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By the Baring of my Soul

~ Chapter Thirty-Five ~

Leaving housing a few minutes later, Rose and I walked across the brightly lit grounds in silence.

Normally when in the sun, she would bask in it and slow down to absorb as much of its warmth as she could, but now with so much of the campus still cordoned off and patches of blood still staining the ground, she hurried forward and onto the long, winding drive that would take us to the front gates without even bothering to try.

She, like the rest of us, didn't need any further reminders of what we had lost.

Reluctant at first to take her out, not just because it was a dangerous time to be outside the wards, but also because I wasn't all that happy with what she was trying to do, Rose had been so adamantly certain about this Mason theory that I hadn't been able to deny her.

Approaching Alberta should have been a problem, but she hadn't reacted to my odd request when asking to investigate a possible lead in how the Strigoi had broken through our defences. Still too busy with the reshuffle, she had waved me off without a second thought and turned back to Gregor.

Careful now to keep distance between us, I watched Rose from the corner of my eye as she wrapped her arms around herself as an icy wind blew in from the mountains. It was a long way to the main entrance of the Academy, and the walk alone should have provided us with an opportunity to talk about everything that had happened, but neither one of us took the opportunity to start a conversation, and maybe, for the moment, it was for the best.

Stepping from the guard booth, the pair of guardians alerted to our approach carried not only stakes, but fully automatic assault rifles. Bullets didn't do much more than slow down Strigoi, but they were usually enough to scare off anyone else wondering down the road leading to the front gates. Forged in tempered steel and iron, those gates led to what was normally impenetrable fencing that encompassed the entire campus and lay directly over the wards.

"Belikov…what are you doing out here?"

Instantly suspicious, Ramirez walked forward to meet us, whilst Hendriks backed up into the booth and resumed guard. Puerto Rican born, with sharp black eyes, Mateo Ramirez looked us over for a moment before subtly shifting his weapon. He reminded me a little of Stan, who, with his skewered self-belief, thought that he was somehow a one-man army.

"We need to go outside for a few minutes."

Scowling at my brisk reply, his bushy black brows met over the top of his thin nose. "Outside? For what? No travel is authorised whilst in lockdown, you know this, Belikov."

I felt like pointing out that the problem was with those who were trying to get in, and not out, but instead answered. "We're not going any further than just outside the gates, Ramirez. Guardian Petrov has already been told and has no issue with it…unless you'd like to make an issue of it."

Glowering at my pleasantly issued challenge, it looked for a moment like he was actually going to contact her office to confirm, but then obviously thought better of it, and turned on his heel whilst gritting. "Fine, but no further than a few feet away." Feeling Rose watching me, she tried to hide a grin, and failed. Unlocking the triple latch, the heavy gate slide open with a faint creak and only enough for us to walk through one at a time.

Nodding to the pair, I went out first and was followed quickly by Rose. Walking a few steps away from the gate, I scanned the road and forest on either side for any movement, but there was nothing. Not knowing how far Rose would need to go, I glanced down at her and felt the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end.

Grimacing, Rose clenched her eyes shut and rubbed at her temples. Opening them again, she blinked rapidly and didn't seem able to focus on what was right in front of her. "Go away," she grumbled, shaking her head and blinking again. "I don't have time for you. Go."

Chilled to the bone by a feeling of foreboding I didn't understand, but one that I nevertheless listened to, my body moved protectively closer to Rose, but she didn't seem to notice. Hearing the heavy clink of the gate being locked behind us, I barely gave it a second thought as Rose walked a step further away.

"You're okay?"

Nodding at my gruff concern, Rose looked around the empty space that surrounded us for a few minutes before she called out. "Mason, I need you." Glaring faintly out into the open, Rose closed her eyes and breathed deeply, clenching her fists at her sides before she opened them and again implored. "Mason. Please. Come here."

Stomach clenching at the sense of menace I couldn't shake; I was almost past the point of caring what Rose thought she could and couldn't do. About to pull her back into the grounds and beyond the safety of the wards, I needed to use the time alone to see if I had been fooling myself into thinking that there was less wrong with her than there actually was, because right now, it felt like I had been.

Reaching out to her arm, Rose sighed quietly before I could reach her and almost smiled. "Finally," she breathed in relief, chuckling weakly as she seemed to focus on something or someone…neither of which I could see. "You were making me look bad."

