I guess Ava and I were kind of in limbo for the days following. With no lead on Robert, there was nothing really we had to do. We could have called it a holiday, but we felt far too useless to enjoy any free time.
As soon as the dent in my head had healed sufficiently, Rose asked me whether I wanted to join her and Dimitri for training.
"You're not half bad," she framed it. "A little rough around the edges, but what do you expect from a novice your age. Want to see whether Dimitri and I can't give you a little more polish?"
I just about dragged her to the gym begging for her to kick my butt. Honestly, Rosemarie Hathaway offers to train you? She doesn't have to be your mom for any novice to scream yes please.
She was kicking my butt though. Even though she would keep helping me up and then go through the flaws in my fighting in detail, I ended up on the floor a lot. Her abilities were simply so far above mine that she could easily reduce me to a panting heap on the ground while still analyzing my every move with precision.
"Up you go," she said, offering me her hand for the thousandth time. "Now, take care not to put too much weight on your forward foot when you reach out. It might not unbalance you, but it makes you slower."
I nodded, panting. I was already out of breath and soaked with sweat, when my beautiful mom had barely warmed up.
"And don't go out of your way to keep your shoulders down," Dimitri added, calling over from the edge of the training area where he was sitting and watching with Ava. "Ignore what instructors say for this move."
We got ready in the middle of the training mat again. I tried to steady my breaths, wishing now I had taken my running exercises more seriously back in the academy. I would have preferred not to appear like a huffing polar bear in front of my mom. Dad made me run lots more than my instructors at school required me to, but whenever I wasn't at home, I grew lax.
Rose danced around me, her fists or feet flying at me but not touching me. She was testing my reactions.
"Good." Her knee came dangerously close to my stomach. "Watch your distance. Farther, farther, yes, that's where you want to be with an opponent my size." Her elbow shot out, stopping an inch in front of my nose. "But be more flexible. There."
"Stop scuttling," Dimitri shouted over. "Make proper steps."
I had no idea when I was supposed to have the time for proper steps with the onslaught of attacks Rose was feigning on me, but I tried nonetheless.
"Better, much better," Rose rewarded me appreciatively. I raised an arm to wipe the sweat off my face and promptly received a softened punch to the side I left unprotected.
"And there go a few ribs," Rose told me with a smile. All the same, she disengaged from me again to let me catch my breath. "You should get yourself some running advice from Dimitri. Believe me, follow through with his regimen and you'll never be out of breath in a fight."
I peeked up at her, hands on my knees. "You don't say."
"Rose," Dimitri called over to her. "Your phone is ringing."
He and Ava ambled over to me while Rose went to answer her phone.
"Looks to me as if you just had your butt handed to you more times than I can count," Ava purred nonchalantly. "If I hadn't seen you with other novices…" She left her sentence trailing provocatively, but her smile was teasing.
"Be careful what you say," I teased back. "I might need to boost up my confidence." With that, I deftly pretended to tackle her, which made her giggle and try to get out of my sweaty grasp, shrieking, "You're all sweaty and gross! Get away from me!"
Before we could pursue this game further and chase each other around the gym, Rose came back from her phone call and joined Dimitri, who, I now realized, had been watching Ava and me with an indulgent smile that I associated with someone watching kittens tumble about.
"Pack up, comrade, we're needed elsewhere," Rose told him briskly. She'd already slung her training bag over her shoulder.
"What happened?" Dimitri asked.
"I'll tell you on the way."
Ava and I watched them leave the gym; we turned towards each other as soon as the two had left.
"Is it just me or did she seem a little out of sorts from that call?" Ava wondered.
"She's the queen's guardian. I guess unsettling news reach her all the time," I guessed, having had the same impression.
"Well, anyway. I'll go to my own training, now. Want to watch me, too?"
"Sure. Knowing you're holding back and still impressing while I just gave my best and failed here will do me real good."
"Who said you failed? Don't be pathetic."
"Don't be heartless."
"Well, what can I do?"
"Let's go."
"Anton. Do me a favor and get a shower first."
"Uh… good idea."
When I followed her out onto the Moroi training grounds fifteen minutes later, she was already deeply immersed into a water user exercise that took my breath away. Christian was having her and a couple of other water users manipulate water, holding it into a shape while making it flit around the grounds as fast as they could. Every now and then, someone's concentration would slip and they'd lose control over their bubble of water; then, a few gallons would go splashing on the ground, drenching anybody who had had the bad luck to stand too close. I knew exactly that Ava was feigning her lapses so as not to show her skills too bluntly, and I had the succinct impression that she was picking the spots where her control allegedly slipped very conscientiously; she seemed to make it her private joke to drop her water wherever some unsuspecting person was standing nearby, making them scramble but never actually hitting them.
