Next update will be some time this coming weekend!

"Kak tebya zovut?"

Rose squinted at the rental car guy. Did he say something about a name? She couldn't remember, and hours of jetlag were quickly catching up to her.

"Ivashkov. Imya — Sydney."

"Pozhaluysta, viy mozhete zapisat eto?"

"Ess—ee—deh—"

Rose tuned out, completely lost despite the conversation sounding fairly simple. Her legs were weary from disuse, yet the last thing she wanted to do after fifteen hours of flying was sit down. Pushing the suitcases closer to Sydney, who seemed to be confusing the guy, and her official off-Court escort, a guardian named Serena who was doing an excellent imitation of a wallflower, Rose wandered over to a rack of pamphlets advertising tourist traps and overpriced restaurants. Nothing was in English, though few words — Hermitage Museum, Winter Palace — jumped out at her. Lissa must be out of her mind to have decided Rose was the most qualified for this job. Her head was hurting just trying to read a couple of tourist pamphlets and Lissa expected her to spend a year here?

Duty makes you do crazy things, she reasoned.

"Rose?"

She looked up to see Sydney waving her over.

"Shto eto?" Sydney asked the agent. Oh, good, an easy question to decipher. Rose could at least figure out that much. What is this?

"Shto?" the agent asked. What?

"Ya zakazal ekonomichnogo avtomobilya, ne kompaktnii," Sydney replied, pointing down to the paperwork her pen was hovering over. I booked an economy car, not a compact.

"Kompaktnii vsye u nas yest. Razve viy ne poluchili pismo?" the agent asked. Rose caught the first half, something about compact being all he had, but the second part escaped her. Pismo was mail. Something with communication?

"Nyet," Sydney said, clearly annoyed. No.

"Moi izvineniya. Ya tolko vzimat—"

Rose tuned back out after the agent apologized and started rectifying the situation. Her phone buzzed, still connected to the airport Wi-Fi, and she pulled it out to see messages from Lissa wishing her luck and safe travels and from Adrian sending hugs to both her and Sydney. She tapped out responses to both of them and shoved her phone back in her pocket when Sydney slid the paperwork towards her.

"Adrian sends his love," Rose said, taking the pen.

"That's nice," Sydney said, completely distracted, and pointed to the line Rose needed to sign on. "All I need you to do is sign there. I'm making you a second driver. We'll have a couple driving lessons during the two weeks I'm here."

"I know how to drive," Rose said defensively. She signed on the line, a large 'R' and 'H' dominating the signature.

"Not in Russia you don't," Sydney said with a humorless laugh and then slid the paperwork over to the agent who responded, in Russian, that he needed their licenses.

"Thank you for helping me get that last year." Rose nodded towards the machine currently copying her license.

Sydney waved her off. "I think it's ridiculous nobody taught you how to drive just because you were on the run when they proctored driver's ed." She paused and flashed Rose a smile. "But you're welcome. Sorry, I'm tired."

"No, I feel you on that one," Rose said, stifling a sudden yawn as she took her license back.

The late afternoon light filtered in weakly over Rose's shoulders, the letters on the pages of her book shadowing more with every mile passed. Sydney had drawn her legs up underneath her and was tapping away at her computer without break, making Rose wondered what she was up to without any Internet. Serena had curled up on the foldaway bed above Sydney's head for a nap after making sure Rose would be able to handle a sudden Strigoi attack at four in the afternoon.

Rose sat up from where she'd been slumping against the sidewall, pillow not providing enough cushion to have warded off the twinge in her back from bad posture. Her gaze wandered out the window as she checked on Lissa through the bond, who was in some meeting about flowers. Not bored enough to watch Lissa debate tulips over lilies with some old Moroi women who looked wrinkled enough to be a flower herself, Rose moved to reach down into her suitcase for her phone and earbuds.

"It's coming up," Sydney said without preamble.

"What is?"

Sydney pointed out the window as they passed a tall, white obelisk, at which Rose's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What was that?"

"That was the boundary between Europe and Asia," Sydney said with a small smile before turning back to her laptop.

Asia. Hearing it made Rose realize just how far from home she was.

Something finally slid shut inside her head and suddenly, the weight of the trip fell on Rose's shoulders, heavy and wet with dread.

Field work is the study of people and of their culture in their natural habitat. Anthropological field work has been characterized by the prolonged residence of the investigator, his participation in and observation of the society, and his attempt to understand the inside view of the native peoples . . . . Field work [has come] to mean immersion in a tribal society — learning, as far as possible, to speak, think, feel, and act as a member of its culture . . . .