Pocketing my fidgeting hands, my frown deepened when the expression on Rose's face fell. "I'm sorry," she said with a quiet sadness. "I need your help again. We have to find them." Impassioned suddenly, Rose lurched forwards. "We have to save Eddie."

Breathing heavily and nodding faintly, the relief on her face was clear again. "Can you show me where they are?" Cocking her head and frowning, Rose spun on her heel to look towards the back of the campus, on the perimeter that had been the first to be breached. Following her agitated movements, her frenetic energy surged through the heavy wind as she turned back to face the road.

"They came in through the back of campus?"

Looking at me almost triumphantly, Rose thought the information was new and that this theory of hers had been right, but we already knew that the Strigoi had broken through there, and it was something that she could have heard in passing. It didn't prove anything, but before I could say anything, she asked for something I hadn't expected.

"We need a map."

Curious now to see where she was leading with this instead of being concerned that it was just another delusional dead-end, I did as she asked and went to the booth. Ramirez by this stage was more than pleased with keeping me locked out, so it was to Hendriks that I asked. "Do you have any maps or topography charts of the campus grounds?"

Finding my request strange, but going to fetch what he had anyway, Stephen handed it to me through the narrow window built into the bullet-proof glass. Returning to Rose, she took it from me and unfolded it, both of us taking note that it was a topographical view rather than a detailed map. Holding the edges flat when the wind threatened to whip it out our hands, Rose tapped her index finger against a point on the map that showed the exact spot the Strigoi had broken the fence, whilst I kept quiet and watched her very closely.

"This is where they came in, isn't it? Where the wards first broke?"

Nodding to herself a few seconds later, Rose frowned and shook her head in disagreement before stabbing at the map aggressively. "No, that's not right. It can't be. This stretch of woods by the mountains has no roads. They'd have to go on foot, and it'd take too long to walk from the school to this other road. They wouldn't have enough time. They'd be caught in daylight."

Growling low under her breath, Rose again shook her head as her finger traced over a road that ran along the foothills of a small mountain range and led eventually to the Highway. Agreeing with her phantom arguments, there was no way the Strigoi could have made it to the road without at least the cover of the forest, and there was nothing there but open land.

"They can't be there now," Rose disputed irritably, throwing a frustrated look over her shoulder. "It's outside. They might have come in through the back, but they had to have left through the front – gotten in some kind of vehicle and took off."

When the answer she got apparently wasn't the one that she wanted, Rose turned back to me. "Is there any building or anything out there? He says they were going out to that road. But they couldn't have walked there before the sun came up, and he claims they're there."

"Not that I know of." Taking the map, I looked down at it whilst my mind whispered in disbelief; I can't believe you're still going along with this, Dimitri. Wanting to kick myself for not ending this when I should have, there was still something so compelling about Rose's conviction, that it kept me from doing anything other than helping her. Walking to Stephen, I left Rose behind and slide it through the gap.

"Is there anything out there?" I asked, pointing to the spot that had agitated Rose. "Abandoned houses, or buildings, maybe? Something that we might have missed when we went out before to look for anyone left behind?"

"Nothing," Stephen confirmed, shaking his head and brushing aside the floppy brown hair falling over his forehead. Tracing over the map with his forefinger, his brow furrowed thoughtfully as I heard Rose talking softly over my shoulder and turned slightly to keep an eye on her. Thankfully Stephen was too engrossed to listen to any of it.

"Son-of-a-bitch."

Swinging around to Stephen again, he was staring down at the map with a kind of fascinated horror.

"What? What is it?"

Sliding his finger up along the dirt road, it stopped at a point in the map when the road met the foothills before looking up at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. "How did you know to point at this spot, Dimitri? There's nothing on this that indicates there's anything out there."

"I didn't – not really. We're only working on guess work here, Stephen," I hedged, not about to explain Rose's preoccupation with the dead. There were only a few of us that knew, and that how I wanted to keep it. "What's out there, Stephen?"

"Caves."

Feeling a shiver of awareness – different from the earlier shiver of dread – slide down my spine at his faint reply, I looked sharply back over my shoulder at Rose. She was still softly talking to…Mason.

The proof of it wasn't logical or even tangible, but after this – knowing the exact location of a set of caves she didn't know existed – how could I believe anything else? Rose wasn't suffering from PTSD…she wasn't stressed or delusional or making up an excuse to explain her behaviour. She knew exactly what…who, she was seeing, when the rest of us – myself included – had doubted her all along.

