- Lily -

My hands were sweaty.

I was losing my mind. There could be no other way to explain this. I had been using spirit so lavishly, and I wasn't used to dealing with the consequences. I had no experience in spirit's vicious vengeance. I had no idea what it would do to me. I knew that spirit caused mental problems. Depression for Mom. Manic depression for Adrian.

Hallucinations for me.

I surreptitiously wiped my palms on my pants. Ever since my mom looked me in the eyes and told me that my dead father would be coming home from a business trip the next day, the thought of having to keep up the compulsion for her and Anton's dad had been hell for me. Every time I saw Mom, and thought about touching the magic within me again, the memory of the serene look in her eyes flashed up. The conviction with which she had proclaimed the return of her long-dead husband. The life in her eyes.

"It was all my imagination," I whispered to myself. "It was all in my head." Only, how could my imagination come up with something so beautiful as the light in my mother's eyes, and so frightening and terrible at the same time?

I couldn't put off renewing the compulsion. If I delayed compelling their doubts about Anton's and Ava's absence away, and allowed suspicion to rise within them, it would be much, much harder to keep their worry for their son and daughter down. I had to keep it up, or else I would be responsible for the fear and heartbreak that would result.

I saw Dimitri coming before he saw me. I was sitting on a bench in a quiet part of the Court premises, waiting for him. Really, I would have preferred the seclusion of a room to do what I had to do, somewhere no one could watch; but I rarely managed to catch him anywhere as private as that. This spot was fairly good as privacy went. And I needed it, today of all days.

"Hello Lily," he said.

"Dimitri!" I looked up, pretending to be mildly but pleasantly surprised by him. "Are you on patrol?" Of course he was on patrol – I had arranged to intercept him here, after all.

He sat down next to me. "Yes. But I only have half an hour to go."

"Should you be sitting down so comfortably when you're patrolling?" I had meant it as a joke, but I think I didn't quite pass on the intention, because suddenly Dimitri looked at me with concern glimmering in his eyes.

"Lily, are you alright? You seem a little nervous."

Nervous? Heck yes, I was nervous! There was this terrible scene playing in my head, of Dimitri telling me that he had to go home now, because his wife was waiting for him. I could practically hear his voice. 'I have to go. Can't let Roza wait any longer.' I could practically see his smile, too. My nerves were strung as tightly as Vivienne Conta's pants over her butt, so much was I expecting him so say something like this any minute. Or rather, expecting myself hear him say it.

"Lily?"

I snapped out of it. Dimitri was watching me with alarm more than simple concern now. Why the hell did he have to be so perceptive?

"Yes!" I stammered. "No, I'm alright. I'm fine. I was dreaming. Of.. college. I was dreaming of college."

"I thought you were looking forward to college," he said, the look of alarm never leaving his eyes.

"I am," I said quickly. "But it's also kind of frightening. You know… it's all new and unfamiliar…"

I hoped I'd been convincing enough. I had been, apparently, because his frown ceased. "You'll be all right, Lily," he assured me gently. "You'll find your way."

"I guess I will," I told him lamely. A little more quickly than called for, I got up and gathered my bag and the book I had pretended to read when he passed by.

"I'd better go," I said. "I have to.. do… things. College things."

With this most sketchy excuse in the history of sketchy excuses, I raced off, leaving him sitting on the bench by himself.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't use the magic right now.

My heart was fluttering in a desperate attempt to fill the giant emptiness that fear carved out in my chest. I took several deep breaths, trying to steady myself. It took all I had to pull myself together, but I think I made a decent job of not looking like a frantic mess by the time I reached the palace. I tried to keep my mind off the horrible incident of the mention of my father, but it kept playing in my head. I couldn't stop it. It followed me all the way up the stairs.

'Lily', Mom had said. 'Your father is coming home from his trip.'

It had felt like someone had shot an arrow through my heart and dragged it out of my body with it. An ice bucket emptied over my already damp head. For a moment, I had been irrationally scared of her. I had been scared that this woman was not my mom. That she was some kind of monster. Shapeshifter. Whatever. That she would turn round with eyes rimmed in red, traces of blood running down the corners of her lips.

Then she had turned around.

"Lily, what's wrong? Are you coming?"

And she had been my mom again. The life in her eyes extinguished like a flame. The hope wiped out, gone. I had put a foot in front of the other, making myself walk. I had wanted to ask what she had just said, whether I had heard right. Surely I had just misunderstood her. She had said, 'Your feather is running low on the tip.' Or, 'The farther this cunning hole comes it trips.' Well, only my feeble mind could come up with alternatives as silly, grammatically faulty, and completely absurd as that, but I really was clinging to the last straw here.