— Hortense Powdermaker, Stranger and Friend: The Way of the Anthropologist (1966)

It was two days by train and another five hours by car, a road trip that Rose felt like would never end until they were taking a left off the highway and landing right smack in the middle of a veritable town.

"It's a real place."

Sydney snorted, navigating the streets with the ease of someone who'd been there before. "What were you expecting, shacks and dirt roads?"

"Yeah," Rose said, dumbfounded by her assumptions being blown away. "You know, that poor village aesthetic."

Laughing, Sydney shook her head. "There's a whole economy to the dhampir community, one that you, a guardian born to a guardian, wouldn't know about."

"But not everyone's . . . not human," Rose said slowly, catching sight of a human couple walking down a street, her exhaustion from days of travel pushing her processing speed to a grinding halt.

In the backseat, Serena sat still as a statue.

"No," Sydney agreed as they passed from commercial to residential. It was here that Rose could see dirt roads leading off from the main one they were on, but some looked like they'd been freshly paved over, a thin first layer betraying the foundation that lay underneath. Sydney didn't elaborate further and turned a right onto one of the dirt roads and then turned another right down a paved street of wooden, two story houses. She stopped on the street in front of a white house, red and blue painted flowers along the base making it stand out from the rest on the street.

This was it.

Rose was barely halfway out the car before a woman in her late forties stepped out of the front door and waved, following a set of stones that led from the house to the street in what was more or less a path.

"Zdravstvuyte, Olena," Sydney rolled out, sharing the customary three cheek kisses she'd warned Rose about the night before.

"You must be Rose," Olena said as she took Rose's hands in hers.

"Yeah," Rose said, trying not to gape too openly. She'd seen one picture of Dimitri Belikov before, in an online post that had gone around during the aftermath of the bloody mess his charge had died in, but Rose would've been able to pick the woman out of a crowd as his mother. The resemblance between mother and son was so striking, it was borderline eerie.

"You must be very tired," Olena said knowingly. Her accent was thick and her smile was warm and it set Rose at ease. As much as she hated stereotyping, the woman before her was exactly what Rose would describe an older Russian woman to look like. Short. Stocky. Full cheeks and weathered skin.

"Yeah," Rose repeated, grateful for the space when Olena dropped her hands. Serena had taken it upon herself to start pulling suitcases out of the car and once Olena noticed, she turned back to the house and shouted something in Russian that Rose didn't catch. A woman, maybe ten years older than Rose, appeared at the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. She brightened when she saw the group outside and quickly picked her way across the stones, barefoot and avoiding the rain-soaked grass. She tucked the towel in her back pocket.

"Karolina," she introduced briefly with a nod and warm smile of her own, and she jumped into helping Serena quickly enough to let Rose assume she was one of the daughters..

"Is Paul up?" Olena asked.

Karolina rolled her eyes. "Babushka's working on him."

As if on cue, a yelp rang out from an open window on the second floor. Karolina gave her mother a look as if to say See?

"I have a fifteen-year-old son," Karolina explained with an expression that said she'd rather shoot herself in the foot than talk about him.

"Ah," Rose said, nodding as if she understood.

"Come inside, lunch is nearly ready. Do you drink coffee?" Olena asked, beckoning Rose and Sydney forward and leaving Serena and Karolina to work out the luggage.

Any inclinations Rose had about going to bed were decidedly distracted by the physical warmth and pastry scent she walked into. She was so entranced by the house — a wooden staircase leading upstairs was almost up against the door, a small hallway next to it leading to a back door, a living room to the right and a fairly sizable kitchen on the left, pictures everywhere — that she almost didn't notice Sydney slip into the kitchen, nor a loud, shrill scream followed by the weight of a small child running straight into her legs.

"Privyet," the girl said, her arms wrapped around Rose's legs and looking up at her.

Children were not a thing Rose was comfortable with, but she forced a smile, tucked her hair behind her ear, and looked down anyway. She was going to have to live with this small child for the next year. "Hi."

"This is Katya. She doesn't know English yet," Olena said, trading her rainboots for a pair of slippers.

"Oh," Rose said awkwardly, like the communication gap between her and the girl hadn't just widened by miles.

"Hopefully she'll start soon," Olena said as another pair of feet ran down the stairs.