"I can't believe I didn't remember this!" Smacking his hand down over the map, Stephen continued on, oblivious to the shame of my doubt. "A few years ago there was a geology class that mapped out the surrounding area as part of their syllabus – the access points, the tunnels, the chambers. They had detailed charts of the topography and of the entire system, which is only about five miles away. It must still be in the office somewhere."

Curiously excited, Stephen cocked his head. "You think this is where they're hiding, don't you? You think this is where they have our people? And by the way…what the hell is Hathaway doing out there?"

"I don't know, Stephen, but it makes the most sense." Deliberately drawing his attention away from Rose and back to the map, I pointed to the spot again. "They would need to avoid the sun during the daylight hours and could make their escape from there after sunset. It would also explain why we wouldn't have seen any of them until the attack. Can you remember anything about the system? Would it be large enough to hide over fifty Strigoi?"

"Easily," he nodded.

Pushing away from the booth with a nod of thanks, my walk back to Rose was slow and deliberate. It was stupid really, but it somehow felt now like I was intruding on a conversation that before I hadn't thought really existed.

"Rose…"

Turning to face me, she brushed aside the hair swept over her face by the wind and looked at me questioningly as I held the map out to her. "Stephen says there are caves right at the base of the mountain here."

Staring for a moment, Rose couldn't seem to find the right words. Glancing over my shoulder to the visible peak of the mountain we were talking about, Rose asked quietly. "Are they big enough –"

"Big enough for the Strigoi to hide out in until night time? They are. And they're only five miles away."

"Only five miles?" Rose whispered incredulously. Glancing back at what was presumably Mason, Rose demanded. "Why didn't the search parties pick up on that? The tracks should have led to the road."

"They did, but with the wind and Alberta's instructions to go no further than the outer fields, we didn't see anything. Also, and I'm only now beginning to realise how clinical the Strigoi were in covering their tracks, there were so many points of access to cover. The main break in the fencing isn't the only way they fled. They planned this very, very carefully."

"Knowing that we probably wouldn't be looking for them, because why would we? We don't usually search or even try and rescue. What they didn't know about, was Mason."

Walking slowly past me, Rose stopped in the dirty snow she had mushed before; wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill – whether it was from the cold, or something else. "Mason…you say the others are alive…that Eddie is still alive? You're sure of that?"

"What is he saying?"

Eying me, Rose arched a brow at my question, probably wondering why I was now asking the question when I had categorically told her before that I didn't believe in ghosts. "That he's seen them…in the cave. Eddie is still alive, and so are a few of the others. He's…he's not certain for how long. He seems to think that when the Strigoi leave tonight, they're noting taking anyone with them."

"How many is a few? Can he be more specific?"

"How many do we need, comrade?" Rose demanded impatiently, her voice rising in volume and intensity as that same drive I had seen in her before to kill…to protect, become all that she cared about. "If even one of them is alive, then we need to go. We need to rescue them!"

Glancing uneasily at the nothingness behind Rose and the now curious guardians, I stood between her and them and softly cautioned. "Easy, Rose. I know how you feel – I feel the same way, but drawing attention to yourself right now isn't a smart idea. There are only a handful of people who know about what happened to you on the plane, and the guardians behind us, are not any of them. They're already suspicious, and the last thing we need to do right now is create a panic. Calm down, all right?"

Narrowing her eyes, it took Rose a few seconds to listen to what I was saying. Breathing deeply to calm down, she nodded tightly. "Fine. What are we going to do first?"

"Talk to Alberta. If there's going to be any rescue, she would be the only one who could petition the council to allow it. She's also one of the few that know about the ghosts…about Mason, so the theory isn't going to sound completely…"

"Crazy?"

"I was going to say farfetched."

"Of course you were…you're too polite to say crazy."

Turning her upper body away before I could respond, Rose looked over her shoulder and raised her fingers in a half curl wave obviously meant for Mason. Gravely nodding once, she turned back to me. "He says we need to hurry, Dimitri."

Not questioning anymore, I looped an arm around her back, led her to the gate and pushed her through the narrow opening. Returning the map with my thanks to the now confused set of guardians, Rose and I quickly made our way back to the inner campus. As silent in our return as we had been when making the first trip, it wasn't until we had reached the outer walkway that I spoke.

"I'm sorry."

