Be grateful, my underlings… Be grateful…

OH MY GOD!

So… I finally (finally) finished City of Fallen Angels. I don't think any other book has left me so emotionally strained.

But it was still a good read. It seemed like everyone just now understood Jace, while I had him read after the first book. He's so… great. Madi has left me alone for quite a while (which, as we all know, is weird), so something tells me she's beyond upset at the moment.

And Alec totally used the name of one of Madi's seraph blades! I guess he just misses her that much. xD

Though… it kind of pisses me off.

ShoutOuts ~

Nyx's Pinky Girl: Lol, no problem to your name, it's awesome. To the football thing… *stoner laugh* haha, yeah… Thanks for your compliment to my story! And of course Madi and Adrian are going to be friends! He's a beast, Madi's a beast… It all evens out.

Klaus-is-epic: He has CREEPER EYES! I swear, it freaking unnerves me! Lol, keep working on that comparison… I'll get back to you… *shies away slowly*

BookNinja15: Heya, Fluffy! If you like the dialogue in chapter seven, wait 'till you get to this puppy. It's my best by far in Vampire Academy. I'm glad you said elevators, because I was getting kind of confused. Where are you from? And, yes, elevators (or lifts) are weird too. My mom's office elevators sky rocket you up… it was my inspiration for Magnus' house in City of Bonds. And, might I add, frexing is the coolest word ever. I'm using it now.

~ THEMESONGS ~

The First of Me ~ Hoobastank (quite Madi-esque)

Smooth Criminal ~ Alien Ant Farm (oh, come on, I gotta whip it out every once in a story)

Clint Eastwood ~ Gorillaz

.M.I.W.

8. Colors

So… this whole Moroi prison isn't as frightening as it lets on to be.

Just sterile white walls, no windows, and the bars even look minutely friendly.

Summer retreat? I think so.

Maybe the only truly 'terrifying' thing in here is that the place has got horrible lighting. I know my freckles were standing out more from my pale skin!

There was only one person in all of these white cells, and that was, indeed, Victor Dashkov.

Now, being the horrible reader of this series that I was, (cough! – only read one and a half books out of the series, and they were out of order – major cough!) I wasn't really expecting much. I didn't really think over his appearance, and my mind was just lazy enough to conjure up the thought that he had black hair, green eyes, and pale skin.

Apparently, being me, you're just born this awesome.

He looked pretty flawless for an old guy, but this saying I was getting used to seeing pretty much all vampires embodying the word 'flawless' or 'stunning' or even 'glittery.' Trust me… you aren't missing much.

He looked like he was in his early thirties with black hair in a short haircut. His eyes were green, much like Lissa's, but I suppose people wouldn't exactly want me to admit that. Copyrights, and all that jazz. He was wearing a fancy suit, probably Dolce or a Valentino. That's right, I know my finer, more Italian clothing lines.

Yes, Google is mainly to blame.

I let Rose and Dimitri step ahead of me as I decided to take the back and lean against the cold, white wall behind them, crossing my legs at the ankle. I stuck my hands in my pockets, and watched with little to no interest as the scene took place. I think it would be time to start ceiling tiles.

"Dimitri Belikov and Rose Hathaway." He said in a creepily smooth voice. "A pleasure to see you both again. But, who is your third partner?"

"More like third wheel." I muttered under my breath.

"She doesn't seem all that pleased to be here." Victor mused. "And she looks rather young to be a guard in Court."

Dimitri and Rose turned to look at me, but I said nothing and shrugged, conveying I honestly did not give a shit as to whatever they wanted to say.

Dimitri cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter." He said shortly –

"Ah, but everything matters." Victor looked at me once again. I rolled my eyes. "Everyone has a role to play."

Ooh… Flail your arms about like a ghost and you'll get the same 'creepy' effect.

"Can you please stop looking at me?" I asked. "Just stick to the script, bro."

He smiled and nodded. I rolled my eyes and assumed he just wanted to irritate me, get me to say something that would somehow apply to his own personal gain.

