, twenty.
I don’t tell her that either.
We stay there for a long time, holding each other. Every so often I kiss her head or stroke her hair, but mostly I like being here, with her, even if we’re just standing still.
“I should go park the car,” I finally say, letting her hair slide between my fingers.
Hazel swallows.
“I love you,” she says.
I smile into her hair, even though she can’t see me.
“I know,” I murmur.
“I thought you were gonna die and I wasn’t going to get to tell you,” she whispers. “And I was so mad at you.”
“Are you still mad?”
“No,” she says. “Just don’t do that again.”
I pull back slightly and take her chin in my hand, tilting her face up.
“Zloyushka, that wasn’t the first dumb thing I did to protect you and it probably won’t be the last,” I say.
“Kostya, you don’t—”
“I didn’t do it because you’re fragile, or because you’re helpless, or because I think you can’t take care of yourself,” I say. “I did it because I love you, and I want to protect you, and you can’t say anything to change that.”
I kiss her before she speak again.