Lost in her thoughts, it took a moment before Rose knew I had spoken. Looking up in surprise, her brow crinkled. "For what?"

"Not believing you…about the ghosts. About Mason."

Snorting softly, Rose chuckled to herself. "It's okay, comrade. For a while there, I didn't believe myself."

Reaching out, my fingers curled around her wrist, slowing her down. Half hidden by the shadow of a winter-deadened Birch, Rose threw a curious glance at me before looking around for anyone who might see us, but the grounds were still empty. Turning her wrist in my light grip, the tips of her fingers brushed against my inner forearm as her pulse jumped.

"No, it's not okay. If it had been me asking you to believe what I was saying, what I was seeing, you would have without hesitation. I know you better, and I should have trusted that. I should have trusted you. Maybe if I had, this would have turned out differently."

"Seriously? You're trying to blame yourself for all of this?" At my look of helpless responsibility, Rose squeezed my arm tightly. "Look, even if you and rest of the Academy had believed me, Mason doesn't talk; he just points or nods and shakes his head, so I would never have been able to understand what he was saying, or that my theory on the wards being weak was right. No one here is to blame for what happened."

"Aren't we all? Our complacency might be."

"What do you mean?"

"Until now, did you believe that this could happen?" At the slow shake of her dark head, mine shook the same. "Neither did I, and that's the problem. None of us did. We've all lived for so long in our own self-belief and preconceived notions of the Strigoi; we completely failed to see that they could be anything else. If we had, then maybe we would have known to expect this."

Thinking hard about what I said, Rose looked around the damaged campus. "Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know, and beating ourselves up over it isn't going to change it or make it hurt less, Dimitri. All that matters right now is going to those caves and saving as many as we can."

Tugging me gently out of the shadow, we separated as our pace picked up, but I couldn't help the small smile that played at my lips. Even in the middle of all the death and despair, when most would be wallowing or despondent, Rose was only focused on one thing – saving the living. Her determination was a force strong enough to carry the rest of us.

Finding Alberta in her office a few minutes later, she glanced up at us from behind her desk, and scowled darkly at me before barking. "I don't have the time or the patience to deal with whatever the hell is going on here, Belikov, so –"

"It's about the thirteen," I interrupted hastily, watching Rose frown in confusion when I closed the door and pushed her towards the same chair I was in an hour ago. She had no idea that Alberta knew anything about us, and it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have right now. "We have information that you need to know."

"What kind of information?" Alberta said almost dismissively, refocusing on the paperwork on her desk.

"We know where they are."

Angling her eyes upwards first, her head rose a second later as her body became perfectly still. "What do you mean you 'know where they are'?"

Standing behind the chair Rose sat in, I began. We needed to explain this calmly, and Rose right now was a bundle of nervous energy that would blurt out instead of carefully explaining. "Five miles from our southern border are a series of caves running through the foothills of the mountain range. According to Guardian Hendriks, that cave system has chambers large enough to hold a large number of bodies at any one time."

"Caves?" Sitting back, Alberta tapped her fingers against the armrest whilst Rose squirmed restlessly in her seat and glanced between the two of us. I had warned her not to interrupt, and could only hope that she remembered.

"Yes. We think that the Strigoi must have used the caves before the attack to gather, and that's where they've gone to when they escaped the campus at dawn. It makes the most sense…they would need cover until nightfall, and it would explain why they and the thirteen disappeared without a trace. It's the only logical place they could be."

Tapping more rapidly against the armrest, Alberta was silent, but I could almost hear the wheels in her head shifting into gear and begin to turn rapidly. "And what proof do you have of this, Belikov?

"We don't have any hard proof – we just have information." I answered quickly, watching from the corner of my eye as Rose shuffled restlessly and impatiently clenched her fists. She wasn't going to be quiet for much longer.

Sitting forward again, Alberta narrowed her eyes dangerously. "Information from where? From who?"

"From me."

Glancing at Rose, Alberta turned her attention back to me for just a second before she looked at Rose again and asked. "And where are you getting the information from, Miss Hathaway?"

"Mason."

Jerking away a little, Alberta controlled her reaction to that name a little too late to hide how she really felt about hearing it. Of the handful of us that knew about what had happened on the plane, Alberta had been the most disbelieving…and the most uncomfortable.

