Author's Note: Thanks for the warm welcomes on this story! I'm cranking out some chapters and hope to update twice a week for the foreseeable future. This chapter goes out to the anonymous reviewer who quite literally predicated the contents of this chapter, though I'd already written it. Enjoy!
For an absent father, Abe Mazur seemed pretty all-knowing, having stepped between Lissa and Kirova as soon as the former turned her gold-glinting eyes of compulsion on the other.
"I wouldn't do that, Princess," he pressed, cleverly avoiding her eyes.
Lissa had meant to convince the headmistress that she'd been confused. There was no reason to send me away, after all. I would be staying at the academy. I would be her guardian.
"Trust me," he plead.
Her trust in this stranger, my father, had made the decision clear to Kirova: I was no longer welcome to attend St. Vladimir's Academy.
We were shuffled out of the office shortly thereafter, allowed the rest of the day for Abe to make our arrangements and get us out of there. He led us to his guest quarters. One of his guardians had barely gotten the door open when I was pushing him inside, Abe insisting to his men that they could leave me be.
"Start talking, old man."
As it turned out, after word had spread through Moroi society about the accident, Abe had been keeping close tabs on me. While my mother had sent him updates on me when I was younger, they had long since stopped when I became a teenager. He'd creatively gotten updates funneled through to him anonymously through "sources" in the academy, whatever that meant. And when I had stepped out from under the school's umbrella, taking Lissa with me, he'd gotten creative.
Truly, we had never been alone in the outside world. Not with his hired eyes watching over, protecting us like our own set of unseen guardians.
Though it was hard for me to admit, I found it comforting to hear that someone had been with us, providing an extra layer of defense for Lissa in the outside world. Only when Lissa's thoughts and emotions had pulsed into me, reflecting the same, did I start to doubt her own confidence in our safety.
"So who sold us out?" I asked him, figuring that if he had eyes on us it only made sense that he would know the answer.
The ground he had gained after informing us of his protections shrank in on itself when he responded. "Well, I did."
I bounced to my feet, and Lissa loosely held my wrist, pushing calming thoughts through her touch to keep from getting more agitated at my dad.
"Why would you possibly do that? If you were so concerned with our safety, you never would have brought us back here!"
Unphased by my outburst, he leaned back in his seat. "Do you really think facing psyhounds and expanding the gap in your training is the safer option of the two?"
"You don't know me. We escaped those psyhounds in Chicago, no problem. How dare you question my ability to protect her."
"Rosemarie," he chided, all but rolling his eyes at the way my eyes narrowed hearing my full name. "I had eyes on you, remember? I received more than enough reports that you hadn't so much as run or hit a gym outside of PE class since you left the academy."
I scoffed, but didn't correct him. He wasn't wrong.
Suddenly, the full subtext of his words hit m.
"Wait… you mentioned the psyhounds like they were a safety risk... The school didn't send them?"
He shook his head grimly, meeting my eyes.
"It's been baffling me for months," he confirmed. "I couldn't believe that they would stoop to such extreme methods to find you. Rather than risk your safety, I sent Alexei, an acquaintance's guardian, ahead with my information, hoping they would use less harsh methods to retrieve you both. But when he got here and spoke to Alberta and the other guardians on the task force, they were just as bewildered by it. They hadn't even known you were in Chicago."
The room seemed to close in on us, just briefly.
"It's part of the reason I came up with the idea to take you away, Rose. Maybe, if whoever sent them thought Vasilisa was alone, we could draw them out."
"Oh, that's your brilliant plan? Leave Lissa here, unprotected? Have me walk away, shamed by our whole society, no possible option except to join a commune?"
Abe leaned back in his chair, smiling wryly and addressing Lissa.
"To address that first concern, I don't plan to leave you unprotected at all, Princess. I have spoken to both Alberta and Serena, your new sanctioned guardian. I can assure you that they are both well-aware of the circumstances as well as my proposal and will be paying very close attention to your safety. On top of that, I have it on good authority that a good guardian or two will be applying to work at the Academy in the next coming weeks."
He turned his gaze back upon me.
"And as far as your fate, no daughter of mine will ever be disgraced. I have one question of you." I nodded at him to continue. "How willing are you to train to become one of the best guardians our world has ever seen?"
Under usual circumstances, I would have probably made a joke out of his question. But, considering the magnitude of the past few hours and the consequences that had befallen me, I sobered up.