Once we had arrived in our palace apartment, I had actually searched for traces of my father. I had actually considered whether maybe I had been crazy the other way around. Maybe I had imagined him being dead all those years.

It turned out I had not. Everything was as it always had been. My mom was her normal dismal self. My dad was dead and remained predictably and obstinately dead. Everything indicated that I had just misheard what I thought my mom had said. That there had been nothing at all to worry about in the first place.

I had almost succeeded in making myself believe that. Almost. Then, simply needing to see my mom in all her comfortingly normal glory again, I had poked my head into our kitchen where she was busying herself, and she had suggested eating out tonight, which was a rare and happy occurrence seeing as she hardly ever even joined us for dinner at home.

Then I had suggested the Court Thai place, and all my tenuous credence in my sanity had been smashed without mercy.

"You know Christian hates that one," my mom had said.

Somehow, I had managed to keep my wits together this time, though my voice barely carried as I tonelessly mouthed: "Mom?"

She had looked up, and had been startled to see my horror-stricken expression.

"What's wrong, honey?" she'd asked in alarm.

"What did you just say?" It was only a scared whisper.

"I said the Thai place is fine! But honey, it's really not that important!"

I had survived dinner. I had forced myself to eat. I had even managed to finish the compulsion on her. But I hadn't slept since, and it had been the last time I'd had any real food.

My father was dead. He was dead, and he would stay dead, until my sister and Anton managed to do something about it. And if I was really, really lucky, I would have a shred of sanity left to my mind by the time the two were done with their job.

.

.

- Anton -

The rings gleamed on my and Ava's fingers. They sat there and gleamed at me, mockingly. While the outcome of their magical effect was - absolutely nothing.

The rings were out of magic.

I kept Ava's hand in mine. Maybe it would only take a while. Maybe it would still work. Maybe I had to turn them around a little. Maybe I had to switch them.

I tried a multitude of possibilities before I couldn't put off conceding the truth anymore: the rings simply did not work.

I didn't even dwell on the long-term implications of this – namely, that Ava and I didn't have a means to ever return to our own time, mission accomplished or not – because much more urgent was the immediate meaning of this. I had no way of saving Ava.

Never in my life had I felt so utterly, completely helpless. I couldn't get out; I couldn't get help. I couldn't even get her to a human hospital, dangerous as that would be. I didn't even know how badly she was hurt.

I held her as close to me as I possibly could without hurting her. Futilely, I started calling for help again, until I was just too tired to go on. I wished the construction crew would return. Anyone, just anyone who could help.

I felt like I had given half of my strength to the Moroi to enhance their power and the other half to my fear for Ava. Left with nothing, I was exhausted and sore beyond measure. Still clutching Ava, I leaned my head back to the sandy wall of the pit, and had to fight the urge to close my eyes and just let oblivion wash over me.

Someone would have to find us eventually. And as long as that faint pulse was still shooting through my best friend's veins, there was hope.

When I finally heard footsteps, I didn't know whether I had been asleep or still was. A shadow fell over me; a head bent over the edge. I tried to shake the drowsiness from me, and blinked, unable to really see the person. There was a drop, and that someone was right in front of me. A hand reached out for me, lightly touching my forehead, and my eyes closed against my will, finally bringing redemption.

….

I was rolling. Back… and forth. Back… and forth. There was a steady humming noise, accompanied by hushed whispers. The rolling stopped, but now there was movement beside me instead. Then Ava's drowsy voice, saying my name, answered by a different voice, Lissa's, which was so beautifully soft and gentle that I almost let it lure me into sleep again. "He'll be okay, Ava. You don't need to worry."

It was the slight confusion in Ava's sleepy voice which made me cling to wakefulness. "What happened?" she said.

Lissa's voice recounted events that seemed vaguely familiar. Yes, that's right, thought my sleepy mind while I worked on prying my eyes open.

"He must have passed out from exhaustion," Lissa ended. "I'm afraid we took too much from him."

"I never knew that there was a limit to this," Ava softly murmured.

"Me either," I croaked, blinking. "But then, you don't usually try to create lakes."

Her face, hovering somewhere above me, broke into a smile. "I want to point out that I don't usually instigate people to destroy public property, either."

As I sat up, further inspection of my surroundings revealed that we were lying on the floor in what appeared to be the empty loading room of a utility van. Lissa was kneeling beside us, and I didn't even have to look around to know that Rose was there, too. I could feel the reassuring weight of her hand on my shoulder.

