~x~ Chapter 40 ~x~

"What annual trip?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There was an annual trip? Excitement rose like the tide and I waited impatiently for him to reply.

"There's an annual end of year trip for the year group about to bog down into their studies and really have to get their act together for the last two years leading up to graduation. It's always been a tradition here." Martin explained to me.

"That means my year group, right?" I asked, just to clarify it.

"Yes. You will be attending the annual trip for the sophomores." Martin clarified.

I squealed and jumped up in delight. "Yes! There's a trip! I always love trips, they're always so much fun and so much to do and oh wow breathe…" I gushed.

"Okay, now you're starting to resemble a teenage girl." Ali commented with a chuckle. "Glad to see that that stage in life wasn't lost on you."

"Of course I'm a teenage girl, Ali, what the heck do I look like to you?"

"Honestly? A hot chick that's way too mature for her age," he replied without missing a beat and I just gaped at him.

"Did you just say I'm hot?"

"I did."

"Ali!" I squeaked in embarrassment and smacked his upper arm.

"What?"

"Time and place, not to mention it's highly embarrassing!"

"Everyone agrees with me, though they probably wouldn't use the same words as I did." He gave a nonchalant shrug and glanced at the others, daring them to deny it. None of them did and that just made me feel even more embarrassed.

"This is so uncool." I complained and covered my face.

Ali laughed and tugged me in for a hug. "So the sassy chick who was so daring not so long ago also gets embarrassed and flustered easily. How does that even work?"

"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that we've all worked out by now that I'm basically the most impossible thing in existence by now so why not add a few more oddities?" I said casually.

They seemed to think about my choice of words for a moment before understanding dawned on them about what I'd meant.

Aunty Jules sighed and ran a hand through her hair which, if memory served, was very rarely let down and loose. "We already spent three years trying to understand how it was possible. We came up with nothing so it was much easier to just adapt to it rather than try to come up with a reason as to why you are able to manipulate the elements just like a Moroi could."

I pushed away from Ali and wandered over to Aunty Jules. I couldn't help but run my fingers through her hair reminiscently. She stilled briefly before relaxing once more and she took Ali's place in hugging me. Her hands ran over my back soothingly and I basically turned into putty in her warm embrace. Though I was jelly-like, I never stopped combing my fingers through her hair. Her dark coloured tresses reminded me so much of Mum's. I remembered playing with Mum's hair a lot as a child. Back then, I had kept my hair short for convenience sake and because I couldn't be bothered to let it out long.

"Aw, Kalster, are you ditching me?" Ali protested playfully.

"It's not like that." I scoffed, rolling my eyes at him. "Don't be so dramatic, Alster."

"Kai, that's him being normal. He's a whole lot worse when he's dramatic. That's one thing that hasn't changed about him." Aunty Jules told me.

"I for one am glad to hear that." I commented, shooting him a beaming grin. "So, Martin. Where's the trip going to be?"

"You'll have to wait to find out just like everyone else," he replied with a smirk.

"Oh Martin you can't do this to me. I hate waiting. I just want the trip now." I groaned impatiently. "How long is the trip for?"

"About a week."

"A whole week? Wow you really are being nice to sophomores before we get thrown into the deep end." I whistled in awe. I pulled away from Aunty Jules and took a seat around the counter where there was a lot of untouched food and dug into the snacks. "Nice, a whole week off of school, I so can't wait! No more annoying math lessons that I can barely comprehend!"

"That's what you're most excited about when it comes to having a week off? You never fail to amaze me, little sky." Martin shook his head with a small exasperated smile.

"Well, I'm not excited the most about that, but it certainly is a highlight." I grinned cheekily at him. "So what does this holiday consist of?"

"Literally? Relaxing. It really is a break before introducing you to the Junior syllabus and you really have to get working on the academic subjects."

"Yeesh, that sounds awful." I grimaced. "Thanks for the food."

"No problem," they all chimed at once.

"Skylar, were you using the cook room earlier?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you just go to dinner?"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I missed it."

Martin frowned at me and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why? You left my office in good time to make it in time for dinner."

I shot them a sideways glance while munching on another biscuit. "What is this? Some kind of an interrogation?"

"No, I just wondered. I know I told you that you could use it whenever you wanted but Christian was cleaning up when I walked in and he said that you'd cooked." Maria explained.

"Christian Chance?" Joe stared at me with raised brows inquisitively. "I didn't know you guys were chummy."