"So, I suppose your visit isn't exactly personal –"

"What do you want with…?" Dimitri glanced back at me, "With the information –"

"When I said she knows everything," Rose jerked her head back to me, "I meant she knows everything."

All three sets of eyes were on me. I shrugged again. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Fascinating." Victor mused, a sickeningly pleasant smile on his face.

"Oh, believe me," I grinned wickedly, "I know."

It seemed to stop him short, and I focused on my nails. "You can continue," I said, pretending to be absorbed, "now that everyone knows that I know everything."

"Then what could you possibly do with the information you have on Rose and I?" Dimitri asked, leaning close to the bars of the cell.

"Personally, you can't really do anything with it." I informed Victor, folding my arms across my chest. "Are you just trying to create some form of scandal before you go? Because I've been known to be quite the excellent form of liar. I can just tell them that I was actually sent here to keep an eye on your records, and mentioning a bit of compulsion magic probably will put them in the clear and you…" I paused, pretending to think about it. "Well, let's just say you'll be put into the dark faster than any of these other Dhamphirs and Moroi alike could do."

"Are you saying that if I say anything about Rose and Dimitri, you plan to do something about it?" He chortled. "You? A little creature like yourself? Threatening me? I don't care if you're a Dhamphir –"

"It's an excellent thing I'm not then." I hissed.

Victor took pause, looked even more taken aback than before.

I smirked, and tapped the hilt of my seraph blades with one finger. "Come on now, Vic, I thought you were a bit more intelligent than that. You should've realized these aren't stakes."

His eyes widened slightly, and he opened his mouth. He seemed to try and form words, but none came out. My smirk was even bigger.

"Check yourself, sir, before you wreck yourself." I stated as I straightened out my jacket, and folded my arms across my chest again.

"Now I think I have seen everything." Victor admitted. "Rose, it seems you have managed to meet someone who has a bigger ego than you."

"Because I'm more of a badass." I chimed in. "But I also back up my words with my fists. Or swords, if you prefer to die faster. Now, are you going to say anything or not?"

"I still don't see why I should be afraid of you." Victor mused, waltzing up to the cell bars.

I dove forward in between the space of Dimitri and Rose. I twisted my hands in his fine suit, hoping that I was going to give it wrinkles, and forced him down to my height. There was no way in hell anyone – let alone a vampire – was going to try and give me shit.

"I've hung out and been trained with warriors who would tie a vampire in blessed chains just to see them squirm." I snarled. "They can enter rooms with perfect silence, killing just as easily. I've fought against armies of you. I hung out with children – the oldest fourteen – who kill and find it fun. Trust me, you pick up a thing or two."

His eyes widened, pure terror flashing through them. My grin only grew wider. I pushed him back in his cell, and smirked when he almost stumbled over his bed at the force of it.

But fear washed through me when I felt my heart beginning to pound, meaning that adrenaline was coming back.

That curse from Magnus had seemed to leave something residing, but he had assured me it was entirely gone. Still, I hadn't had much of a blood puking incident since then, and I kind of wanted to keep it that way. Maybe that was because I hadn't had much to go through in this world. Come to think of it, I hadn't been in a fight in a little over two days.

That was troubling.

"You –" Victor stammered as I continued to walk towards the stairs that led out of this place, "You're not holy!"

"Tell me something I don't know." I snapped back.

.M.I.W.

Sitting in trial is boring. The colors in the room are boring, the chairs are benches and there forth uncomfortable, the people are boring because they wore the same boring things, making it impossible to make fun of someone.

I stared at everyone, trying to find someone interesting to watch. There wasn't. Tried to find some architectural piece that would be nice to study. There wasn't. Counted ceiling tiles for the first twenty minutes I was in here, even attempted to lose count on purpose, and there turned out to be six thousand, two hundred and ninety-three. Exactly.

Personally, I give credit to the Shadowhunter Marks or my newly enhanced adrenaline-ized body to give me such awesome sight and focus.

The trial was still currently going on, Dashkov trying to prove his innocence even though there were literal piles that stood against him. They were on the prosecutor's desk, one at a time being used against him, and set into the 'used' pile.