She strolled over to me after her work was done.
"You should practice somewhere they want to grow flowers. Would save them the trouble of watering them," I greeted her.
"Hey, don't be cheeky," she replied. "There's some water left."
Christian joined us and we went back with him to the palace. It was weird – they all behaved as if we were family of sorts to them – only not the family we really were, but younger siblings or cousins or something. While we had initially followed suit with Lissa's instructions to report to guardian headquarters twice a day to make sure we weren't up to no good, she had dropped the request herself after my and Rose and Dimitri's Strigoi adventure. We had gained their trust. Whatever good that might do us.
To my surprise, we ran into Lissa as she was about to leave the palace. Since everyone who had something to deal with her usually came to her with their requests, this was something she didn't do often these days, unless it was to depart for college. She was surrounded by a few guardians – and a few more that I couldn't see, most likely – and seemed slightly distracted.
"Hey, you guys," she welcomed us. "Finished with training?"
"Yup," Christian replied, giving her a light kiss on the lips. She smiled. "What are you up to?"
"Going to see Hans. There's some stuff that had better stay in guardian headquarters, so I'm heading over."
"Now?" Christian asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's getting late, don't you think? And didn't you want to discuss Lehigh arrangements with Rose tonight, too?"
"So?"
"So am I going to bed alone tonight?"
"Not if you wait up."
"Minors present," Ava interjected quickly. "Please don't talk about you two going to bed." Yeah, I'd be uncomfortable too if it was my parents.
Lissa laughed. "Sorry. Well, I'll just be half an hour and then I'm back. And – shut your ears, minors – I'm all yours because Rose said she had business for Sydney to do and might be out till tomorrow."
I frowned. "Business for Sydney?" I asked suspiciously. I could practically see Ava's ears prick up – she'd had the same thought as I'd had.
"She didn't say much about it," Lissa shrugged. "I just guessed it had to do something with their moving to North Dakota."
"Um… why would that be so urgent?" I pressed. I had a terrible notion that already made my stomach grow cold, even though my mind still repeated, they're just on a normal errand, it's nothing to do with Robert…
"Since when do you keep track of what Rose does in her free time?" Christian asked, his cocked eyebrow now directed at us.
"I… " Really, now wasn't the time to play coy with what I knew about Rose. I was worried. "Look, can we… um… could I possibly call Sydney from your phone?" I didn't own a phone – none which wouldn't be two decades' worth of technological development ahead of the time – and I simply needed to know what Rose was up to. Right this second. Next to me, Ava shifted nervously.
"Um…" Lissa looked insecure for a moment. "Sure. There you go." She handed me her phone. Her normal one, not the one she used for official supersecret Court and government affairs.
I found Sydney's number and only heard my own heart pumping while I was waiting for her to pick up.
"Yes?" She finally answered.
"Sydney?"
"Anton? Is that you? You're definitely not Lissa."
"Yes, it's me. Sorry for bothering you. It's just that I just heard that Rose was out on business for you and I just… I just wanted to make sure it's got nothing to do with… what we talked about. Please tell me it has nothing to do with that."
Lissa and Christian were eyeing me suspiciously, whilst Ava stared at me so hard she might be trying to listen in on our conversation. Maybe she was.
"Anton…" Sydney began, but then stopped herself. I could hear the hum of a driving car in the background at her end. Then she continued. "This has nothing to do with you. Please, Anton. Don't butt in."
She could as well have emptied a bucket of ice water over my head. "No," I whispered, horrified. "You got a lead and you told her?" You told my mom the whereabouts of her murderer so she could go look for him?
"I really don't see how this is any of your business," Sydney told me coldly, but there was a hint of doubt in her voice. She had no idea what she was doing. Neither had I, for that matter, but I knew it couldn't be good.
"Where did she send her?" Ava cut in sharply. She had cottoned on immediately.
"Send her?" Sydney had heard her through the phone. She sounded uncomfortable now.
"Sydney," I said, trying to sound as urgent as I could, trying to make her understand. "Where did she go? Are you with her?"
"Look, we're going to deal with this. We're much better equipped to do this than you, Anton. I don't know what your deal with Robert is, but I don't think you should be the one dealing with him when there are trained guardians around to do it. Rose and Dimitri will handle him. Trust me."
