“Do you think we are going to Moscow, Papa?” Maria asked. “That’s what one of the guards told me.”

“Could be,” he said, absentmindedly.

“Who will look after the dogs?” Anastasia worried out loud.

There was a long pause before Olga replied. “I expect they will be sent on with our luggage. There’s probably no room in the cars.”

Most of the time they stayed silent, apart from the cleaning girl’s sniffling. Maria was listening for engine noise outside that would signal the arrival of their transport. Why was it taking so long? Where was Tatiana?

There was no mistaking the sound of the truck when it arrived. The engine roared, making the windowpane rattle behind its stout bars.

The door opened and they saw a group of men standing behind Yurovsky. Maria spotted Anatoly Bolotov and her heart sank. Was he traveling with them?

Yurovsky stepped forward, holding a sheet of paper, from which he began to read. “In view of the fact that your relatives in Europe continue their assault on Soviet Russia, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet has sentenced you to be shot . . .”

Maria’s mind went blank and she heard a rushing sound in her ears. The men had fanned out around him. Bolotov was staring at her, and she got the impression he was gloating.

“What?” her father asked. “What?”

Dr. Botkin sounded incredulous. “So you’re not taking us anywhere?”

“I don’t understand. Read it again,” Maria’s father said.

Yurovsky read from the paper in his hand, his tone level as if he were reciting a shopping list. “Tsar Nicholas Romanov, guilty of countless bloody crimes against the people, should be shot.”

They were going to shoot her father. Maria crossed herself, and out of the corner of her eye saw her mother and sisters doing the same. And then it all happened fast. Yurovsky pulled out a gun, the other men did the same, and there were flashes of light and a deafening sound that ricocheted around the room. Nicholas staggered and fell heavily to the floor, but still guns were firing, and that was when Maria realized they were shooting them all. They couldn’t be. It made no sense. But they were.

She dived toward the double doors at the back of the room, heart thumping, chest so tight she couldn’t breathe. She grabbed the handles and rattled them with all her strength, but they were locked and wouldn’t budge. She heard screaming and smelled the acrid tang of gunpowder, recognizing it from her father’s hunting trips. She couldn’t think straight. The only way out would be to run past the men, get around behind them, but she would never make it. Where was her mother? Where were Olga and Anastasia?