"We're not. At least, I don't think so, not yet, though he certainly seems like a nice guy."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same guy here? We are talking about Nick O'Connor's friend, right? The guy you pretty much hate."

"I wouldn't go as far as to say I hate O'Connor, I just don't think much of him and I don't think he deserves any considerate words considering the things he's said to me since I came back."

"But we are talking about the same Chance, right?"

"Well, so far as I know, there is only one, so yeah. Why the difficulty to wrap you head around the idea?"

"We'll, he's O'Connor's friend, I didn't think that you'd approach the guy."

"I didn't approach him per se. But I don't judge people solely based on who they hang out with, you know. That'd be pretty horrible."

"Oh, stop beating around the bush and just tell us what happened, Kai." Joe complained. "Clearly something happened. Otherwise you wouldn't have made dinner for him."

"It's not for me to tell, but I walked in on something and we just talked." I told him simply. If Christian wanted grown up help with what was happening to him, it was up to him to ask for it. But since he hadn't yet, I could only guess that he still wanted to try and deal with it himself. That was probably why he trained so hard, so that he could defend himself in those kinds of situations.

Martin narrowed his eyes at me and I smiled back at him innocently. "Is there any fights I should know about?"

"Nope." Well, technically, I wasn't lying. It wasn't really a fight, I threw out threats, defended myself against a Moroi trying to kiss me and they scampered away. That was it. Christian was the one who did the ass whooping.

"Kai."

"I really didn't, honest."

"I hope I don't find out otherwise, Kai."

"I wouldn't lie to your face so blatantly like that. At least, I hope I won't have a need to." I told him honestly.

"I hope that you will never lie to my face."

"I'll do my best, Martin, but you know that circumstances dictate actions."

"I'm going to have to accept that reasoning, aren't I?"

"Yep, definitely. Especially since we're all lying right now." I told him with a wry grin. "I'm sorry about that, that you all have to lie when I know how much you hate it."

"If it'll keep you here with us, I'll lie as much as I need to depending on what it is of course." Aunty Jules scoffed.

I laughed and hugged her briefly. "I really am loved, thanks guys."

"Thank you for turning into such a wonderful girl rather than going completely off the rails." Rosette smiled at me.

"Could you imagine if she became a brat?" Joe joked. "That would be horrible."

"That's because I know you'd all beat the crap out of me if I turned into a total brat." I muttered and rolled my eyes. "Anyway, I've been meaning to ask. What does everyone think about letting Jenson in on the secret?"

"Kai, it's Guardian Jenson." Aunty Jules reprimanded sternly.

"Sorry, bad habit." I smiled sheepishly at her, feeling like a petulant child due to the tone of voice she'd used.

"I find it surprising that someone outside of the family found out so soon." Rosette commented.

"Well, if someone hadn't recklessly burst into my room in a raging fit, the secret would probably remain a secret for a few weeks or months more." Aunty Jules jibed at Maria.

"Well excuse me for being angry that I was the last to find out. If you'd been in my position, you would've done the exact same thing." Maria scowled defensively.

"I would've had better sense than to burst into someone's office screaming at the top of their voice."

"No you wouldn't."

"I never shouted when I saw her."

"No, apparently you tried to beat her black and blue instead."

"At least I didn't expose her secret to an outsider."

"Yes, exposing her secret to someone's who's trustworthy is definitely worse than taking the risk of having her attend school for the rest of the week at least covered in bruises. Yes of course that's better!"

"I didn't manage to get a single hit in. She wouldn't have had that problem."

"Ha! You're losing your touch, Juliet."

"Would you like to be the judge of that?"

"Seriously, stop it!" I snapped, finally losing my cool. I'd been hoping that their petty little argument wouldn't escalate but that was obviously hopeless with the pair almost at each other's necks. "I thought you guys were meant to be the mature ones, not the petty little high school girls. That's my job, not yours."

The pair stilled and simply continued to glare at each other. "You guys are far too similar, that's why you're at each other's necks." I grumbled in annoyance.

"I am nothing like her!" they both exclaimed, pointing at each other.

I sighed and chomped on another snack. "My point proven."

"To be honest, while I'm surprised that Crispin's found out so soon, I'm not surprised that he's the first one outside of the family unit to find out." Joe cut in. "He's one of the most observant guys I know and he was already pretty suspicious about your background already. It was really hard keeping the truth from him since he kept expressing his suspicion and kept commenting on how almost nothing about you made sense if you actually think about it."