Dimitri was with them, too? Of course he would be. Damn it.
"And I don't know what Rose's deal with him is, but there are things she doesn't know, and if there's one thing I'm sure of then it's that she is the last person who should ever have to deal with Robert. Sydney, please!" I sounded desperate, and Lissa and Christian were watching me with increasing apprehension, but I had to make her understand. "Please, stop her!"
"What does he want?" I heard Rose's voice, faintly in the background. Then: "Turn right here, we're almost there. I recognize this." Sydney ignored her.
"This is not your business. Stay out of this, Anton."
Then she hung up on me. She simply hung up on me.
I looked up to meet Ava's terror-filled eyes.
"She went to meet him? They went to meet him?"
I could only nod, mutely.
"What's up with you two?" Christian suddenly exclaimed. He and Lissa must be really fed up with not knowing what was going on. "What are you talking about?"
"We have to follow them!" Ava cried, completely ignoring him for the first time ever. She was prancing up and down on the tip of her feet. "This could be our second chance. We have to find out where they are!"
I was equally as twitchy. "I think I have a hint," I answered, my mind still turning. "I heard Rose saying she'd been there before. They can't have been on the way for longer than one hour, probably less. So we're looking for a destination within about a one-hour drive that Rose has been to, but not frequently. Where could that be?" I turned to Lissa and Christian, who by now stared at us as if they were debating whether or not Ava and I had finally gone completely insane.
"What. Are. You. Talking about?" Christian growled menacingly.
"Lissa, Christian, listen," Ava told them both firmly. "Rose and Dimitri are about to run into a very dangerous situation that they are not prepared for. We have to stop them. We have to be there before something bad can happen. Please, you need to help us. You have to trust us on this. We have to find them."
"And we're just going to have to take your word for it, don't we?" Christian snorted. "As always."
"Christian," Lissa interjected. "Their auras look genuine. I think they're really afraid."
Afraid? Yes, that just about summed it up.
"Rose hasn't been out of Court much by car, except when we're going to college and back," Lissa thought out loud. "She knows everything that's on that route very well. There are only a few main roads that lead away from here. Other than the one to college, I guess… about one hour from here…"
"The greenhouse," Christian jumped in. He was still scowling, but he trusted Lissa's judgement more than ours. "Where Sonya's wedding was. It's about one hour. And Rose has been there only once before."
"You're right," Lissa agreed. "That could be it. Of course, it could be other places, but I don't know about anything else."
"We have to try it," I immediately said. Turning to Ava, I again met her scared but determined gaze. She was brimming with action.
"You want to follow them," Lissa said. It wasn't a question.
"We have to," I replied. I was getting nervous for real now. We didn't have any time to waste. We needed to get a car. Now.
"Are we on board with that?" Christian quietly consulted with his girlfriend.
Lissa nodded. "Yes. We've done crazier thing. Let's get a car."
"Wait. You want to come?"
Now even Lissa gave us a hard stare. "You just told us that Rose and Dimitri were in danger. What do you expect us to do? Wait here and twiddle our thumbs?"
"No way," Ava flat-out refused. "Now way."
"Now you're acting demented," Christian almost snickered. With that, Ava's parents just up and took off over the palace green, followed by several queen's guardians. We could no nothing but jog along behind them.
"Two guardians," Lissa said over her shoulder. "That has to be enough." That meant she was telling her other loyal shadows not to bother coming. They didn't look happy. Thankfully, they had kept distance enough during our discussion not to have heard everything, but now they were slightly confused as to why their charge the queen suddenly had the urge to jump into one of the many guardian SUV's parked at guardian headquarters and usher all but two of her guardians away.
"You know the way to that little town we attended the wedding at a few years ago?" Lissa asked the guardian who had ended up in the driver's seat. Lissa herself was in the back. Ava and I managed to squeeze beside her while Christian jumped into the passenger's seat. Another guardian hurriedly took position in an extra seat where I would have expected the trunk.
Our driver did, and so our motley group went on our merry way. We were still tugging at seatbelts and each other when we passed the Court gates, and were rolling along a countryside highway in no time. We still had to sort things out, though.
"So, Anton, Ava, what do you think will happen to Rose and Dimitri?" Lissa asked, trying collect herself. "You mentioned Robert. Did you mean Robert Doru? Does this have to do with what happened in Maine? Why do you think he's dangerous? When I met him, he was just a deranged old man."
"You've met him?" I repeated incredulously. I hadn't known that Robert had had any connections to our parents. Before he killed them, that is.
