This chapter wasn't supposed to go up until tomorrow, but I was powerless against your reviews. Seriously, you guys are great. Cheers!

LISSA's POV

"Nathan, stop!" None of the three guardians in the car with me were paying any attention to my queenly commands. "We have to go back," I insisted. "We have to help!"

"With all due respect, Your Highness," Nathan told me, "we don't."

I turned to Tess on my left. "We can't leave them there," I begged.

She shared a sympathetic look with me. "Your safety is our top priority," she reminded me gently.

I knew it killed her and the two men in the car to run away from a fight. But that was what their training told them to do in a situation like this: leave their fellow dhampirs to fend for themselves and get the Moroi to safety. I mustered up a small smile for her and decided not to give my protectors a hard time about doing their job. And then I felt it.

I couldn't say what, exactly. Maybe it was a tiny thread of our bond still working. Maybe it was a sixth sense honed over a lifetime of friendship. Maybe it was some undiscovered ability of spirit. I didn't know, but what I did know was that Rose needed help.

"Rose!" I screamed her name and lunged for the door handle. Since I was sitting in the middle, that meant I had to go over Tess. She was so surprised I actually managed to get the door unlatched. But then Frank was jerking me back and Tess was locking the door.

"No!" I fought them with everything I had. Against two trained guardians, it wasn't nearly enough. "Stop the car! She's in trouble!" Unthinking panic swept over me and the only thought in my mind was to get to Rose. Suddenly I realized I had better methods of fighting. "Turn around," I commanded in a calm voice.

"Don't make eye contact with her," Nathan snapped. He kept his eyes firmly glued to the road. "She's trying to compel us."

If I had been able to look both Tess and Frank in the eye at the same time, I think I would have gotten through to them. But I had to turn away from one to look at the other, and I couldn't control them both. Especially not with Nathan fully aware of what I was doing.

He sped down the road, which was quickly becoming familiar. The gates to Court were just a few miles away. We'd been so close. I twisted around to watch out the back window. There was no sign of pursuit. No sign of Rose either.

"Lissa," Tess spoke carefully as she laid a hand on my shoulder, "we don't know yet that anything happened to them. It's almost dawn. As soon as the sun's up we'll go back and look."

"It doesn't matter," I told her. "It's too late."

Dimitri and Christian were waiting for the car at the entrance to Court. Nathan had called to let them know that we were forced to land and drive the rest of the way home, but there had been no time to contact them about the attack. As far as they knew, we'd had a quiet trip back. One look at my face let them know better.

"Are you alright?" Christian demanded, pulling me close.

I nodded and leaned into his chest, but it was Dimitri I was looking at. He scanned the car quickly and then looked at me, his face grave. All I could do was shake my head. The blood drained out of his face as he whirled back the way we had come. "Roza." he whispered.

"The queen is over reacting," Nathan said, giving me an apologetic look while clapping Dimitri on the shoulder. "Rose sprang a trap so that we could get through. That's all we know. She may be fine."

Dimitri didn't acknowledge him. He stood staring down the road, leaning slightly towards the gates as though he were being pulled out towards Rose. I imagined it was taking every fiber of his being to stop from running out there and looking for her. The only thing keeping me in place was knowing that if I took one step I'd have every guardian within 20 feet pinning me down.

"Your Highness," Nathan turned me towards the rest of Court, "we should go inside."

"No," I shook him off, "not until we hear from the others."

He stood there helplessly for a minute and then turned to Tess and Frank. "Assemble a team," he told them quietly. "As soon as it's light, we'll go back out."

They nodded and started for the guardian headquarters. The rest of us stayed frozen, paralyzed until we got news of what had happened. It seemed like years passed before anything changed. The sky was gradually lightening in the east, not enough for us to leave yet, but definitely a sign that the sun was coming. Then we heard a car approaching.

My heart leaped painfully in my chest. Of course Rose was fine. What had I been thinking? She'd come through much worse situations than this. She was invincible. I'd just convinced myself that everything was going to be okay when the car rounded the final bend. It wasn't the Porsche. It was the Subaru that Diane and Steve had taken. But that was okay. Rose had crashed the Porsche to get me home. Obviously she'd just hitched a ride back with the other guardians.

The car came to a stop and Mike got out of the driver's seat. "Jake's in bad shape," he announced, rushing to the backseat.