"Hey, I'm offended!" I complained. "I do make sense."

"But you don't, Kai." Joe told me emphatically, trying to make me understand. "Just think about it. You're too accustomed to fighting Strigoi. No matter how much you've trained, for an experienced and observant guardian, it's natural to have suspicions about why you know so much about their weaknesses and about our world."

"Yeah, that's why my back up was, I met some Moroi in the outside world and they taught me what I needed to know to survive."

"You should never have met Moroi and known what they were. It doesn't make sense that Moroi outside of the Academies taught you skills rather than sending you here. They would've known instinctively what you were. According to Crispin, even the Alchemists knew what you were. Thinking about it logically, none of your story actually makes any sense. People haven't really caught on because they're so caught up with how good a fighter you are."

"I see his point, Kalster." Ali agreed. "For us, we don't really question it because we know. For us, it makes sense and we have no need to question anything about you. But for someone like Jenson, who's observant and tends to question things, they're bound to find it suspicious. They might not express their suspicion to everyone, but it doesn't mean that the suspicion's not there."

"Since when the heck did you get so smart?" I grumbled.

"I am older and more experienced, remember?" he teased, ruffling my hair. "You're pretty chummy with the four royal prodigies, right?"

"I wouldn't put it like that, but we're friends."

"Has any of them spotted anything strange about you? Has any of them tried to ask questions?"

I froze and stared at him in shock. My eyes widened and my mouth gaped open. He chuckled and poked my chin to close my mouth.

"One of them has caught on?" Joe demanded. "It can't be Dan. He's a smart kid, but he's definitely not one to overthink things. He usually just accepts things as it is."

"Then maybe the twins?" Ali suggested. "The twins are cunning, reminds me of how I was when I was at that age."

"Oh I know." I commented slyly.

"So the twins have begun to suspect?" Ali asked, eyes hopeful that he'd got it right.

"No." I told him flatly.

"Then it's got to be Ozera." Aunty Jules stated.

"No comment." I couldn't help but shoot Martin a nervous plea for help. We'd already had this conversation earlier and I'd confessed to him already that I suspected Drew might have begun to catch on to my lie. I had no doubt that Drew knew that I was lying sometimes, especially when it came to talking about my past. Drew was far too observant, easily able to notice when something didn't quite make sense, and he wasn't afraid to confront people about it.

"Martin?" Rosette asked curiously, noticing the glance I gave him.

Martin gave a heavy sigh and shook his head. "It's just your luck that you had to become so close to the most observant student in the school."

"I'm not close with him!" I protested in embarrassment.

"No offense, Kai, but you really are." Joe told me. "There've been tons of rumours, you know? Amongst the teachers I mean. There's speculation that you and Ozera are going to get together at some point before graduation."

I stared at him in shock. "You've got to be kidding me! Why the hell are the teachers talking about that sort of thing?"

"It caught our interest. Ozera isn't the type to make an effort with people who didn't interest him in some way. You'd have to be blind not to see that he's seriously interested in you. Of course, we don't know whether that's in a romantic or just a curious way, but the fact still stands that he wants to know you." Joe explained.

I made a face and groaned. "Is it that obvious?"

"Let's put it this way, no one ever expected him to tag along with you when you broke out. It was even more surprising when the guardians witnessed him pick you up and carry you off. Then there was the fact that you two spent the night together alone in your apartment. He should've been staying at the hotel with the others under strict supervision since he's an important royal but he insisted on staying with you. As if that wasn't odd enough, even before that, there was the fact that he was the first to step into the fight between you and Marissa. And let's not forget the fact that he punched O'Connor."

"Now that you mention it, it is a bit strange." Aunty Jules commented with a frown. "I never knew Prince Ozera to be the type to get himself so heavily involved with someone else except for the other three princes."

"He isn't." Joe persisted. "Like I said, he only gets involved when he's interested and the fact that he's so incredibly involved with you means that you've seriously piqued his interest because you're such a bundle of mysteries."

"I hope that wanting to unravel my secrets isn't the only reason why he gets so concerned about me." I grumbled, not really thinking about my words. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that I was hurt by the idea that he saw me as nothing more than a puzzle to solve. Did I want him to think of me as more than a puzzle? Even stranger, why did I even care?