"They alright?" Christian twisted around from the passenger's seat up front. In the rearview mirror, Dimitri's brown eyes briefly met my matching ones.

"We're fine," Ava answered for us.

It reminded me that she hadn't been very recently. I started examining her more closely, but then resolved to just gather her up in a very tight hug that made her yelp in surprise.

"We had to leave you," Rose explained. "Robert was between us. We had to keep running for quite a while, but eventually we exhausted him, I guess. Then we returned to you, and you were both unconscious. I'm so sorry we couldn't be there sooner."

The car slowed down. Dimitri must be pulling over somewhere.

"Comrade? What's up?" Rose called.

Once parked, he turned around to us. "Now that our get-away car no longer needs to double as an ambulance, we need to switch vehicles. I've set my eyes on that one." He nodded towards something outside that I couldn't see. Christian did, though, and whistled.

"You have taste, Dimitri. A very expensive taste."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "No, I am merely well informed about the varying safety measures built in different types of cars, and go for the safe ones."

Under Christian's muttered remarks about the effectiveness of said safety measures against rampant spirit users, they both got out. While Dimitri set to work on his target, Christian opened the cargo doors for us. We filed into another roomy SUV-type car that I didn't really bother examining, and I instantly missed the comfort of the large cargo space as I tried to doze with my cheek squashed uncomfortably against the window. After a while, Ava gently tugged me awake.

"Come on out, Anton," she told me softly. "We're not going any further today."

She ushered me into another one in our long series of motel rooms, and I realized that I must have slept more soundly than I had thought, because I had no idea where the packet of French fries that Ava now shoved into my hand had come from.

It was only when I noticed her eyes lingering at my hands that I realized that the silver ring was still stuck on my finger, a blatant sign of defeat. I shrugged, mutely trying to tell her: Does it matter now? Does it really matter that we have no way home, when we didn't even do what we came to do? But I could tell that that wasn't what she'd been thinking of.

I'd been so devastated by my failure that I had stopped to worry about how she would react to my attempt to abandon our parents to their fate. She looked at me in an odd way, but there was no resentment.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, all the same. "You were so… I was really afraid."

"For me?" she asked. I nodded, lowering my eyes. Then I felt her head lean against my knees; she had settled down next to my chair on the floor.

"It's only a few more hours' drive until we arrive at Court," Rose said, jerking me out of my dismal thoughts. "Can blood wait until we're there?"

I had almost forgotten that we were still heading for Court. Not that our most recent adventure had weakened the Moroi's resolve to stop that. Lissa and Christian quickly expressed a very urgent need for blood, and so did Ava, though with a little less fervor.

Rose narrowed her eyes. "Oh, no. You're trying to stall. It's not happening – we are going to Court. What happened only served to affirm that to me."

"You asked," Christian replied innocently.

"If you could just tell us what the big deal is, we could talk about it, but as long as you insist on clamming up, I won't budge, either."

I, along with Lissa, Christian and Ava, had to try hard to suppress a groan. We tried, Rose! But you are proving exceptionally slow on the uptake!

"Anton, that food isn't for decoration," Rose said, turning to me. "Eat something! You'll feel better."

"You sound like my mom," I told her spitefully.

Completely unaware of everybody's slightly expectant looks, she ignored the jab.

I listlessly started munching on my fries. Even though I was ravenous, they didn't taste like much. I was so fed up with the world right now than not even food could set it right.

"Dimitri, if we ever have kids," Rose said lightly, "It will clearly be up to you to watch over their diet. I'm feeding people with burgers, fries and doughnuts." It was a valiant attempt to brighten up the mood, but it achieved exactly the opposite. Even Dimitri, perched on the windowsill and keeping a keen lookout over the parking lot, found little humor in her comment.

"We're not going to have children, Rose," he said, barely keeping his voice over a menacing growl. "And I hardly think that this is the proper situation to discuss this."

Please let this be the end of that discussion. If they'd discuss having children now, I'd explode.

The angry frown growing on Rose's face told otherwise. "Why is that, Dimitri? Are you still hung up on all the dangers to spirit children?"

With the very unpleasant sensation of my fry-filled stomach dropping through the floor, I realized that I had just discovered what the one and only topic that would get my parents to seriously argue was. And I really – really – wished I hadn't.

"Maybe we should ask Anton about how many people questioned him for his dhampir parentage. Because in case you hadn't noticed, he's dhampir-born and he's just fine!"

Dimitri took a breath, answering deliberately slowly. "Rose. Anton might have succeeded in hiding the extraordinary circumstances of his birth. But I doubt that we would be able to provide the same for any child of ours. I'm keeping firm in this. No children."