"It was long ago. He was the one who told me how to restore a Strigoi back to its original state."
Both Ava and I stared at her, mouth agape. "You learned that from him?" Ava asked in disbelief.
"Well, I had to know from somewhere," she told us impatiently.
The man who would later kill my mom had helped get my dad back to being my dad. He'd helped her save her husband, then he'd killed her. Was I missing a connection there? Had he regretted saving my dad? Why kill her, then? This didn't make sense!
Once everybody gave up on getting information of any sort, the drive went by in a keyed up silence until we neared the location where we hoped we'd find Dimitri and Rose.
"This town has a fairly high rate of Moroi inhabitants, doesn't it?" Ava asked, looking out of the window as we slowly cruised through the pre-dawn streets. Indeed, a good amount of people still populated the sidewalks, suggesting that those belonged to the nocturnal sort like us.
"How are we going to find them here?" Lissa asked, glancing around. "They could be within miles from here, we can't be sure they're here exactly."
"We'll just have to look for then," I reluctantly admitted.
Ava bit her lip pensively. "Should we split up?"
I was sure she wasn't actually thinking of enhancing our chances of finding anyone rather than finding a way of putting Lissa and Christian out of harm's way, but before I could even finish that though, both Christian and Lissa's two guardians replied in unison: "No."
To our relief, the sun was beginning to come up over the horizon already. Moroi mixed with human early birds, and shops and cafés were beginning to open. The dawn made one thing much less dangerous: we would not be running into any Strigoi out in the open. I saw the guardians visibly relax upon realizing how light it was already. Well, relax is never the proper word for a guardian on duty; but they reduced their tension from ready-to-snap-in-half to about ready-to-confront-a-Siberian-tiger-at-no-notice.
"I don't think we'll have any luck here," Ava announced. "It's too populated. Robert is much more likely to be somewhere more remote."
"Right," I agreed. "Any clues as to where to go then?" My nerves were fluttering again. Damn me for being such a coward!
"Let's just keep driving around."
"I think we just got our clue," Lissa quietly said. She was twisting to look behind our car. Her hair flew at my face as she swiveled around. "This is their car back there. An SUV with a Court guardian license plate. It must be theirs."
The car wasn't parked in as remote an area as we would have expected, but in a street exiting the small town. We stopped a short way ahead of it and got out. Ava's and my steps immediately turned towards where the road wound out of the town and into the countryside, houses and buildings scattering more and more until there was merely a grassy shoulder bordering a sparse forest.
My hand went up my shoulder to find the straps of the backpack holding the treasured silver spirit chain that would be our only hope in a fight with Robert – and found nothing. Impossibly, my heart rate went up into previously unknown frequencies.
I hadn't taken the pack with me.
How could I, in an hour-long drive, not have remembered that I hadn't thought to bring my one and only weapon with me?
Ava saw the motion. She didn't seem surprised. In contrast to me, she hadn't forgotten about the silver chain.
"There was no time. We're going to have to manage without it."
"But… Ava!" I had trouble not to let my voice show how scared I was. "How can we even hope…"
"We don't. We're here to prevent Rose and Robert from meeting in a dangerous way. This will not be the day we defeat him."
How confidently she said that. She made it sound as if it was going to be a walk in the park.
I took a deep breath, tried to steady by breathing. Tried to soak Ava's calm and collectedness into myself.
Then, a crash resounded in the silent morning atmosphere.
I stopped in my tracks, listening. It had come from a few hundred feet in front of us, from somewhere within the woods bordering the road where it exited town. It was impossible to see anything through the trees, but the noise was still echoing in my ears. Without wasting time, I broke into a run.
As soon as the suburban concrete turned into woodland, my progress was severely hindered by twigs and underbrush. I knew I'd scrape my face bloody stomping right through the middle, but I didn't care. I heard Ava close behind me; she was able to keep up with me hindered as I was, as were Christian, Lissa and the guardians. What those guys had to go through with their charge running right into the middle of a god knows what kind of danger I had no idea, and I even found the time to be sorry for them. Guardian headquarters would not be happy with this.
We didn't have to fight through the copse for long. A small footpath met our path from the side, probably from the backyards of one of the last houses in town. As soon as I had stepped on this path, I could see the whole scenery enfolding in front of me.
The path led to a small clearing containing a wooden hut of sorts, a shelter for hikers perhaps. In front of the shed, Robert had drawn himself up to his full size of maybe five feet, looking like an impersonation of King Lear at the height of madness. On the other side of the clearing, Rose and Dimitri stood, defenseless, hiding Sydney and Adrian behind them.
