"дерьмо, дерьмо, дерьмо." I swore in Russian – my native language – pacing circles.

Adrian held my shoulders "What's the matter Zin?"

Ignoring him I said "Where's Guardian Belikov?"

He raised his eyebrows "Who, Dimitri?"

I glared at him and snapped "Who else would I be referring to?"

I started walking in one direction, prepared to find him myself when Adrian grabbed my shoulders softly and whispered "This way little Dhampir."

We walked quickly and quietly through the silent halls and I noticed that the further we went the less fancy it got. So I was going straight to Guardian HQ then huh? Kinda intimidating. When Adrian stopped I only noticed when I walked into something solid – a door. Adrian managed to chuckle

"Well I was going to knock the old fashioned way but it seems you have different ideas."

As I was glaring at Adrian the door opened and a very flustered looking Rose stood there in a top that was inside-out. Even in the seriousness of why I had come, I snorted

"You've been up to it again."

Then I became serious "Where's Dimitri?"

Dimitri appeared behind Rose studying my body language. "We were just about to go looking for you."

I nodded "You took your time. Look, are there supposed to be people standing at the edge of the forest, especially at this time of day?"

Dimitri and Rose looked at each other frantically and said in sync "No, why?"

"Look out your window towards the forest and tell me what you see."

Adrian and I stood in silence as we waited "Так она говорит правду." (So she was telling the truth) Dimitri muttered.

Not even bothering to with speaking Russian, I replied impatiently "And why wouldn't I be telling the truth?"

"You understand Russian?"

I rolled my eyes "Of course I understand Russian, I was born in Russia. Anyway, that's not important right now. There were people standing there back where we were, which was…."

I looked at Adrian for an answer and he finished for me "At the other end of the court."

My eyes widened in realisation hit "Does this mean they're completely surrounding us?"

Dimitri nodded, taking charge "We can only assume for now."

Rose spoke confidently "Lissa's rooms are at the other end of the court. If we take different routes back, we should be able to see if they truly are surrounding us."

I nodded and turned on my heel, then I turned back "Who am I going with?"

Dimitri stepped forwards and grabbed my arm as he started down the hall "Me."

Silently Adrian and Rose set off on a different route as our eyes surveyed the forest. Ten minutes later we had our answer – we were surrounded. As Dimitri and I came into the sitting room belonging to Lissa, we saw Adrian and Rose already there sitting with Lissa herself.

"So what your saying is that the whole place is surrounded by people?"

Rose nodded "Actually, it was Zin who made the discovery while she was sneaking around with Adrian."

My mouth gaped and I whined "Hey, don't make it sound like that, we did nothing like that!"

Rose stared at me with an amused expression covering her face (even though she tried desperately to cover it up). "And yes, we have spotted people in the forest just standing there. We aren't sure if they're Strigoi or human, and I wouldn't think it would be Moroi or Dhampir."

Lissa nodded, her face grim as she turned to Dimitri "Can you-"

She was cut off by a crackle from Dimitri's walkie-talkie-thingy "Guardian down, repeat, we have a guardian down."

Dimitri and Rose took off running as they yelled at us to 'Stay there!'