"Katya," the second girl whined, brandishing a hairbrush. Her high ponytail threw off any guesses Rose could make about her age. "Dayte mne chistit volosy!" Let me brush your hair!

"Nyet," Katya said before tearing off into the kitchen and the other girl took after her. There was a crash followed by a woman shouting in Russian.

"Zoya doesn't know English either." Olena gave the kitchen a worried glance and reached for a small bag by the door. "Here."

Rose swallowed any wary looks she might've given back home and looked inside. A pair of black slippers with red roses stitched on the top stared back.

"Tapochki," Olena said. Slippers. "Yours. Princess Dragomir said you like black."

Something warm filled Rose's chest and she bit back a comment on how much she hated getting things with roses on them. "Spasibo." Thank you.

"I wasn't about to make you live in one of our guest pairs for the year," Olena said. "My mother did the stitching herself."

Rose nodded, pulling them out and changing into them without a word. Her tutor had taught her basics in Russian culture — enough so that Rose wouldn't offend anyone enough to get deported — and one of the first things he'd mentioned was that it was a short road to a quick death if one wore their street shoes into the house past the foyer.

The door opened as Karolina and Serena started entering, and Olena ushered Rose into the kitchen to get her out of the way. Zoya had managed to corner Katya and was, to Rose's surprise, brushing Katya's hair pretty gently. Another woman, younger than Karolina, was pulling plates out of a cabinet and a man definitely not Dimitri but dhampir all the same sat at the table, a small boy on his lap. Sydney twisted to look up from her seat as Rose entered and the two exchanged a smile.

"Well isn't this a full house," Rose muttered to her friend, who coughed to stifle a laugh.

"That is Aleks," Olena said as if she hadn't heard or understood Rose, pointing to the man at the table, who gave a friendly wave back. "And Alexei is the boy. And Sonya—" Who flashed a smile, plates in hand, and beckoned the two young girls over to help her set the table. "Vika is at school, like you know, and my son, Dimitri, works there. They'll be home in December." The woman's voice held the wistful note of a mother who missed her children terribly. Rose nodded, trying to take it all in.

"Alexei doesn't speak English either?" Rose guessed and Olena nodded, sitting down by Aleks at the large, round table.

"Alonya, you know I go by Sasha around here," Aleks said, his tone tired with an inside joke. Olena tsked in response, a practiced response.

"I'll call you Sasha when you marry my daughter," Olena replied.

Karolina entered then with another eye roll. "Leave the poor boy alone, mama."

"Spasibo," Aleks sighed.

Karolina sat down next to him, one leg crossed over the other, her eyes twinkling. "He'll marry me when he gets his shit together and is a man about it," she said and then laughed when Aleks made an indignant noise.

"I'm a guardian, thank you," he said in defense.

"And yet I don't see you out there fighting for my safety," Karolina replied, but her tone was soft and joking. As if to prove her point, he stuck his tongue out at her and turned his attention back to Alexei when the boy tugged on his shirt, crayon in his other hand.

"Sit, Rose, please," Olena said, standing and moving to the stove when Sonya started turning the burners off. She began pulling food off the simmering pans and stacking it on serving platters while the girls put forks by plates. Deeming they were safe enough for the moment, Sonya had turned her back to start making coffee.

Rose took a seat next to Sydney, trying to gauge how comfortable it would be if she were to slump over and fall asleep. She yawned, gathering her hair back into a ponytail, twisting it once, and letting it fall down her back.

"U vas yest ochen krasivye volosy," a voice whispered from Rose's other side. She whipped her head around to see Zoya standing on her knees on the empty chair next to her, hairbrush nowhere to be found. A little louder, Zoya asked, "Mogu li ya chistit yego?"

"She said she likes your hair and wants to know if she can brush it," Sydney translated into Rose's ear, who nodded.

"I got that much." And then, addressing Zoya, she took a deep breath and steeled herself. "Viy mozhete . . . chistit yego, yego . . ." Panic welled up in her as she fumbled through the words. "Yego . . . mozhet byt pozzhe." You can brush it, maybe later.

Zoya, for all of her young energy, had waited patiently for Rose to get through the sentence, and satisfied with the answer, she nodded, climbed off the chair and returned to Katya.

"English, I like English. I'm too tired for this right now," Rose muttered to Sydney as Sonya set down a plastic pitcher of bubbling hot water and a large tin wrapped in bright paper with "kofe" scrawled in black marker.

"All we have this month is instant coffee," Sonya said apologetically, her accent as thick as her mother's. "Dimka's check doesn't come in for another week."