"Do you remember what I told you in the infirmary about Mason following me around campus?" Rose asked quietly. When Alberta nodded very stiffly, Rose sat forward and rested her elbows on the table. "He wasn't doing it to upset me; I think he was trying to warn me about the Strigoi. He knew they were in the caves, just waiting for a chance for the wards to be weak enough to break through them. When Dim...Guardian Belikov and I were attacked in the woods, he appeared just before to try and warn me again, but I didn't understand it until it was too late."

"He was warning you?"

"Yes," Rose replied quickly, hearing Alberta's disbelief. "And that's why I needed to talk to him again. I thought that if he knew about the attack, then maybe he would know about the thirteen that were taken, and he did. He says they're in the caves, and that some of them are still alive."

Closing her eyes briefly, Alberta rested her chin on her stacked hands and asked. "Where exactly did this conversation take place?"

"Outside the front gate."

Glaring at me now, Alberta grated. "You took a student outside the wards?"

"He had to," Rose jumped to my defence before I could explain. "Mason can't get back into the academy grounds, so we had to go to him. And it was only for a few minutes, Guardian Petrov."

"Why did you have to go to him?"

"Because the wards have been restored. He's kept out by them…just like the Strigoi."

Closing her eyes again, though for far longer this time, Alberta massaged of her temples before speaking very softly from between compressed lips. "So let me see if I understand this. The ghost of Mason Ashford has told you that the Strigoi and their victims are in a cave only five miles away from us?"

"Yes, and he says to hurry. They're planning on moving out as soon as the sun sets…and they're not planning on taking anyone with. We have to rescue them!"

"Rose…" Sitting back again, Alberta didn't look happy or convinced. "I can't go to the council with this type of information and expect them to believe it. I don't even believe it fully, and I was on that plane with you, I saw everything. Organising a rescue mission, any kind of rescue mission with the information we have would be risky enough, but what you're now asking me to do is trust something that I can't see or hear or touch."

Throwing a frustrated look up at me, I interrupted before she could explode. "We might. Guardian Hendriks said that the caves were mapped out by a former teacher for a geology class. He's sure that they're somewhere in the office. If we have a proper layout of the caves and can plan our entrance and escape, then would you consider it?"

"No." Alberta was adamant. "It's still too risky. We would be heading into a situation we nothing about."

"Then take me with!" Jumping to her feet, Rose lurched forward a step before my hand clamped down on her shoulder to hold her in place. Shrugging against it, my gentle grip was too strong for her to escape. "I can warn you before the Strigoi attack. I can give you time."

Stomach clenching in panic at the thought of having Rose in those caves, I knew that she, more than anyone else, had every right to be there. She was strong, she was fierce, she was capable…but that didn't make it sit any easier with me.

"What do you mean you can warn us?"

Realising too late that she had revealed something that only I knew, Rose sighed. "When the Strigoi are close, I can…I can feel them."

"Rose…"

"No, listen," Rose blurted out when Alberta's fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm not making this up, Guardian Petrov! When they're close, I feel intensely nauseas. It doesn't give me much time – a few seconds at most, but that's at least something. It means we have an advantage against them, so use it. Use me!"

Shaking her head emphatically, Alberta spoke very precisely and very slowly. "You are a student, Rose. Even if what you are saying is true, and I'm not saying I believe it is, when and if, we launch any type of rescue mission, you will not be going with us!"

Pulling so strongly against my hold that I had to tighten it, Rose almost shouted. "Why not?!"

Forcing Rose into her seat before Alberta's patience ran out and she refused to listen to anymore, Rose glared over her shoulder at my interference, but at my fierce expression she mutinously obeyed and clamped her lips tightly.

"Guardian Petrov. We've given you enough information to at least investigate the possibility. We can sit here all day debating this, but with every minute we waste doing that, the survivors are running out of minutes to live. If we're going to travel to the caves and back before nightfall, we need to leave before noon, and that's in a little over five hours."

Running her hands through her hair, the logic of what I was saying couldn't be ignored. "They will never agree to this." Alberta muttered.

Knowing she meant the council, I flattened my palms on her desk. "Then go around the council! There isn't a guardian here who won't volunteer for this, because we've all fought, and we've all lost people we know…friends, family! It's what we are, Alberta."

Thinking about this, Alberta was silent for a long moment as she weighed the pros and cons. She knew that if she disobeyed the council in this, it would almost certainly cost her job, but she was angry, like the rest of us. The Strigoi had ripped apart the defences of a place meant to be safe, meant to protect, and had endangered and killed those we protected with our lives. We were related to none of them, but they were ours…ours to protect, and ours to avenge.