Now, you'll find that is not often you'll see two fully trained guardians, and such guardians as my parents nonetheless, utterly and completely helpless. They're trained to fight. They're trained to defend. But against a foe of Robert's caliber, there was little that guardians like my mom and dad had to offer.
Robert made the shed come apart and attack them. The building shook, wooden planks coming loose, nails and splinters and all. It was like our confrontation in Maine, only now it weren't only small stones flying around. I watched aghast as a whole board detached itself from the side of the house and started tumbling towards my parents. They evaded it, but were pelted with lots and lots of small debris from the shed.
This was as far as I could assess the situation before two things happened at once. The most noticeable was the wall of fire that suddenly sprang up between Robert and my crouching parents. The second, less visible, was a puddle forming under Robert's feet, making him wobble and lose his grip on his magic for a sec – Ava and Christian had stepped in.
Far from being glad for the rescue, Rose and Dimitri's faces showed only horror at seeing us. They didn't want any of us in harm's way, just as we didn't want them to get hurt.
"Get out of here!" Rose yelled in a break between the noise of crashing wood.
Now that Robert had seen us, he included us in his furious quest to squish everybody under a tree trunk. His telekinetic powers were incredible. He took that hut apart as if it was made from matches and not solid trunks. With this kind of spirit lavishness, it would only take a few months and he'd be as mad as his Shakespearean role model.
I braced myself as a cloud of wooden particles was hurtled towards us, facing the other way to protect myself from injury. I waited for the sharp rain to hit me, but nothing came. Turning around, I realized why – Lissa had activated her own powers, shielding us. It was almost a funny sight; in spite of the fact that she managed to shield us so completely that not a single mote of dust hit us – everything instead siding down an invisible dome around us – Lissa and Christian were tightly entangled into each others arms, not clearly showing which one of them was trying to shield the other, and then the guardians formed even a second layer of bodily protection around her – all before everybody realized that nothing was going to happen.
"Since when can you do that?" Christian whispered in awe.
"I don't know," Lissa answered shakily. Her hand was still outstretched towards the air, trembling from the effort. "Adrian told me he'd been able to do that. I just tried and did it."
"Go away," an unsteady voice wafted over the clearing. Robert's voice. For a man of such power, he sounded weirdly small and weak. "Go away," he repeated, this time trying to lay more venom into his old-man's voice.
"Go already!" Rose screamed. Dimitri was trying to pull her away from Robert, towards where Sydney and Adrian were shoved behind the meager cover of some trees, but she wouldn't go. She wouldn't go because she'd leave us in the way of harm.
"You I have no business with," Robert's voice sounded. There was an almost pleading tone in his voice. "Go away."
Dimitri was still trying to convince Rose to withdraw. A discussion was going on at Rose's end of the clearing, Sydney and Adrian poking their heads out to contribute, all while Robert stood in front of the half torn-down hut, hands raised and chest heaving. His arms were shaking but he kept turning his head from Rose and Dimitri to us, gauging where the danger would come from.
"They'll try to run when we do," I assessed Rose's motives. "Rose doesn't want to leave when we're here. She's going to see us save and then she'll make a dash for it."
"Then why was she still there when we came?" Ava acutely observed.
"There's too much at stake now with Lissa and us here. She would have kept trying to get to him if we weren't there."
"Good we came, then," Ava growled. "Because this is a fight she's not going to win."
We were still frozen in space, all of us huddling close together to give each other cover. Now, we began to slowly edge backwards, keeping our eyes on our foe. Christian was supporting Lissa, who had gone fairly pale; doing her telekinetic stunt had powered her out more than had thought.
When we had almost reached the border of the clearing, I saw Rose and Dimitri starting to do the same.
By then, Robert must have decided on which group of us to attack, and his choice fell on Rose and Dimitri again.
"No," he screamed shrilly. "You will not escape! You have escaped for long enough!"
"What is he saying?" Christian muttered behind me.
"I have no idea, but do something!" Lissa urged him. Promptly, a wreath of flames wrapped around Robert's head, making all the flying objects instantly drop to the ground as his grip on the magic faltered. Rose edged further away from him.
"You don't understand," Robert wailed as soon as his face was flame-free again. "This is for my brother! This is for what she did to him! For his murder! His murder!"
His face was contorted to the point of the grotesque at his last words. He was no longer simply yelling but utterly screaming his heart out. It was a picture of madness. The man was demented. Simply gone totally insane.
