December 5, 1911. 23:45 PM.
Tsarevich's Private Quarters, Winter Palace. Saint Petersburg.
The silence in the imperial family's private wing was different from the rest of the Palace. It wasn't the respectful silence of ministerial corridors, nor the fearful silence of guard antechambers. It was a silence created not to wake a sick child. The carpets were thicker here since door hinges were greased weekly with whale oil, and pendulum clocks had been banished to avoid the tick-tock marking hours of insomnia.
Alexei closed his bedroom door with a soft click, turning the bronze key twice.
Only then, in the absolute security of solitude, did he allow himself to collapse.
Like someone had cut the cables keeping a marionette upright.
His knees gave way, hitting the Persian Isfahan carpet. His back slid down the door's wood until he sat on the floor, legs stretched unnaturally and head falling back against the panel.
The adrenaline, that marvelous drug that had allowed him to confront Rasputin at noon, convince Sikorsky at dawn, and challenge Moscow industrialists in the afternoon, had evaporated. And what it left behind was a residue of pure exhaustion.
"Shit..." Alexei murmured in English, his previous life's language.
The word sounded strange in his seven-year-old mouth, a blasphemy in Holy Russia's heart.
The pain came in waves.
He closed his eyes and saw the map of Europe burning.
He had won battles today. Yes. He had expelled the mad monk. He had recruited Einstein. He had saved the textile industry by releasing a patent. In any normal life, it would be an entire career's achievement.
But Thomas knew it wasn't enough.
H&A Holdings wasn't just a bank; this was the manifestation of twentieth-century predatory capitalism. If he closed Russia's door to them, they would enter through Turkey's window, or finance Japan, or arm the Germans. World War I was approaching like a locomotive without brakes. 1914. Less than three years away.
Had he done enough? Or had he simply changed the scenery of the stage where everyone was going to die anyway? After all these changes, would Hitler be good or bad?
He looked at his hands. Small, white hands, without calluses. Pianist's hands, or prince's. He hated these hands. He hated this body's weakness.
In his mind, he was a twenty-six-year-old man, strong, capable of running, of fighting. But he was trapped in this porcelain cage that bruised if someone squeezed his arm too hard.
"It's too big..." he murmured to the empty room, where golden icons looked at him from the corner with expressionless Byzantine eyes. "Stupidity is too powerful in a world of madmen."
He brought his hands to his face. He wanted to cry, but in his previous life he frequently didn't cry. Engineers don't cry; they solve problems even when they've spent the greatest amount of all their tears.
A soft knock at the door.
Alexei tensed. He quickly wiped his face with his sailor blouse sleeve. He adopted his mask.
"Who is it?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound firm.
"It's me, Alyosha. Olga."
His older sister.
"I'm sleeping, Olya. Tomorrow."
There was a pause on the other side of the wood.
"I know you're not sleeping," the soft voice said. "I heard you fall. Open up, please. Or I'll call Mama."
That was the threat she frequently used. If she called Alexandra, there would be doctors, hysteria, prayers, and soup for a week.
He knew quite well that although he had never had hemophilia, it was still possible to develop it under the Empress's perspective.
Alexei sighed and dragged himself to remove the bolt. He had no strength to stand up. He opened the door from the floor and returned to his corner.
Olga Nikolaevna entered.
At sixteen years old, Grand Duchess Olga had the Romanovs' classic beauty, but her eyes possessed great melancholy, a sad intelligence that made her seem older than her age. She wore a white lace nightgown and a blue velvet robe, with dark hair loose over her shoulders.
She said nothing upon seeing the Heir to the Throne lying on the floor like a broken doll. She carefully closed the door. She left the candle she brought on the dresser. And then, ignoring any protocol or concern for her clothes, she sat on the carpet beside him.
She didn't ask what was wrong. She didn't touch his forehead to see if he had a fever.
She simply stayed there, in silence, shoulder to shoulder. Her presence smelled of lavender and rose soap.
Five minutes passed. The only sound was wind striking the Winter Palace's double windows.
"Today you fired a Prince," Olga finally said, looking toward the ceiling painted with cherubs. "And you made Mama cry, though later she said they were tears of joy. And Tatiana says you gave away a patent worth millions to some Moscow merchants."