"Kalanai?" Rosette whispered, concern heavy in her tones as she rested a hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Huh?" I blinked and stared up at her in surprise. Mentally, I cursed as I remembered that, as a spirit user, she could see my aura and therefore tell what I was feeling. "Don't worry, it's nothing."

She watched me for a moment before giving me an all knowing smile. "We'll talk later."

"I'd rather we didn't." I blurted out, embarrassed that she'd caught on. I knew what her line of thought was and I didn't know how I felt about having a girl talk with Rosette. I'd never really had one before, especially not with a family member. It was probably going to be incredibly awkward. Then again, if we had that kind of talk, then I could try and give the awkward couple a shove in the right direction.

"Oh Kalani, I know, but we will," she told me firmly with a small teasing smile. I just groaned, knowing that I wasn't going to get my way with that.

"So, Prince Ozera is the one who's caught on?" Maria asked, snapping my attention to the conversation at hand. "How much does he suspect?"

"I'm not really sure," I admitted honestly. "I do know that he suspects I'm not who I say I am though. He's rather sceptical about some of the things I say but he hasn't said anything to my face about it just yet. I'm going to have to be extra careful around him but otherwise the others are just fine."

"It probably doesn't help that the two of you have a tiny history together." Joe added.

"Wh- what?" I stammered.

"When we dragged your sorry ass back here, you'd said that someone did see you leave. You said that Ozera watched you escape, that was how he knew about the fault in the wards. He'd watched you leave. I can't imagine that he just let you go so easily knowing who you were back then."

I stared at him and rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. "Oh yeah… I did mention that, didn't I?"

"You did. So, what did happen that day? As a fellow royal, there is no way that he just let you go like that."

"He didn't really do anything. He tried to stop me, thought I was insane for breaking out and said that I wasn't going to survive a day out there on my own and I just said: 'Watch me' in response and ran out. Simple as that." I told them with a shrug. "I wouldn't really call something like that having a past."

"Kai." Aunty Jules called out to get my attention. "You don't understand. You're the reason why Prince Ozera started attending dhampir training sessions."

"What?" I squealed.

"In your year group, no Moroi was interested in learning how to fight alongside the dhampirs. You remember that much, no?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but Ozera told me that he'd joined because he'd seen the Moroi fighting alongside the dhampirs that day and it urged him to take the same route because things were safer that way."

"Then he obviously didn't tell you the whole truth. He spent a whole week nagging me to let him switch courses and join the dhampir combat training course. Did you know that?"

"No…"

"He spent a whole week trying to persuade me that he felt like he needed to join combat training because he had seen that just having dhampirs fight wasn't good enough, that so long as Moroi remained on the side lines and didn't help out, more people were going to get hurt and die than necessary. For the whole week, my determination to keep him out of the combat course didn't waver. He was a very important heir to the main Ozera family after all, I didn't think that he should be involved in the fights against Strigoi."

"Then why did you let him join in the end?"

"Because he told me that, if a shy girl who rarely ever raised her head and let determination flare in her eyes could take down a Strigoi even in the worst of moments and then break out of the school not long after despite the heavy security surrounding her, then he didn't want to just sit around and not fight." Aunty Jules told me, pinning me with her firm gaze. "Your break out and your determination to do what you believed in made him want to do the same. It made him want to do what he felt right which was to join in the fight alongside dhampirs."

"I… I never knew…" I murmured in shock at what I'd heard.

I never would've thought that my break out six years ago would be the turning point in having Moroi in my year join the dhampir course… My mind drifted back to the conversation we'd had during the massive game in combat class last week. When we had been talking about my escape, there was something in his voice and a strange gleam in his eyes. I remembered finding that a little strange but didn't think anything of it at the time. Could it be that that was what he was recalling back then? That my escape was what prompted him to start the dhampir training course?

Suddenly, my thoughts took a dramatic turn for the worse. What on earth was he going to think once my secret was out and he found out who I really was? If he found out that I was that same girl who escaped that day, how the heck was he going to react? Was he going to be calm like Crispin and revert to treating me like a person rather than some royal? Or was he going to be the one to break me into a million pieces by creating a barrier caused by the high consideration he held for the Ivashkov royal from all those years ago?

Panic shot through me. Not taking Drew's reaction in account for the moment, what on earth was everyone else going to think? How were they going to react? How were my friends going to react? Were they going to hate me for lying to them? Were they going to think that I was being a fake and just messing around with them? The endless possibilities swam through my mind and for a moment, I pretty much lost it.