No children. Dad – really?

Breathe. Just breathe, I told myself. Mentally, I was begging them to stop. I had endured enough for one day. I so didn't need this.

"That's kind of a despotic stance for something that concerns both of us," Rose answered in a strained calm.

"But it's something that my conscience dictates, and that means that I will not bend." There was a dangerous glint in Dimitri's eyes, one that I had only ever seen once in my life: That one time someone had suggested he take another partner so as to better be able to care for me.

Rose drew a breath to retaliate.

And that was when I snapped.

"Will you just shut up!" I roared. Ava snatched her head up from my knee. Even I was surprised to find this energy within me. "Of course you're going to have children! So just shut up about it!"

I had never dared tell my dad to shut up about anything. I had hardly ever even dared to raise my voice in his presence.

"Anton." Rose didn't bother hiding her annoyance. "I realize this is our fault for discussing this in front of you, but it's really not-"

"Because I exist, don't I? I EXIST!"

Silence enveloped us, only marred by my heavy breathing. I hadn't even realized I had gotten so worked up.

"You… what?" Rose stared at me with eyes as big and round as headlights. "What are you saying?"

How are you going to deal with this now, Anton, my subconscious piped up diabolically. What are you going to say now?

"Anton?" Dimitri's voice had changed so dramatically it was hard to believe that this man had just adamantly argued against my conception. "What do you mean?"

"What I said," I slurred, helplessly. I wished Ava could just magically get me out of here.

"We tried to let you know," Lissa began to explain, her voice small. "We tried to make you understand. Slowly, so you wouldn't…"

Lissa's voice petered out as if the pressure in the room was physically handicapping her speech. I crumbled down in my chair, trying to hide and disappear through it. I looked at nothing but Ava's hands, which had gripped mine and were holding on tightly.

How had Ava done this? How had she endured the moments her parents realized who stood before them?

"Look, Rose, Dimitri," Christian said – he didn't sound awkward, but rather a little ticked off. "We tried to make this easier for you, but in the end, you just have to face it. So, both of you: meet your son. You know what we've been keeping from you now."

"Why did you keep it from us?" Rose whispered. I could picture her staring at me, but I didn't have the heart to look up.

"Precisely for this reason," Christian replied dryly. "Because it's kind of hard on a person to have their son travel back from the future while you're still debating having kids at all. We've been there, Lissa and I."

The most terrible thing that could happen yet was starting to happen now as I felt Ava's hands slowly slipping out of mine. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction when I gripped them more tightly. I wouldn't ever let go of Ava's hands.

"Anton," she whispered, and her hands were gone, and I felt colder than I had ever felt until I there were other hands reaching for me, arms encircle my neck and a sweep of dark hair blown into my face. And as suddenly as that, I was captured in the overwhelming shelter of my mother's embrace.

Just like this, there was no more tension left in me. I could not resist these arms, and the all-encompassing feeling of being calmly swept into a safe haven wiped away the fear, the pain, the sleeplessness and the defeat. I closed my eyes and rested my head on her shoulder. Peace was a palpable thing then.

When I felt a small warm hand on my knee, I knew that in all this immensity, Ava had never left me, either.

It was a while until I opened my eyes again. Through the curtain of Rose's hair, I saw Dimitri, and my first thought was, oh shoot, he doesn't believe me.

He was – for lack of a better word – illuminated. He wasn't looking at me, or at Rose. He was looking into space, kind of dreamily, and his expression reminded me of someone watching kittens tumble about. Like he was seeing something adorable in front of his inner eye. Maybe me trying to make him believe that I was his son.

If it wasn't for the fact that my mom was still holding me and clearly believed me, this would greatly disturb me. She did believe me, didn't she? She would make him believe, too, right?

Rose withdrew, but she didn't let go of me. She held me at arm's length, and hypnotized me with her beautiful brown eyes. Whether it was the jumble of feelings I could barely discern in them that captivated me, or simply their shocking proximity, I couldn't tell.

"So we are going to have a child, after all." Dimitri was suddenly standing right behind us, a hand lightly on Rose's shoulder.

"I told you so," Rose whispered.

"Uh… you're okay with that…now?" I could have slapped myself the minutes I let those words out. I didn't want to offend Dimitri. I really didn't want to do that.

But he just smiled his kitten-watching-smile again. "Now that I know you're going to be okay," he said. "Now that I know no one's going to dissect my child or put it in a cage." His smile deepened. That flabbergasted me because I now had to imagine him standing in front of not only one cute little kitten, but in the middle of a multitude of the cutest, fluffiest kittens this world had ever produced. His smile was so… intense.