I thought about my seraph blades, mentally examining every detail, and thought about them in the small room I'd acquired, and hoped they were safe and no one would go in and jack them. Then I thought about the Fae-Bag, wondered what was inside of it, if I would ever know, which led me to thinking about New York, and how I hadn't seen that much of it. I wondered if I would ever go back, and how Jace and everyone else were doing. I'd recently bought City of Fallen Angels, but didn't have the heart to exactly crack the cover.

Which then, finally, made me think about Meliorn. If he still felt the way I did about him, if we would ever find a way to actually be together, or this was just the end. I played with his ring again, turning it and tracing my fingertip on the designs carved into the silver band.

"Bored yet?" Adrian inquired at my side, and I looked up at him. We were both standing at the back of the courtroom, because apparently he didn't care either, and had been receiving glares from people throughout the entirety of the trial because every time someone would finish a testament or question, one of us would have some tasteless joke-slash-innuendo to stick on the back of it.

I smiled slightly. "Have been." I replied.

"How about we go have our own party?" He suggested.

I shrugged in the universal 'what the hell' and we both pretty much tore out of there faster than anyone could notice.

.M.I.W.

"You know," I mused as I took another swig of Adrian's expensive Russian vodka with one hand, while in the other I held a newly lit cigarette. "I didn't exactly know vodka could be so… all right."

We were in his room, which was exceedingly messy with clothes strewn about and thrown everywhere, empty cigarette cartons on the floor as well as empty bottles that were once filled with beer or vodka, as well as CD's. After tracking through them all, we now picked a slightly punkish Russian band. They were screaming things from the speakers we didn't understand, but they had a good sound.

We were lounging on separate ends of his bed, relaxing while I was pretty sure the trial was still going on underneath our feet.

"It does have its moments." He agreed as he let out a large puff of smoke, and reached forward to grab the bottle from my hand.

"So," I said as I handed it to him, looking warily at the cigarette in my hands, before bringing it up to my lips to take in a smoke. I quickly let out the breath, and glanced nervously at Adrian, who didn't even seem to notice since he was busy drinking out of the vodka bottle. "Is this what you do all the time? You know, when you're not using your element or whatever?"

He gave me a wary look before taking another shot of alcohol. "I know you know more than you keep letting on." He informed me. "I think you already know the answer."

I shrugged and nodded, before taking another hesitant drag of the cigarette. "I just can't help but think there's something more to you. Something that you don't tell anyone about. I can't imagine just sitting up here in a room, smoking and drinking, not having any other hobbies. No other… real way to express yourself."

"Well…" He mused, blowing out a fast stream of smoke above him. "What about you? So far I've only seen you be a smartass to everyone, kick Rose's ass – which was quite inspiring, by the way, and now smoke and drink with me. How do you express yourself?"

I shrugged. "I dance. I fight. I read –"

Adrian coughed loudly, cutting me off. He seemed to have swallowed the vodka the wrong way. "You read?" He asked incredulously once he got his bearings again.

"Yes." I answered, slightly put off. "Is that a bad thing?"

He shook his head, taking in his cigarette. "Just didn't see you as a reader, that's all."

"Then what do you see me as?" I inquired, taking the vodka bottle from his hand and gulping down a swig myself.

The alcohol burned my throat and through my chest, like cold fire. Vodka was different than whisky, I soon learned. Whisky had a somewhat warm, harsh but at the same time comfortable fire that rolled through you like thunder. Vodka was electrifying, cold, like a knife going down your throat. Interesting, the things you pick up when you welcome the outside world and all of its hell.

Or maybe it was just my world.

Adrian looked at me with that same calculating gaze he had before. Just watching, looking over, reading. I could see the focus he put into it, trying to piece things together. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, he leaned back.

"Complicated." He answered.

I raised an eyebrow in slight confusion.

He reached for the vodka, and I handed it to him quickly. "Every person has a basic aura." He explained as he took another swig. "Usually there's only one stable, constant emotion people keep with them. So, in turn, one stable, constant color. You seem to always have three."

