Chapter 8:

I heard voices. They weren't happy. I recognized Dimitri's rough voice. His tone was calm but I could hear the ice underneath his tone. He was in scary guardian mode.

The other one took me a moment to recognize. I hadn't heard him talk all that often. Mostly it was just grunts against us.

"It was irresponsible. I thought you were in hiding here. The Magic could have attracted more Witch hunters. Or more questions from people that I don't want to answer."

Mr Sage was chewing Christian out it seemed. But Dimitri was having none of that. "And if he hadn't stopped that knife, Rose would be hurt a lot worse. Besides, people thought it was part of the act, didn't they?"

Why was Mr Sage here anyway?

"Father please. We need to figure out what is going on and right now and that means working together, pointing fingers won't help."

Sydney was here too. I suppose I have been out of it for a while.

I slowly opened my eyes and groaned. The noise attracted attention from everyone. Dimitri moved towards me, the look of concern in his eyes all too real.

"Roza, are you okay?" He held my face, looking me over to see if there was anything wrong with me.

"I am okay. I have a killer headache but I am okay."

Dimitri sighed in relief. I got up a little and looked around our wagon. It wasn't a very big wagon and there were currently five people crammed in it. I Noticed Lissa wasn't one of them.

I looked over to Christian and he looked defeated. He wasn't looking at me at all. I could practically see the guilt radiating off of him. But it wasn't his fault. I was her Guardian, I had failed her. I had no time to feel guilty though. I could feel guilty later. We all could, when she was safe and sound back with us, then we would have time to feel guilty. Right now we needed to focus.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and got up. I was a little wobbly on my legs, but luckily something was always close by for me to lean on. I guess a small wagon did have it's advantages.

"What do we know?" I asked no one in particular.

"Not much. It is probably Witch hunters that took Lissa." Dimitri said. "But they must be powerful if they can knock you out."

I looked at Dimitri confused. "The Witch hunters didn't knock me out. They were too far away. Also human and weak. No, it was a gypsy spell that floored me."

I looked a little menacing towards Mr Sage who just snorted in my direction."How do you even know if it was one of us?"

Sydney put a hand on her fathers shoulder. "Dhampirs can feel our magic. They feel a certain coldness from it."

That didn't seem to appease her father at all. "Well of course, their unnatural body rejects our natural magic."

I narrowed my eyes at Mr Sage and was about to go on a tirade when Dimitri stepped in.

"Then it was gypsies who took Lissa?" He had assumed Witch hunters like the rest of us, but now he wasn't so sure. But why would gypsies want Lissa? Would she end up like the other girls? And if it was gypsies, shouldn't Mr Sage know about it. He obviously hated being here. He wouldn't be here if he didn't have to. But he too recognized that containing our magic and getting Lissa back was important. I had never seen the humans who had taken Lissa. If they belonged to a gypsy coven, it wasn't the one at the circus.

But the people who took Lissa were obviously working with a gypsy. And with gypsy magic. So wouldn't that rule out the Witch hunters?

Oh I forgot. I grabbed one of their chains. Moved back to the bed and rummaged through the blankets. "Where is it? I grabbed one of their chains. Did you bring it back with you when you moved me here?"

Dammit. They probably didn't know I took it and it is still somewhere in the dust.

"I grabbed it, Rose. It is on the counter. I forgot about, with you know… everything." I knew Christian was trying hard not to cry.

I walked towards him before I walked to the counter. "Why don't you try to get some sleep. We each should take turns trying to sleep."

Christian threw his hands in the air. "I can't sleep now. Too much is going on."

I grabbed his other shoulder and moved him so I was looking him right in the eyes. "We need one of us to sleep so Lissa will always have one of us to contact. She will be able to connect with you the easiest."

Realization crossed his face. Lissa was quite bad at dream walking. But a simple message she would be able to send.

Christian went to lay down in the corner and the rest moved towards the front of the wagon.

"What do you mean contact you?" Mr Sage's tone was quite accusatory.

"Lissa can appear in one of our dreams. She will be able to send us a message that way. It is part of Lissa's magic."

Both Sydney and her father just looked at us funny. "That isn't one of the Moroi powers."

I rolled my eyes. Did he really just mansplain Moroi powers to a Dhampir?

Dimitri leaned against the wall of the wagon and crossed his arms. He always kept his body between me and the humans. I smiled. He must have been scared of losing me. And I knew he felt guilty too. He had missed all the action.

"Lissa is special. She specializes in a very rare element called spirit. It is an element tied to more mental powers than physical." I explained.

I could see Mr Sage visibly cringe in disgust. Sydney didn't look much better. But there was also a look of curiosity in her eyes. The possibility of new knowledge was appealing to her.

I picked up the necklace and looked it over. The chain was plain and bulky. But the pendant that hung from it was obviously a religious cross. I showed the pendent towards the others.

"Definitely Witch hunters." Damn.

"Is that why they took her? Because she has a rare power?" Sydney asked.