In what appeared to be his ultimate effort, half of what was left of the hut rose into the air at once. Before anyone of us could do something, before Christian and Ava could even think of acting with their own magic, all those tons of debris rained down on the spot where Rose had stood before.
"Noo!"
Sydney's shriek from the other side of the clearing jolted us out of our horrified freeze. My heart froze as I saw the heap of wood under which Rose must lie somewhere, Dimitri already starting to pull trunks away, to free her.
"We have to get to them," Ava hissed, determination in her voice. "Lissa – you'll need to heal her."
I was afraid that healing Rose wouldn't be all that easy for Lissa. She wasn't used to doing magic on a larger scale, and she was already exhausted.
Ava had realized this too. "Looks like she'll need your help," she muttered to me before going back to business. Her self-appointed job would be to attack Robert so he would be too busy to launch another attack on us.
"Rose!" Lissa moaned desperately. She swayed slightly as she tugged Christian towards her, frantically trying to reach her injured friend. I took her arm to help her, so that Christian had his hands free to join the fight Ava was already giving Robert. We had to stumble over several logs to get to where Dimitri had located Rose; she was lying in the middle of the wreckage, but her body lay free. As I dropped down with Lissa next to a distressed Dimitri and Rose's lifeless body on the ground, fire and water started erupting all around our magical foe, but I didn't care. My task was helping my mom who was lying on the ground with a large bloody gash on her forehead and her skin and clothing torn and ripped all over her battered body.
"Heal her, Lissa, what are you waiting for?" The planks and boards lying scattered around her were hard and heavy, some with nails the size of my forefinger sticking out of them. And Rose looked the part. There was blood everywhere, and from what I imagined that falling lumber could do to a body her size, there must be heaps of internal injuries that we couldn't even see. Dimitri was bending over her, trying to get her to wake up in spite of the gaping wound that had opened on her head.
Lissa gave a whimpering sound. She closed her eyes, and I thought she was concentration on healing now, but then she opened them again. "I can't," she whispered. "I spent too much energy. I can't heal her."
"You can, Lissa, of course you can! You have to!"
Dimitri looked up at her, an expression in his eyes I only knew too well. The fear of life without his beloved Rose. I had to look away.
"Lissa, you can do it! You just have to try!"
She shook her head, tears spilling out of her eyes. "There's nothing left. I can't do it!"
Unthinkingly, I reached out and grabbed her hand. I positioned it over Rose's body and didn't let go. I had to hold on to her in order to help her reach her powers.
"You can do it. I can help you."
The look she gave me was so beyond hope that I almost thought she wouldn't even try.
"How can you help me?"
"Just do it!" I almost screamed. "It will work. But you have to do the healing. Please Lissa, you have to start the healing."
She gave me one last doubtful look, but she turned to face her friend once more. I felt the energy flow through the link I had created by touching her; I knew that using lots of magic would now be much easier for her. Even without bodily contact, I allowed magic users to endure beyond the limit of even a trained Moroi's magic use. When I touched someone, it was almost like I could amplify their magic by a multitude. Even a magically depleted person could still keep going for some time. Never before had I realized what great a gift it was that my dhampir parents had bestowed upon me. Not until my magic boost was responsible for saving my mother's life.
I was only dimly aware of the other magical battle raging next to us. Heat and dampness washed over us periodically, and sometimes, there were even the occasional sparks or droplets raining down on us. But the spirit attack on Rose had ended. Robert was too busy fending off Ava and Christian now.
And Lissa's and my battle seemed to be going well. The gash on Rose's forehead closed. Her face regained some color, and so did Dimitri's. There was a sickening crunch and a popping noise as whatever damage had been done to Rose's body righted itself. And then Lissa leaned forwards panting, and the flow of magic through our hands stopped.
"Her breathing and pulse is back to normal," Dimitri said, his voice rough.
"How did you do that?" I suddenly heard Adrian's voice. I had almost forgotten his and Sydney's presence. They must have helped Ava and Christian with Robert; seeing as Adrian's spirit powers were blocked by means of medication, he wasn't much use in healing, but judging by the branch he still held in his hand, his way of helping had been chucking things at Robert. And he was no longer contributing to the fight, I realized, because the fight had ended. Robert had disappeared. Christian and Ava were joining us, looking worried, and, in Christian's case, also shooting Ava some very astounded looks.
"Rose is alright," Dimitri said, roughly. "Let's get her back to Court. Let's leave from here. Fast."
Phew, so this was a long chapter for you. I'm hoping for reward in the form of lots of reviews!