"Three… colors?" I asked.

He nodded. "Three constant emotions. It's in layers. Yellow, black, and red. Sometimes one takes over the other, or the shades change, but the colors don't. From the first time I've met you, I've never seen you with any other colors."

"Huh…" I nodded, taking another drag of my cigarette. "What do they mean then?"

"They're apart of your personality." He said. "Not moods. Meaning I can't really read them as well. Hence, you're complicated."

I rolled my eyes. "I see."

"Right now, though," he said, "your colors are mainly yellow with a faint tinge of gray."

I laughed. "Gray is not black."

"But it's a hue." He informed me seriously. "Gray is a form of black."

"Ah," I nodded, and watched as he took another drink of the vodka.

"So," Adrian stated. "Rose says you know… everything."

I shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah. I know that you're in love with her. I think you guys would be awesome going out, that's just me, but she's deeply in love with Dimitri, and that's not going to change."

"My worst fears come to pass then." He sighed, leaning against his bed again.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" He asked. "You just told me the future. I'm not going to be one of those guys that say the future can be changed, because if it's something like that, there's no chance in hell that it can be."

I nodded, looking down at the ring on my finger once again. I took in another lung-killing drag of my cigarette, and blew out, wondering if maybe there was some way I could change my future with Meliorn.

.M.I.W.

"Come on!" Rose called, leading the way to Rhonda's.

Apparently, Rhonda was a fortune teller that could see the future. Now, being me, I'm going to of course be skeptical, because I can see the future a hell of a lot better than her.

But, she was pretty right about Dimitri's future fortune, (yes, I have been keeping mental tabs on that) so maybe she wasn't all bad.

That was pretty much how Rose, Lissa, Dimitri, and I had come to be in Rhonda's small room, sitting around her small table, and I caught the scents of some rather scandalous substances.

"Hey…" I said slowly as the old woman sat down in front of us. "Is that –?"

"Welcome." She said, cutting me off.

I stared off into space, taking in slight scent of what I was sure were drugs in the back of the room, looking around at the window that let in the harsh sunlight to hit the table and the table only. The rest of the room was dim, you could barely see it compared to the light on the table.

Rhonda shuffled her tarot cards, which created soothing whisping sounds every time she fanned them through. A slight different colored light flashed in the corner of my eye, which caught me off guard though, and I looked back at her cards.

They were tinged in silver light, like it was coming from the moon. I furrowed my eyebrows as I stared at the ornately decorated cards, twice the size of regular playing cards, and the light that seemed to come from them. When I looked up, my gaze met Rhonda's, who looked at me with her dark, twinkling eyes.

"What –"

"Vasillisa Dragomir." Rhonda said with her aged voice. She laid the cards out, stretching them across the table. She gestured to them broadly. "Pick three cards."

Lissa reached for the silver tinged cards. I quickly leaned forward, was about to tell her to stop, when the old fortune teller's eyes locked on mine. Lissa paused, and I could notice her looking at me out of the corner of my eye. A warning flashed brilliantly through Rhonda's dark eyes, and I slowly pulled back. Rhonda was safe in the books. She hadn't hurt them. It was fine.

Lissa reached for her cards.

But there was something about Rhonda that seemed eerily familiar.

I reached behind my chair with both arms, my fingertips just lightly grazing the hilts of my seraph blades in my backpack resting behind my chair on the floor.

As Rhonda continued to give me a stony look, my chair was pushed back by an invisible force, only a few inches. A few inches for me to know to get the hint. I nodded respectfully, and set my hands on my lap.

No one seemed to notice the exchange, for which I was thankful for, and Rhonda began to read off the fortunes left and right. I watched, smiled at a few perturbed looks, and after Dimitri's, we were done.

Or at least I thought we were done.

"Madi, aren't you going to do yours?" Lissa asked as I was grabbing my bag.

I paused, frowning slightly. My eyes met Rhonda's, her dark, small eyes making my heart sink.

"Ah… no." I said. "I don't believe in that kind of stuff."

"It's supposed to be fun!" Lissa pleaded. "Come on, Madi, you saw the rest of our fortunes!"