Sighing heavily, Alberta waved us off. "Find me the maps of the caves before the meeting and I'll look over them before I make a final decision on what to do." Pushing Rose quickly to her feet before Alberta changed her mind or Rose opened her mouth again, we were heading for the door when Alberta barked.

"But until I do, not a word of this to anyone. Understood? Go to archives next to Kirova's office – if the maps are anywhere, they'll be there. If they're locked, ask Ms. Cooper – tell her I've sent you in to find old records."

Agreeing quickly and thanking her, Rose and I avoided anyone that would ask too many questions and stepped onto the muddied pathway to the main block a few seconds after leaving housing. Silent as we both prepared ourselves, it was only as the front doors of the office came into view that Rose spoke.

"She wants to do this, doesn't she? That's why she told us to look in the archives. She's trying to help without actually getting involved."

"Yes, so maybe you should remember that before you start shouting at her again." Arching a brow at my sardonic tone, Rose pushed open the office door. Immediately greeted by guardians on duty, I explained what we needed, and we were shown to the archives by Headmistress Kirova's assistance, a very rattled Ms. Cooper, who explained that she had no time to assist us. Left alone with the key, we began our search; rifling through dusty paperwork in filing cabinets, cupboards and drawers.

Sneezing, Rose wiped at her nose and complained. "This is worse than going through Father Andrew's paperwork. We've been here half an hour and nothing!" Looking around at the cluttered disorder, she turned back to the blueprints she had unrolled over a small table beneath the only window in the room whilst I rummaged around in a filing cabinet full of old transcripts for former employees.

Finding the geology teacher's, his file was thick with recommendations, degrees and notes on his dissertation, but there was nothing on any cave mapping. Closing the door with barely restrained frustration, I looked around the room, but nothing stood out.

Sneezing again, Rose growled beneath her breath and rubbed even harder at her nose. Leaning over to open the window and find fresh air, the sudden gust of wind that blasted through the opening sent paperwork fluttering.

"Dammit." Reaching out snatch at flying paper, Rose lunged around the table to catch them, but knocked over a series of boxes stack haphazardly beside the table whilst I closed the window. Dropping to her knees, Rose cursed beneath her breath and gathered the books that had tumbled out. Sinking to my haunches besides her to help, I stacked the papers together and turned to placed them in the box when Rose grabbed my wrist.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait…what is that?"

Turning my wrist in her grip, the paper folded in four had a corner turned back with a scale ratio for distance. Plucking it from my fingers, Rose spread the corners over the floor and used the scattered books as paperweights. Kneeling over it, Rose traced her fingers of the faded, intersecting blue lines in excitement as her fingers mapped out the chambers and borders of the cave system.

"Did we actually find it?" Turning back to where I knelt beside her, a swath of dark hair fell over her eyes and wide grin.

Tucking it gently behind her ear, my fingers lingered over the soft, velvety shell for a moment. "We did."

Going over it together, we found that the central chamber was over a mile long and more than large enough to hold what was left of the Strigoi and the thirteen. Two clear entrances had been marked, with the northern end opening out onto a dirt road, but according to the notes on the right side of the map, there had been landslides from heavy rains a few years ago that had sealed the cave. As we looked at each other over the map, we both knew that the rocks could be easily moved by the combined strength of that many Strigoi.

Rolling the map, we locked up and made our way back to Alberta. Almost at the lobby doors, Rose glanced worriedly up at me. "Do you think this will work? Will Alberta agree to this?"

"I don't know, Roza…but we have to try."

Finding Alberta still in her office, she wasted no time in going over what we had found. Listening patiently to our explanation of the caves' layout, she made very few comments and asked only straight forward questions. Forcing Rose to sit again in the same chair, I eyed her warningly as her foot began to tap with impatience.

Long minutes passed whilst Alberta wrestled with her decision, but it was easy to see the exact moment when she made it. Sighing heavily, Alberta straightened from the lean over her desk and folded her arms over here chest. "I'm going to talk to Guardian Chase…and Guardia Hathaway about this, since she's one of the few who has actually been on a rescue mission. I'll make my decision after that on whether or not to bring it up for debate at the meeting."

"And the council?"

"I'm not going to involve the council, Belikov. Even if they did agree to this madness, it would take too long to follow all the correct protocol, and if what you and Miss Hathaway are telling me is accurate, time is the one thing we don't have a lot of."

