I figured I could make it some sort of tradition – wake up early to check in with Lissa and make sure she was doing okay, shoot her an email to remind her I was still around. The only problem is that I had to get into her mind.

Usually, Lissa had to be experiencing some emotion so strongly that it crossed the threshold of her mind and took up residence in my own. Since the incident in class, I'd taken it upon myself to throw up a mental wall of sorts, fighting against any emotional wave that may try to break. That wasn't to say I wouldn't feel her strongest emotions… I just had a better means to control it.

I sat in my bed, focused on her and trying to ease the wall away, like opening a door… or meditating. Dimitri, who preached the importance of a sound mind and concentration to me day in and day out, would be proud.

Suddenly, I was in, seeing through her eyes like some sort of video game.

It almost felt like a video game too, considering how she was once again sneaking into the chapel. With all the security in that academy, you'd think they could at least put some effort into discouraging unruly teenagers from taking up residence in the chapel's attic.

Sunrise lit the stained-glass window – if I was waking up on my side of the world, it only made sense that it would be nighttime on theirs – sending jewels of light bounding off Christian's frame where he sat in the window.

"Didn't think you'd show up," he remarked. "I've been waiting for a while."

Lissa pulled a seat up beside him. "I figured Headmistress Kirova would have you for a while."

Headmistress Kirova? What had Christian done this time?

He shook his head, his smirk sliding into place. "We've got a routine, by now. Suspension for a week. Not that it means much, with how easy it is to sneak out," he gestured around and then towards her, "You know as well as I do."

"Just a week?"

From where Christian sat, half turned towards the sunlight, his crystal-blue eyes were alight. "Disappointed?" he taunted.

Shock ran through Lissa, "You set someone on fire!"

What the fuck?

"No, I didn't," Christian scoffed. "There were no burns."

"He was covered-"

"I had them under control. I kept them off of him."

"Regardless," she sighed, "You shouldn't have done that."

Christian straightened from where he was slumped in the window, swinging his legs off and leaning towards her. "I did it for you."

"Why…" Lissa wavered.

"Mia was being a bitch but Ralf… what he was saying about you and about Rose, without her here to defend herself, it was disgusting."

Christian had defended my honor?

It occurred to me that Christian would probably really love, and really benefit from, Ivan's classes, or even just learning the concepts behind them. And if he had gone out of his way to protect Lissa when I couldn't, well he was earning a spot on my podium.

"You shouldn't have done that," she repeated, turning away. "Don't pretend like it was all for me, or even Rose, you wanted to do it. You like doing it, just because."

Christian's usual grin slipped off his face, clouded by surprise. Lissa could ready him. She could read anyone, which is why she had trusted Abe, beyond all reasonable doubt, when he'd asked her to stand down in Kirova's office.

She continued, "Offensive magic is forbidden." If only she knew. "That's why- you got a thrill out of it."

"Those rules are stupid," he pressed, meeting her eyes. "We could really stand a chance, you know? Moroi, I mean. If we used our magic as a weapon instead of just sitting around, useless."

"No," she said firmly. "Our magic is a gift. It's peaceful."

"Only because that's how we've been conditioned. They've drilled it into us." Christian stood, pacing the length of the room. "But it wasn't always that way, you know. We used to fight right alongside our guardians- centuries ago. People got scared and stopped, figured it was safer that way, they forgot the magic, but not everyone did. My aunt's friend is teaching people-"

"Oh, your family? Your parents?"

Christian's face darkened as he stepped further away from her, jaw tightening. "You don't know anything about my parents."

It occurred to Lissa, as she studied his features, that to most people, he might appear scary. To her, however, having spent the past week or so trying to pull him out of his shell with her friends, he actually looked very, very vulnerable.

"I'm sorry," she folded, softly. "You're right. I'm so sorry."

Again, Christian looked astonished. With how he was used to being treated by our larger society, apologies were probably few and far between. No one probably regarded him. Certainly no one ever listened.

He wiped any emotions away with a cocky smile. "It's fine," he dismissed, striding forward to kneel in front of her, impossibly close. Lissa held her breath, and it almost seemed like she was brimming with anticipation. "Besides, I don't think you, of all people, have any right to call people out on the use of forbidden magic."

Lissa was astonished, pulling back, but Christian held his ground.

"Me, 'of all people'? What does that mean?"

"You play innocent, and it fools everyone, except for me." He leaned closer, grasping the arms of her chair, caging her into her place. "You use compulsion. All of the time."