I was having an effect paramount to the presence of a multitude of the cutest, fluffiest kittens to him?

Ooookay.

"Um… I hate to break it to you," Christian began, sounding like he needed to clear his throat. I suddenly realized that while I'd been hugging my mom and having pathetically kitten-filled imaginations about my dad, he, Lissa and Ava had been mutely trying to decide whether or not they should discreetly leave the room. I was glad they hadn't. They had been through what my family was going through now, and I wasn't quite ready to be all alone with my parents yet.

Christian continued. "But we still have a super-villain to catch. And we seriously need to rethink our recent approach."

Rose sighed. She was still watching at me. Somehow, her gaze managed not to make me uncomfortable.

"Oh, no, no, no, wait a second," Dimitri said. He was shaking his head as if coming out of a daze, and it was my turn to smile. Usually, my dad was so collected. He never stammered.

"Did you just say that you and Lissa… you've been debating having kids?"

In a rare display of totally unqueenlike behavior, Lissa gave a snort that could compete with Christian any day. "Yes, we have, Dimitri. And in case this is your way of alluding to the other thing Christian said… that is true, too. Ava's our daughter. Or, she's going to be."

Ava's eyes glowed at this. I think this was the first time she'd actually heard the younger Lissa say those words.

"Did you seriously never suspect any of this?" Christian asked, his usual laid-back sarcasm back in place. "We were dropping hints left, right and center since yesterday. You were really dense, Rose."

"Well, how would I suspect… How did you find out in the first place?" Rose asked, indignantly. "I mean… Jesus, you must be… how did you even get here? You can't even be born yet! I mean, you are most definitely not born yet, Anton."

Something in me just bubbled over at that. I felt a smile turn into a grin, and that grin turn into a chuckle as I watched her come to terms with the concept of time travel, her having a son, that son being present, …

I kept quiet while Lissa and Christian stumbled all over each other in their excitement to relate how they had found out about us. I kept watching Rose and Dimitri. My parents. Every now and then, their eyes would find mine. Rose's eyes were full of wonder. She kept turning her head towards me as if to make sure that I was still there. Dimitri… my dad was my dad. Really. It was as if he had suddenly turned into the person I knew from the future. Well, he was the person I knew from the future. But now he had this love in his eyes that I had always been able to see there. He'd known me for a few weeks, and he loved me already. He was looking forward to having me. It was a crazy thought – supercilious even – but I think in this moment, there were no walls in him. There was no guardian mask. There was just a young man with the exceptional chance of having children with the love of his life, and he was longing to live this dream. In his eyes, there was the joy of a fulfilled life.

He really wanted children that much. But he would have denied himself all of this for fear for my safety and happiness.

"And now we know that Anton has anger issues just like his parents, don't we? He just deals with them a lot better."

"I really want to know what it's like twenty years from now," Rose's awed voice travelled through to my consciousness. "Are there any cool fashion trends?"

"Wait, twenty years from now?" Dimitri said. "Rose, they're sixteen!"

"Fifteen, actually. We have fake IDs," Ava admitted.

"I guess ID's from the year two thousand thirty something would raise some suspicions," Christian said.

"Yes, twenty years from now," Rose continued unfazed. "Dimitri, we're not going to have kids right away."

"Uh, no, please don't," Christian teased with a fake air of disgust.

"I'm not going to tell you the year of my birth," I quickly interjected before this argument could get out of hand. "There are some things you'll have to figure out by yourselves."

"So I'm guessing that there is a really good reason for why we're hunting down Robert Doru aside from his current misgivings for Rose," Dimitri said. That put an end to our joviality for now.

"There is," Ava said. "But for now, his misgivings for Rose are all the reason we need."

"You know, maybe we've been going about this the wrong way," Lissa suddenly said. "We've been trying to counter magic with magic. We keep thinking that Robert is so powerful that guardians are a lost cause against him."

"Well, unless I develop a sudden strong resistance to magic, I feel fairly powerless compared to an angry spirit user," Rose remarked.

"Yes, when you're facing him head-on. But listen…"

That's a lot of cliffhangers resolved for you! Christian's not safe yet in Lily's time, and neither is Rose. Ava and Anton are still in the past, and still trying. And the secret is out! What do you think about Rose and Dimitri's reactions? I really hope I managed it in a way that was in character and not too sappy...

Tell me what you think! I'll be sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs, waiting or your reviews! (Please don't laugh now. I do that sometimes.)