Alexei rested his head on his knees.
"It was necessary."
"I'm not saying it wasn't," Olga said. "I'm just saying... it's a lot of work for a Tuesday."
Alexei let out a short, dry laugh that sounded more like a sob.
"Someone has to do it, Olya. Papa can't. Papa is good, but he thinks if he prays enough to the Almighty, problems will disappear. And the ministers... they're old. They only want nothing to change until they die."
"And that's why you have to do it?" she asked, turning her head to look at him.
"If I don't do it, we'll die."
He didn't say it as childish hyperbole. He said it with the certainty of someone who has read his own obituary in history books. Ipatiev House. Basement. July 1918.
Olga felt that phrase's coldness. She was the most perceptive of the sisters. She had noticed the changes in Alexei since he was a baby. He wasn't just smarter than many boys his age.
"Sometimes you scare me, Alyosha," she confessed in a murmur.
Alexei turned abruptly, with panic in his eyes. "Scare?"
"Not fear that you'll hurt me," she quickly clarified, taking his hand. "Fear for you. You talk like a man who has seen too many wars, like uncles as well as other veterans of past wars. You make plans no child should understand, you know many things that... I don't know how you know."
She squeezed his hand. Her fingers were long and elegant, but had strength.
"Who are you, Alyosha?" she asked.
Alexei felt the temptation. The terrible temptation to tell her everything.
'I'm a time traveler. I come from the year 2024. I know we're going to lose the war. I know they're going to murder us in a few years. I know you wrote sad poems in your diary until the last day...'
The truth was on the tip of his tongue.
But he looked at her. He saw her innocence, despite her intelligence, if he told her the future, he would rob her of hope. He would condemn her to live with the terror of a deadline. It would be an unforgivable act of cruelty to a person, the mere fact of knowing exactly the day of your death could break her way of being.
"I'm your brother," Alexei said, and it wasn't a lie. "I'm just... different. I had a dream, Olya. A very long dream while I was sick. I saw what would happen if we didn't change. And I can't let it happen."
Olga studied him. She accepted the answer, understanding it was all she was going to receive.
"You're tired of being the adult, aren't you?" she said.
"I'm exhausted," Alexei admitted, and his voice broke. The tears he had held back all day finally overflowed, hot. "I don't know if I can do it, Olya. There are too many, those bureaucrats, the Germans, the revolutionaries. Every time I plug one hole, three more open. And I'm alone."
"You're not alone," Olga said firmly.
She pulled him and wrapped him in her arms. Alexei resisted a moment, but then surrendered. He let himself be embraced, and rested his head on his sister's velvet shoulder and cried.
He cried for his past life, that he would never again see a jet plane or internet. He cried for Misha, the boy from the burned train. He cried for the childhood he never had and would never have in either of his two lives.
Olga rocked him gently, humming a Russian lullaby, an ancient melody about a gray wolf who comes to bite the side of children who don't sleep. 'I'll keep the wolf away.'
"Listen to me, little strategist," Olga whispered in his ear. "You don't have to save Russia tonight. Russia will still be here tomorrow. The factories will still be stopped. The English will still be angry. But tonight... tonight you're just Alexei."
"I have to review Tsiolkovsky's reports..."
"No," she cut him off. "Tonight you're going to sleep. And I'll stay here until you close your eyes. And if you have nightmares, I'll wake you."
Alexei felt the tension in his muscles beginning to dissolve. His sister's lavender scent was more potent than any anxiolytic.
"Thank you, Olya," he murmured, his eyelids weighing tons.
"Shh. Sleep."
Olga helped her brother get up from the floor. He was so light... She put him in bed under the feather comforter.
Alexei curled up in fetal position. For the first time in months, his mind stopped thinking... darkness enveloped him, this was the warm, safe darkness of home.
Olga sat in the armchair next to the bed. She took a book from the nightstand, an advanced metallurgy treatise Alexei had been reading, and set it aside with a sad smile.
"Good night, my little emperor," she murmured to the semi-darkness.
She stayed there, watching his breathing, a guardian in a lace nightgown defending the sleep of the child who held the world.