"We don't!"

"All right, Rose. Calm down. I agreed to look at this and I have, and, against my better judgement, I am going to look at all our options. Now why don't you go back to your dorm until the meeting? Guardian Belikov and I have some things to discuss."

Wanting to argue, I shook my head and held the door open for her, ushering her out before she could find a reason to stay. Maybe she couldn't hear the quiet menace in Alberta's voice, but I could. Turning back to it now, Alberta had perched herself on the edge of her table and glared as I braced myself for whatever I was about to face, but her glare melted away quickly, and was replaced with tired resignation.

"Do you actually believe any of this?"

"I didn't at first, but I do now."

"And given your personal involvement with Rose, can you honestly say that it's not influencing your decision right now?"

"No, I can't."

"But you still expect me to go along with lunacy?"

"I do, not just because I believe Rose, but because I know that you do to. You would never have agreed to look at the map if you didn't."

"You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?"

"No more than usual, Guardian Petrov."

Scrubbing her hands over her face at my mild reply, Alberta turned to roll up the map, stuck it under her arm and faced me again with a look on her face that made me feel a little wary. "Well let's hope that you're as confident about this when explaining it to Gregor and Janine, as you were with me. You're coming with."

Understanding perfectly now the reason behind my weariness, but knowing that I had neatly trapped myself, there was no point in arguing as we walked in silence to find them in the lounge. Pulling them quietly aside, Alberta explained what had happened and the information she had received with as little elaboration as possible.

As expected, neither Gregor nor Janine accepted what she said without asking a dozen questions between the two of them, and even when the answers made perfect sense, they still continued to argue against the insanity of the idea. They both demanded to know the source of the information, but Alberta kept her source confidential. All she would say was that the information was credible enough to at least put it to a vote.

It took some time to convince them, but Alberta could be very persuasive when she wanted to be. Slowly but surely, both Gregor and Janine agreed, though neither of them seemed very sure of what it was they were agreeing to. Gregor, in his usual pessimism, forecast disaster, whilst Janine seemed more interested in staring at me with a particular expression – one filled with suspicion.

Janine couldn't have known that it was Rose who had provided the information, but she knew that she had gone looking for me, and that I was now the one with Alberta. The timing of it was too perfect to be anything other than coincidental. Slipping out without notice whilst the three were strategizing, I had hoped to make a quiet escape, but Janine had other plans.

"Belikov!"

Caught in the hallway, it was mercifully empty when I turned to face Janine, though something told me that if it had been full, I still wouldn't have been spared her questions. "Yes, Guardian Hathaway?"

"Who is the source?" she asked without preamble.

"Source, Guardian Hathaway?"

"Yes, Belikov...source." She offered succinctly, unimpressed by my false innocence. "As in, where this information came from. Alberta very deliberately skipped over that part, but as it's you with her rather than another guardian, I'm going to assume you are in on it, and lately, things that have to do with you, always seems to have to do with my daughter."

Scrambling inwardly whilst outwardly remaining composed, my reply was calm and non-defensive. "It's natural that we're together often, Guardian Hathaway. Rose is my student. We have a different relationship to any other that she has at the school."

"How different?"

"In the sense that she trusts me to believe her when another guardian or teacher might not."

"So she is involved."

"That's not what I said, Guardian Hathaway."

"You're also not denying it, Belikov. I want to know…" Interrupted by Gregor calling out to her as he left Alberta's office, Janine turned to him and nodded before swinging back to face me. Seeming to weigh up what I had said, her eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before she walked towards Gregor.

Feeling a little like I had dodged a bullet as I quickly left housing and turned onto the path that would take me to the elementary campus, there was something about the look she gave me that said I wasn't completely off the hook yet.

As Rose's mother, Janine would be one of those who had a problem with our relationship...in fact; she would be the one who had the biggest problem with her seventeen-year old daughter being in any kind of relationship other than platonic with her instructor. She was too smart and perceptive to think that it had started only after Rose had graduated, so when the time came for that conversation – a very uncomfortable one – I wouldn't try to hide that it had.

She was someone I respected greatly, so at the very least, I owed her that much.

Not looking forward to when that conversation came, I at least had the consolation of knowing that I had Rose, no matter how much trouble it would cause. People would think I was mad, they would say she wasn't worth jeopardising everything over, but I knew better.

She was worth risking everything.