I looked towards Dimitri. Maybe. She had been using it to do palm readings. So maybe the Witch hunters had picked up on it. But if you didn't know about spirit, you really didn't know what to look for. When they had breached the palace they had been after the Queen, not the spirit user. But it was clear they were after Lissa, they hadn't looked twice at Christian.

Sydney walked towards me. She stopped when Dimitri moved forward just a little bit.

"Rose, now is not the time to hold back. We need all the cards on the table if we are to protect our clan and get Lissa back."

I knew she was right. I could see she was visibly spooked about the Witch hunters getting this close. I knew the common enemy is the only reason Mr Sage would set foot inside a place with two Dhampirs and a Moroi. I wonder if we tell them the truth it would get any better.

I sighed. I closed my eyes for a moment before opening them again and looking Sydney in the eyes.

"They are probably after Lissa because...She is the Queen of the Moroi."

I could see Sydney and her father recoil at the news. I wonder how much they knew about our political structure. Did they know we even had a Queen?

"What? But she is so young." I just shrugged at Sydney's comment. Mr Sage was quiet for a moment. He was taking the news rather well. Or maybe he was just too shocked to speak. I didn't think it happened very often that Mr Sage was speechless.

"Look, I don't care if she is Queen or not, I just want my friend back. We don't have much time. They will probably hang her like the others and need to make some preparations, but I am not counting on it. We need to figure out where they took her and why. And we will start with however knocked me out. The Witch hunter I was chasing had recognized him/ her … them?...the person that knocked me out. We need to question the one I did take down and see who of your loyal gypsies is not that loyal."

Mr Sage stood taller and I knew he thought he was intimidating. But when your lover is a six foot seven giant wall of muscle it is kind of hard to take physical threats like that seriously. The narrowing of his eyes did give me the creeps though.

"Are you suggesting one of our own works together with Witch hunters? That is preposterous. Neither party would do that." Mr Sage was so adamant about that but I saw Sydney contemplate this.

"Father, what about the news that the hill clan was attacked by Witch hunters. The survivors said the Witch hunters had intimate details about their clan… and we have been rather lucky lately."

Mr Sage didn't like his daughter's accusation. It made him look weak in front of us. He was the clan leader after all.

"Could this be linked to the girls that have gone missing?" Dimitri asked Sydney. It seemed like asking Mr Sage would be a waste of breath.

"I don't know. I haven't been able to find anything on rituals with virgins or girls that might explain why somebody here would want them. There are some rejuvenation spells, that require sacrifices, but we would have seen that."

Mr Sage scoffed. "Again one of those ridiculous theories of yours. No self respecting gypsies would work with Witch hunters and even if they did, they wouldn't sell out their own."

I crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn't backing down from a fight. "I guess we are looking at a not so self-respecting gypsy then."

Mr Sage just waved me off, but something flashed across Sydney's eyes.

"Anything on your account Dimitri? Did you see anything suspicious last night?"

He shook his head. "The couple I tracked were just doing their job. They helped customers and only left my sight once when they got more supplies, they were gone for less than a minute. But I haven't been able to track Keith yet."

That was strange. Dimitri could track a toad through mudd. Maybe he had just focused on one target this night, thinking he would have time to look at Keith another day.

"Okay, If we don't have any answers, I will just beat it out of the Witch hunter we captured. Where is he?"

Mr Sage just rolled his eyes. "Yes, because violence always solves everything with you people."

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I took a deep breath to control myself. Or I would indeed use violence to solve this particular problem. "Just show me where he is, so I can get my friend back."

Dimitri stayed behind guarding Christian while I went with Sydney and her father. He wasn't particularly happy about bringing me to his inner sanctum - the few wagons belonging to his clan in the middle - but he had little choice. He had the Witch hunter stashed away in an empty wagon kept for provisions.

Mr Sage took a key and unlocked the door. He had to remove several chains from the door before it opened. I wondered if that was always there for the provisions, or this was an extra security measure. But apparently Mr Sage didn't trust his own people as much as he let on to believe.

After the last chain fell away the door opened to reveal our Witch hunter. Except… there wasn't much left off him. His open milky eyes would not get me the answers I needed. His throat was cut and his chest and legs were drenched in blood.

Mr Sage covered his hand over his mouth and Sydney had to look away. I didn't. Believe it or not, I was used to this kind of thing. I moved closer to the body. First thing I did was close the poor man's eyes. He had died in pain, that much was obvious. I felt his body temperature and looked at the coagulation of the blood.

"This happened in the last hour or so. His body is still warm."

We all exited the small wagon, leaving the man inside. "Still don't believe you have a mole?" I asked Mr Sage. But I don't think he heard me. The rage permeating the air was enough of an answer. Except this time his rage wasn't directed at me.

If I had doubted his commitment before, now all doubt was erased that Mr Sage would help us find whoever did this. Not because he cared about Lissa. He probably understood that keeping the Queen of the Moroi alive would be beneficial for both of us. We couldn't allow the Witch hunters that win, nor could we allow the Strigoi that win. But that wasn't why I wasn't questioning Mr Sage's commitment anymore. I knew he would do anything he could to stop the Witch hunters, because someone had betrayed him. Someone had defied him.