Diane's door opened slower and she climbed out painfully, her left side covered in blood and her arm hanging awkwardly. I glanced in the backseat and saw Jake leaning back with his eyes closed. The only color in his face was a bloody smear down his cheek. Steve was sitting beside him slumped over.

Nathan ran around the car to check on him, but when he opened the door Steve spilled out bonelessly. I stared at his body without taking it in at first. Why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't anyone checking his vital signs and whispering encouragement like they were with Jake? All at once it hit me. He was dead. Had died in a trap that was meant for me.

"Your Highness," Mike was asking me for something, but I couldn't figure out what. I was too busy trying to find Rose. She wasn't in the car. Why not? Even if the worst had happened, they'd still brought Steve back. So why not her?

"Where's Rose?" I finally asked, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.

"We don't know," Diane told me.

I turned to her, puzzled. "What do you mean? She was there, with you. Where is she now?"

"Steve was dead and Jake was down," Diane said. "Mike and I were back to back, but we knew we weren't going to last much longer. And then the Strigoi just left. I think they needed time to get to their cover before the sun got too high. Mike and I got out of there with the other two. Down the road we found Rose's car. There was a dead Strigoi there too. But that was it. No sign of her."

"No," Dimitri choked out, "she had to have been there. You just didn't see her."

Diane shrugged. "Maybe. We didn't stay long."

"Tess and Frank are gathering a team," Nathan told them. "We'll head out as soon as they get back."

I wanted to go right now. Diane said that the Strigoi had left. There was no reason to wait. But my urgency was buried under a thick layer of dread. I knew it didn't matter if we left right now or in a few hours. Rose was already gone.

"Your Highness," Mike pulled me out of my thoughts. "Jake, please."

I stared at him for a minute before realizing what he was asking. I could heal his partner. As I got closer, I saw how extensive the damage was. His left leg was pared open down to the bone and the back of his head was one bloody mess. His breathing was shallow and sporadic. I reached out and laid my hand on him automatically, not really feeling anything.

And then I felt everything. I felt the grass under my feet and the stars fading out of the sky. The life of the people around me slammed into me, so full of fear and anger and pain. So much pain, pouring out of Dimitri especially, though they all felt it. And Jake, under my hands, with a different kind of pain. And here, finally, was something I could do. Something I could fix.

I released spirit into him, revelling in that tidal wave of power as it swept through me. He didn't immediately sit up and start talking, but his wounds faded and his color improved. His breathing evened out and Mike's did as well, his relief coursing through me as powerfully as spirit had.

Still brimming with magic, I turned to Diane. Why should she suffer for protecting me? It was my duty to repair the damage that had been done to her because of me. Before she realized what I was doing, I touched her arm, directing my healing magic into her.

She stiffened and then blew out a breath noisily, rotating her shoulder experimentally. "Thank you, Your Highness," she told me.

I barely heard her, my head still buzzing with power. I'd been so carefully limiting myself on using spirit lately, I couldn't resist filling myself up with it. It was like diving into a cool, clear lake after days in a desert. I drew in as much as I could, desperate for more, convinced that I would never get enough.

"Lissa," Christian stepped in front of me, his eyes full of concern. "That's enough, Lissa. You can let it go now."

Enough? No, it wasn't. It never would be. I had healed Jake and Diane, but that wouldn't bring Rose back. It wouldn't bring Steve back. And then I realized that I could. There was no reason for him to be dead. And Rose and I weren't bonded anymore, so I wouldn't even have to worry about ending up like Avery. I stepped around Christian and bent over Steve.

"No!" Christian grabbed my arm and jerked me around. "You can't bring him back, Lissa. You have to let go of spirit. You've already used too much."

His blue eyes were piercing into me. I focused on that, on him. Part of me knew that he was right. I couldn't do this, I had to resist spirit in order to be the queen that everybody needed me to be. But it was so hard. I don't think anyone but another spirit user could ever understand how hard it was to let go of all that power. I teetered on the brink for a moment, unsure if I was going to regain control or not.

Then spirit left me. Once I managed to loosen my hold on it a little, it all disappeared in a wave. The world instantly became dimmer. Colors were faded, details blurred. If I could have, I might have grabbed spirit back just to regain that perfect clarity of a moment ago. But I felt weak and dizzy, my head spinning. I stumbled and Christian caught me.

"There you are," his voice was relieved. "That's better. Come on, we've got to get you to the feeders."

I went without protesting. I'd already known that Nathan was never going to let me join the party going back to look for Rose. There was no point in it anyways. I knew that there was nothing there for them to find.