The words hit Rose unexpectedly and she felt the urge to quell the embarrassment in Sonya's eyes. It hadn't really occurred to Rose until that moment what kind of life the Belikovs actually lived — it wasn't like the wealthy flocked to small Siberian towns for their permanent residences.

Rose had a sudden sneaking suspicion she should've appreciated her last cup of Starbucks at the Moscow train station a little more.

"Coffee is coffee," she replied diplomatically, taking the mug Olena handed her in between trips between the stove and table. "Spasibo."

Sonya seemed to take her words to heart and some of the embarrassment faded. She was about to say something when the sounds of someone trudging down the stairs shot through the kitchen entrance like gunshots in the air.

"Took you long enough," Karolina said to her son as he entered, not looking up from his phone.

Paul mouthed the words back at her, clearly irritated, and threw himself into a chair across from Rose and Sydney as he pocketed his phone. He propped his head up with both hands, annoyance streaked across his face, and gave the pair a sparing glance. "You're Rose?"

Rose nodded, her old defenses going up in the wake of a sarcastic, sleepy teenager. Memories of dealing with Christian at breakfast every morning during her senior year of high school flashed through her mind.

"And you're the Alchemist," Paul said, nodding to Sydney.

Rose raised her eyebrows when Sydney didn't bother to correct him. "Yes."

"Wow. You two are just loads of fun. And I had my ass—"

"Language, Paul," Karolina interjected.

"—Sorry, mama," he responded lazily. "I was dragged out of bed for this rousing circus?" He glanced at Karolina. "Thanks, mama."

"Damn straight you were," Rose shot back, finally finding her voice amid the completely new world she was now up to her elbows in. Small children made her uncomfortable, but she could dish it back to the likes of Paul any day of the week.

Paul grinned, lighting up, and out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw Karolina bristle like wanted to say something but refrained. Boundaires were being set right now as they gauged Rose's character. Nobody would say anything, not right now. She could work with that, see how much leeway she had.

"I like you," Paul said, smirking. "I take back what I said. You're pretty alright."

"Thanks, then," Rose replied, returning Paul's grin.

"Paul, gdye babushka?" Olena asked, setting plates of open-faced sandwiches down on the table.

"Grandmother escaped out the back door. Went to Vladimir's. Business," he whispered, like the woman was off having some scandalous affair. "She told me not to ask questions but to let you all know."

Olena narrowed her eyes. "Zmey isn't back in town, is he?"

Paul shrugged. "She told me not to ask questions, so I don't know."

She shot a look at Sydney and then shook her head. "I don't like that man wandering around town, especially with these two here."

Apparently Serena, standing along the wall behind Sydney, was only visible to Rose.

"I can handle myself," Sydney said, silent up until that point.

"I know you can, dochka, I just like it better when he isn't here." Olena returned with a giant pot of soup as Sonya ushered the girls to the table and Aleks started getting Alexei to clean up his mess of papers and crayons.

Paul shrugged again and folded his arms down on the table, resting his head on top of them like he was back in bed, something Rose very much wanted to do herself. She refrained if only out of politeness.

"Who's Zmey?" Rose asked, rolling the word uncertainly off her tongue.

"He's a businessman," Aleks explained. "Middle Eastern, I think? But when I say 'business' . . ."

"Like the mafia?" Rose joked and to her surprise Aleks didn't seem too off-put by the idea.

"Maybe. Who knows?" He shrugged. "Nobody knows what he does, just that he comes into town for a few months, spends a lot of time whispering with the old woman, Yeva, and then leaves for a little while. He's not here for, well . . ." Aleks trailed off, sharing a weighted look with Karolina.

Rose could guess what he was hinting at. "Then what is he here for?"

"We don't know," Karolina said, eyes flicking across the girls and Alexei. "He's been in and out of town since the late eighties. Babushka insists he's important to the family, but she won't say for what or why. All we know is that we'll find out when the time comes. It's the way her dreams work." Her words sounded like an echo, like she'd heard them many times before.

The conversation abruptly shifted to a neighbor's dinner gathering the previous week at Olena's behest, leaving Rose with the distinct feeling they'd flirted with a tense subject. Later, she decided, once she knew them better. If there was one thing she was good at, it was being a nosy little shit, just as Christian had told her many times over, and the idea of a mysterious mobster type floating around Baia, especially with a supposed underground blood whore culture . . . well, that was simply too tempting a rabbit hole not to follow down.