That was simply not acceptable.

That night was one of the quietest nights we had had in our cabin. We alternated sleeping and right now Christian was asleep again. He said it made him less useless.

I snuggled closer to Dimitri, needing his warmth. "We will find her. I know we will. If they have any idea who she is, they will want to make a statement. She is safe for now."

I hope he was right. Mr Sage had sent scouts to the city so we could be informed if there was a hanging. I shivered. I imagined Lissa's normally gorgeous green eyes, dull and lifeless as her head hung from an awkward angle on her body.

I gripped Dimitri tighter. I would never forgive myself if something happened to her.

I tossed and turned that night, but I couldn't really sleep. Dimitri was asleep so Lissa had someone to contact. I knew Dimitri was stressed too, but he had this whole Guardians sleep when they could skill down flat. The man could fall asleep in ten minutes without being tired. I never developed that skill. I was a master sleeper, but usually the normal hours.

Christian had been tossing and turning just as much, but I knew that he still slept stretches in between. I gave up somewhere in the early morning. I hadn't slept at all. I would take the day sleeping shift. I moved over, gently kissed Dimitri without waking him up and then put on some clothes.

I moved towards the steps of our wagon. The sun was just a promise on the horizon, and was at least an hour away from rising. Yet there was a little light that signaled the end of the night. The first night I was away from Lissa. I don't think I have ever been away from her since I have known her. Which was over two decades. I was always there. Sure we have been on opposite sides of the palace but she had never been without my protection. I felt empty inside. Like a piece of me was missing.

I used to have a bond with Lissa, but because of a near death experience a couple of years ago that bond had broken. If we still had it, I would have found her already. Hell, I would have felt her being kidnapped and could have reacted sooner.

But now it was eerily quiet in my head.

I felt a tear run down my cheek. I lifted my hand to my eyes. When I pulled back it was wet. I hadn't even known I was crying.

"It is going to be okay, Rose." I looked up to see Sydney. She looked tired. She hadn't slept yet either, it would seem, but I doubt she actually wasn't able to. She held a couple of papers in her hand. She had worked the entire night, looking for clues.

I pointed to the papers. "Anything that will help?"

She let out a deep breath. It sounded like she was frustrated. So I am guessing that is a 'no'.

"I am looking over the spells again. But I can't figure it out. We have a mole, we have someone communicating with the Witch hunters, ratting out other clans. And we have someone using girls to perform forbidden spells. That can't be a coincidence, but I can't seem to link them together."

I outstretched my hand, signaling for me to take a look at the papers. "We had the perpetrator down to the couple, one or both of them and the young gypsy, Keith. But neither have been spotted with anything weird or out of the ordinary. Dimitri tracked them, if they were up to something, he would have seen. He didn't see Keith last night though. He couldn't find him."

Sydney furrowed her brows. She seemed deep in thought. "That is odd, Keith is kind of hard to miss."

She was referring to his eye. The frost in her voice was evident. Sydney didn't think very highly of him. "Maybe he wasn't here last night."

She shook his head. "Keith was on scout duty yesterday in the city. But I saw him come back before dark. Dimitri should have seen him around."

Maybe Keith was a slacker. Lying in bed all day after he was done with his job. I knew very little about Keith, The guy had given me the lust-filled creep eyes.. Or well, eye, but I was used to that. And if he knew who I was, or Dimitri, he wasn't stupid enough to try anything. He had sleaze written all over him. But Lissa had liked him.

My eyes widened when I remembered what Lissa had said about him.

"He questioned Lissa. She said he was trying to be nice, but he was pumping her for information."

I jumped up from the realisation. It must be Keith, it must be. I knew it wasn't a lot to go on. But all the pieces fit. Well, at least one fit. We still had no idea how the missing girls fit into this.

"Let's say for argument's sake that Keith is our mole, why would he need the girls?" She made a face when she said those words, one of pure disgust. I guess I was right about the sleazeball aspect of him. But sleazeball didn't mean traitor.

I threw up my hands in the air. "Maybe we are trying to find a connection that isn't there. Maybe the two are unrelated and we are chasing the wrong lead."

Sydney was deep in thought again. "Maybe….or…."

She started to rummage through the papers. There was a small paper at the bottom of the pile that she picked up.

"I was looking for rituals that would need young women, or virgins. But what if that isn't necessary. What if the ritual just needs people."

She held up the small paper triumphantly. "This is a cloaking spell. You take aspects of someone else. It requires you to take some lifeforce from someone. It really doesn't matter who." her eyes darkened. The chill was back in her voice. "But the fact that young girls were taken means it was most definitely Keith."

Then Keith had knocked me out. I had seen auburn hair, like the girl who had gone missing. But a man was wearing her colors. That must have been the result of the cloaking spell. My eyes darkened as well. Keith would never take another girl. Because when I was done with him. He would be dead.