"Yeah, come on." Rose said, patting the back of my now vacated chair.

Rhonda looked at me expectantly. When my eyes met hers again, she averted her eyes and picked up her cards, shuffling them once again. Her eyes focused on mine equally, and my mind further picked up on the familiarity.

Finally, she nodded to the chair. "Sit down, young wanderer. Have your fortune read."

My heart was beginning to pound, and I finally, slowly, sat down.

She nodded, smiling slightly, in respect. "Very wise of you."

I swallowed against the sudden hoarseness in my voice. "I'm kind of doubting that."

She turned her chair to face me more fully, shuffling her cards in a steady rhythm. I watched the strange silvery light in them, and couldn't help but find myself even more confused, and more nervous.

"You see the power of my element, don't you, young wanderer?" She asked, almost conversationally.

I nodded slightly.

She chuckled, darkly. "Not many people can. But I had a feeling you could. As soon as you stepped into the room, I could feel it."

"Feel what?" Rose decided to ask.

Rhonda's eyes were entirely on mine. I leaned forward slightly. She smiled. "You've been around stronger magic than I could ever conjure, Madison Verdantia. Then, in consequence, you have been Touched. Twice."

I nodded to Rhonda in agreement.

"Touched?" Rose demanded. "What the hell does she mean by that?"

"Both had very different ends, didn't they?" She inquired, almost too casually, a somewhat amused sparkle in her eye. "I can see it. A strong light, but also a strong darkness."

I ground my teeth together.

"The darkness lingers within you, Madison Verdantia." She warned. "As it should. It is not so easy to forget something as evil as you have tried to."

She suddenly spread the cards along the table. She had a dangerous gleam in her eye, a challenge. "Pick your cards." She gestured to the tarots.

I didn't bother looking, grabbing one at a time, and handing them to Rhonda. She seemed somewhat surprised, but smiled accordingly. I leaned back in my chair, watching her. She then flipped the cards over, a concentrated look now on her aged face.

"Your past…" She mused as she looked over the cards. "You never really had the chance to be a child at home, did you? It has made you very jaded. But your heart is still wild, and follows the beat of a warrior's drum. Life has been quite unfair to you, hasn't it? Just one unlucky thing after another. It's a surprise you haven't –"

She paused, furrowing her brows. Then, a too gleeful light shone in them. "Ah! But you have! Twice!" She looked up at me sympathetically. "Anyone would be the same."

I stared at her evenly.

She looked back down at the cards.

"Your present…" She noted. "Because of your soul, how old it is, you were given a gift by someone very powerful, very dark. He did not expect you to be who you are, did he?"

Belial.

"But you've shown him quite well what you're capable of. You have been dealt with serious grief. The cards say you have two poisons inside of you. They control you, hurt you. But you use them anyhow as a strength, regardless of the pain, to save those whom you give your loyalty to. You are haunted though, by these poisons. It slowly wears at you. Many have seen it. Your family, though they say nothing. But… they never do, do they? You care not, though.

"There is also a love. A strained love. A wistful love. A love that hopes beyond hope. Do not worry, Madison Verdantia, for he pines for you just as much as you him."

"Now, your future…" Rhonda started. "Your future has more darkness that may overshadow your triumphs. You venture to many more distant lands that are beyond even my sight. You and your love reunite, though the strain is hard on both of you. There are many more roles for you to play, Madison Verdantia, many more battles, and many more times for your poison to take you –"

She stopped as soon as she flipped over the last card. My heart dropped even harder than I thought would be possible.

"What?" I asked, trying to joke. "Do I get a broken nail too?"

"No, it is far more serious than that." Rhonda said gravely. She flipped the card and showed it to me.

It was very carefully drawn, beautiful greens and blacks swirled the background. In the center of this card, there was a skull. A rose lay in front of it, red with its tinges rotting and turning black. A raven was perched on top of the skull, dark and menacing.

I didn't need a fortune teller for this one.

"Madison Verdantia, your future holds death."

.M.I.W.

C'mon, you have to comment on this one.