I captured Lissa's eyes with my own, delivering my promise into her eyes. "I'll do anything it takes."
Maybe if I had known that anything equated to Siberia, Russia, I would have reconsidered.
However, Abe insisted that it was likely my only choice. There was no way that I would be allowed in any academy in North American, not with their close communication and record sharing.
Using what seemed to be an endless stream of contacts under his belt, Abe had already pre-arranged my entrance into St Basil's Academy in Russia, knowing that I would need options.
St Basil's was far stricter than even St Vladimir's, where I had always floundered under the strict rules. Run closer to a military school, they were known for producing some of the best guardians and, as such, they were willing to make one out of anyone. Even a reject from another school.
Alexei, a graduate of the very academy, took it upon himself to administer my entrance tests.
After knocking me on my ass for the fifteenth time in a row, not unnoticed to my former-fellow novices who kept getting yelled at to pay attention, the brute pulled me to my feet roughly.
"At this rate, Hathaway. It looks like you may have to enter a class below what you would have been here."
I groaned, insistent. "That's not an option. If I don't graduate with Lissa, they'll assign her a different guardian, I need that second slot."
Abe sat on the sidelines, watching our every move. "St Basil's makes good use of mentor-student relationships to help refine their student's techniques and give each specialized attention. Alexei's charge recently became a teacher at the school, maybe we can arrange to have you fast-tracked with a mentor."
I looked between the two, unbelieving. "There's no way that I'm going to let Mr. Brick Wall of Silence and Muscles beat me up every day for the next year."
Alexei let loose a chuckle, an unfamiliar smile breaking the stony exterior I'd come to know since he'd gathered us in Oregon the day before.
"I'm not for lost causes" he teased. "Besides, I have my own charges. My guarding partner, Dima, may just be the perfect fit for you, though. He hasn't been assigned anyone yet, mostly just been planning logistics. But he could definitely get you into shape."
I was really beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into.
Abe quickly retreated from the gym, cellphone in hand, presumably to arrange for this Dima to mentor me.
I excused myself from Alexei, who moved to join the guardians cleaning up as the final class of the day let out. The novices who had been practicing in the space were returning mats to their stacks and grabbing their gym bags, probably hoping to get some solace and a shower in before dinner.
"Ashford! Castile!" I shouted, causing most of the heads to swivel my way. I ignored them, meeting the eyes of just the two people I wanted to see.
"Hey, Rose." Mason smiled grimly at me. "We heard about what happened. Sorry-"
I waved off their condolences. "It's fine, it's not your fault. My antics were bound to catch up with me sometime." Neither of them caught my smile. "Anyway, I actually have to ask a favor from both of you."
They glanced between each other, but I powered through in my request.
"I'm getting shipped off from this place later tonight," I admitted. "I just- I need you guys to promise to look after Lissa. It's going to be really hard on her, not having me around. Between the two of you, you can probably muster up enough sass to take my place, right?"
Eddie scoffed, finally breaking into a smile. "There's no way either of us could even come close. But we'll try," he amended, serious.
Mason chose the high road, breaking the tension further. "I definitely don't have enough ass to fill those shoes, Rose. I mean sass," he joked, swiftly ducking away from my hard as it reached out to slap him. "Damn Rose, you're out of practice. Too too slow."
"Give me a year," I promised. "I'll make this academy eat their words."
"If anyone could," Eddie chimed, still the sweetest guy on earth, "I'd place my bet on you."
The two of them joined Lissa, Natalie, and Victor later as they came to say goodbye to me at the front gates. It was tearful, mostly on Natalie and Lissa's parts. I held my own tears back, if only to convey some strength for Lissa.
She had taken me aside earlier in the day for a more proper goodbye, handing me a small box with a family tchotchke inside. A family heirloom.
"I can't accept this," I whispered, attempting to shove it back into her hands. "It's for your family's guardians. You should give it to Serena."
Lissa had simply placed the bracelet neatly around my wrist. "You're my family," she insisted. "I will never have a better guardian than you."
"I'll only be a thought away, Liss. I guess I'll have to reply by email or something. But still."
Just a thought away.
Late summer in Montana had a different bite to the air than it had in Oregon, especially when you were thrust back into a nocturnal vampiric schedule. As I rolled my windows up, my friends having become little specks behind us, I realized with muted happiness that the sunlight at St. Basil's latitude might still be lingering around longer, even as the year got closer to its end.
I allowed the shreds of light peaking over the horizon to carry some hope for me.
