eight

Alexei

He heard a soft thud behind him.

"What on earth—?"

He turned around, and found the boy sagging against the door, his face deathly pale. Alexei had just enough time to catch him before he slid to the floor in a half-swoon.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked in a fierce whisper.

The boy's eyes were open wide in terror, and a fine sheen of sweat clung to his brow. His shoulders stooped in Alexei's strong grip, and he was barely breathing.

"Hey! Are you all right?"

The boy was barely breathing, his lips turning white.

"This is ridiculous," Alexei sighed, as he saw the boy's eyes roll back in his head.

He tried to support him before he fell on the door and betrayed their presence, and knelt with him on the carpet. The boy's eyes opened almost immediately, and he gasped for breath, struggling to remain conscious.

"For heaven's sake, I just fed you," Alexei said through clenched teeth. "Didn't you literally just consume the entire breakfast table less than five minutes ago? Why are you fainting now? What is it? Breathe, damn you."

The boy tried to inhale, but he seemed unable to move, gripped in a state of horrified terror.

"I cann—I can't breathe—"

"Come on," Alexei bit out, beginning to be afraid himself now too. "Come on now."

He helped the boy to a seated position on the floor, suddenly alarmed.

His skin felt clammy and cold.

"What is it?" he asked again, in a different voice. He looked into the boy's huge eyes and felt his heart stop. The boy was terrified beyond reason.

What in all hell could it be that caused him such unspeakable horror?

"Tell me what you need," Alexei said quietly, but the boy was not breathing again.

He was turning blue—he couldn't move or speak. His chest did not move. He looked as if he were about to die. Alexei prided himself on never being frightened—unless he absolutely had to—but he was about to lose his mind.

He shook the boy's brittle frame.

"Breathe," he hissed. "Come on, inhale. Get some air in those lungs. Come on."

The boy took a shuddering, shallow breath, and Alexei rubbed his back. The boy gasped, and looked ready to burst into tears. His face turned from white to red.

"Yer lordship," he tried to say, still panting for breath. "I saw…It can't be true…No no no…" He couldn't draw enough air; he was choking on pure fear.

"Stop that," Alexei said, his eyes fixed into the green ones of the urchin. He let the door close softly behind them and waited like that, seated on the floor, the boy between his bent legs. In a moment, the boy could breathe normally again. "Stop talking, stop thinking. Look at me. Look at me."

The boy did; his eyes were all pupil and no green.

"Can you stand up?" Alexei asked. He helped the boy stand on shaky legs. His heart was racing, and he had no idea why. "Better?" he asked, and the boy nodded, not looking at him.

"Excuse me, Yer Lordship," he mumbled. "I'm all aflutter an I—"

"We'll have none of that, stop it," Alexei interrupted him fiercely. "What happened to you to make you stop breathing? What did you see in there?"

"N—nothing, I…"

"Tell me," Alexei commanded. "Are you in danger?"

The boy stood there, stubbornly mute. Alexei pressed on, he repeated the question.

The boy shook his head, shaking like a leaf. He still had a hard time breathing.

Alexei pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Tell me what you need," he murmured.

"Leave," the boy replied, taking a shuddering breath. His eyes shifted from the floor to the stairs. Alexei had seen frightened people in his lifetime; a lot of them. He had even been one of them as a child. Yet he had never seen such pure, unadulterated fear as what he saw on the boy's face. "I need to leave."

Alexei looked the little frame of the boy up and down carefully.

"Fine," he said. "Go then. But Wilder shall follow you, in case anyone thinks to set on you again."

The boy did not reply but turned on his heel, running blindly up the stairs.

The ‘boy'.

Finally, Alexei thought, I know what is wrong with you.

…

He took Wilder aside.

Wilder was back at his position by the door, looking sullen and in pain. There were dark purple bruises forming all around his neck, like a grotesque necklace on his flawless mahogany skin. Alexei grit his teeth.

It's because of me he nearly died, he thought.

Well, it was because of Prince Nikolaos. But whose job was it to keep Nikolaos safe, tucked away in a secret chamber within the safe walls of the Underworld? Alexei's. And he had failed. He was failing Nikolaos just as he had failed Peter and Valentine.

Well, he had helped Valentine in the end. But he had done very little—Valentine had saved the day himself.

"Are you all right?" Alexei asked Wilder as he approached him.

The boy was already limping away from the club, into the pale, gray daylight of London's streets.

"No," Wilder replied. "And neither are you. The assassins won't stop coming until the prince is dead, you know that, right?"

"I do," Alexei replied. "That will never happen."

Wilder shrugged. "As you say, my lord," he said, his voice thick with mockery.

"Might I impose on you," Alexei replied, in much the same tone, "to follow that boy? I promised him protection as he once again attempts to make his way safely through the streets of London all alone."

"Imbecile," Wilder observed.

"Quite so," Alexei agreed. "At one point, the lad will ask you to leave him alone. Do so, but keep following him closely. If he runs into danger, intervene at once, don't waste a second. If not, which I consider much less likely, see where he lives and come back here at once to report it to me."

"Right you are, m' lord," Wilder said, in a tone meant to annoy Alexei. "I'll follow the little lad, never you worry." Then he turned serious. "It's not for me to ask, sir, but why on earth would your lordship concern yourself with the fortunes of a sad boy like that?"

"Enough with the questions," Alexei raised an eyebrow. "I don't pay you to question, Wilder, but to protect. Now go. Protect."

"I apologize, my lord."

"You do no such thing. But go, he is disappearing."

"I shall be on the boy's heels, never you worry, Mikailoff," Wilder said, and he was off.

Alexei stood after him, staring.

Finally, he called me Mikailoff, he thought. That's a small victory.

The skies began to weep a light, chilling rain.

"That's the thing, you see," Alexei said to Wilder's retreating back, even though he was out of earshot already. "The boy is not a boy at all."