"No," she defended, pushing back on his chest.

"You do," he smirked, unmoving. "I've thought about it. How you and Rose just got away, found apartments to live in and enrolled in random schools without ever needing parents, paperwork, old transcripts. It was obvious. You had to be using compulsion… and that's probably how you even got out in the first place."

"Oh, I get it. You just guessed. No proof."

"I've got all the proof I need, Princess, just from watching you."

"What are you trying to prove?"

"Nothing," he shrugged, still not pulling away. "I just like watching you. The compulsion was a bonus. You've used it in math and on Ms Carmack to get out of assignments."

"Maybe I'm just good at convincing people." Lissa could tell me over and over in our emails that they were just friends, but she delivered her words with a toss of her hair. That was flirting. And he'd noticed, just like he'd noticed everything about her.

"People get these goofy looks on their faces when you talk to them," he explained. "I didn't even know it was possible, but I saw you use it on other Moroi. It's incredible. But it also means you can't go around telling me how to use my magic."

Lissa was speechless. He was right. Everything was right – how we'd used it to secure our life outside, with humans. Probably how she was using it in her classes, something we'd have to talk about later.

"Are you going to turn me in?" she asked quietly.

"No," he smiled, shaking his head. "I think it's hot."

Her early anticipation was back, ramming into her body at full force. Integrating him into her life since she'd come back, without me around to tell her otherwise… she had a crush on him. And it seemed as though it wasn't one-sided.

"Rose thinks that you put the fox in my room," she blurted nervously.

I had suggested it, offhandedly.

"I sure as hell didn't," he defended himself, and I could see it was true. "I was with you when you found it Lissa."

"I know," she insisted. "I defended you, but we still don't know who did, and she was just covering all her bases."

Christian leaned back, catching her wrists in his hands. However he meant it, he stopped almost immediately, looking down in surprise and tracing faint scars with his thumb. He caught her eyes with deep compassion shining in his own.

"I can help you," he insisted. "But you need to trust me, you know something you're not telling me."

She smiled lightly, emotions swirling in her chest before she realized something. "You said something about your aunt's friend teaching… earlier when we were talking about magic. Who is that?"

"Ivan Zeklos-"

"He teaches at St Basil's."

Christian shook his head, surprised. "How did you know-"

"Rose is there," Lissa said, interrupting him again. Seeing his growing confusion. "Her dad got her in because it was remote enough that they didn't care who she was or where she had gotten kicked out of. Ivan's guardian, Dimitri is her mentor, he's catching her up."

He let out a low whistle. "My aunt is very close to those guys," he smirked.

What was that supposed to mean?

"Rose said Ivan's a magic historian, that he's studied the loss of various forms of magic. That's where you learned it?"

He nodded. "What are you getting at?"

Lissa hesitated. While she had pulled Christian from his solitude and into her own circle, she was still wary about her trust in him. He was so… hot and cold.

"It's about my magic," she started.

"I thought you never specialized?"

She wracked her brain for the right words. "It's less that I didn't specialize… and more that the specific magic was also forgotten, like offensive work." He nodded at her to go on. "They're calling it Spirit-"

"Like what the priest always says St Vladimir had?"

"Actually, yes," she conceded. "And Sonya Karp and some lady in Dimitri's village and… me. It sounds crazy but they've done all this research on it, and it explains my compulsion and… they said that St Vladimir had unbelievable gifts. But Ms Karp…"

"Ms Karp went mad," Christian said quietly.

"How much do you know about her?"

"Enough," Christian confirmed. "It was supposed to be hush hush but I heard some guardians talking about it once, mostly because I heard them mention my own parents. I can't say her situation was ever as… viral as theirs."

Lissa wanted to do anything she could to distract him from that, especially after her earlier comments. "So, I guess Ivan is doing all this research but, I don't know, I feel so antsy waiting around, I want to do my own digging."

Christian paused to consider this. "What are we waiting for?" he asked, gesturing to the dusty shelves of books around them. "We have everything we need right here, down to Vlad's own diaries."

A knock on my door pulled from away from Lissa's head, "Rose? You're late for practice."

I flung my door open, motioning for Dimitri to hold tight for a second. "Sorry, Comrade. Let me just send something to Lissa."

From: RosemarieMazur

To: VasilisaDragomir

He cares about you and he doesn't seem that bad… you can keep him.