Lissa was fluttering about in excitement at meeting another spirit user when I arrived back at Court. No wonder, since she had only ever met three others, one of whom had turned out to be a nutcase.

"I've met her!" Lissa exclaimed as soon as I had set my overnight-bag down. "She already agreed to work with Sonya. I would so like to do some research myself. But at least Sonya has some help now."

In the back of the room, Lissa's boyfriend Christian got up from one of the sofas. He greeted me briefly and came over to join us, but didn't share in Lissa's excitement.

"And Olive seems to be alright, I mean she'll have a hard time, but Dimitri and Sonya are there to help her. She's with Sonya now," Lissa continued. "Sonya said she could see a little of the magic around her, but she wouldn't have realized it if Adrian hadn't seen it first. It had faded to almost nothing. Sonya is still trying to find something else."

"Adrian did really great there. That was some awesome magic he pulled off," I said.

"It was. I hope he's okay now. Using spirit like that… "

She looked uncertainly over to Christian, who took her hand reassuringly but remained quiet. So, apparently, Christian hadn't entirely stopped being weird yet. He'd been suspiciously quiet and withdrawn since the events at Court only a few weeks ago, to the point that Lissa was starting to worry about him. Everyone who'd been in the battle had been shaken pretty roughly, but most had snapped out of it by now. Sure, Christian had hit it a little harder: his aunt had died in the attack, and died as a Strigoi, but he didn't even know that. Lissa had only told him that Tasha was dead, not that she had died as a Strigoi. The only evidence of this was the testimonial of one single guardian, who had stumbled over a Strigoi body in the confusion of battle and had recognized the famous criminal Natasha Ozera, before the sun turned her body to dust along with all the other fallen Strigoi. No one knew how she had gotten here, and no one knew who killed her, but since the convoy that was supposed to bring her to Court had indeed been intercepted, the assumption that Tasha was dead either way was a fairly safe one.

"Adrian will pull through. He always has, you know that."

"Well, it doesn't get easier. Anyway, we can't help him now. We have to focus on using the information he procured for us. What he did might help us a great deal. Sonya is as excited as I am about it, but she says not to get our hopes up too early. I guess she learned from her slow progress so far."

"Probably. Nevertheless, this is great news. Let's wait to hear what Sonya can learn with Olive's blood."

….

I had another surprise waiting for me the next morning: head guardian Hans Croft was summoning me to guardian headquarters.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed when I put the phone down. "I didn't do anything!"

"Roza, what makes you think it's because you got into some mischief that Hans wants to see you?" Dimitri asked with a humorous glint in his eyes.

"Because I usually have when he summons me."

"Then you deserve the suspense."

"You're one mean Russian. I haven't even forgiven you for sending me into the scrub of hell. Admit it, you know what he wants from me!"

"I don't," he replied with an innocent air. "Not entirely."

I gave him a scolding look and put on my jacket.

"See you later for training?"

"Maybe."

"What's with the cryptic answers?" I asked, slightly disgruntled.

"Wait and find out," was Dimitri's only answer.

So now I was standing in front of Hans' office with no idea what I was doing here. I didn't have to wait long before he poked his head out and called me.

"Hathaway. In with you."

I followed him inside, where he was already busy fiddling with some papers on his desk. He nodded towards a chair. I sat down.

"So, what have I done this time?" I asked, determined to get it over with.

"Done? Nothing. Not yet. But you will."

"Sure," I muttered. Hans finished his rummaging and produced a paper from the mess on his desk with a flourish.

"There we go. That's you."

'I' had a coffee stain and quite a few dog-ears, and didn't look as though I had been taken care of.

"Looks like I'm in a good shape."

"You are, of course, but we're going to whip you into an even better shape," Hans said, entirely ignoring the sarcasm.

"Does it involve actual whipping?" I asked warily.

Now Hans, for the first time, actually looked at me.

"Your post-academy training, Hathaway. That's what I'm talking about. You'll get some advanced training."

More training? Sounded like school. I was still suspicious. "In what?"

"Let's see. Every new guardian gets a different training schedule based on her or his position's requirement. Yours says crowd management is the most urgent point. Advanced weapons training. Not that you're not already handy with a sword… helicopter and plane piloting… undercover missions training… "

"Wait… did you say I'm going to learn how to fly a chopper?"

"You are, Hathaway. A queen's guardian has to learn pretty much everything there is, so you'll have continuing education for months, if not years. They keep inventing new stuff for guardians to learn. I had a new media class recently myself… But never mind. I'm sure you'll enjoy some of it. Some will be more boring than the worst you encountered in school, but I want you to pay attention to every single word said in every single moment of every single one of those classes, Hathaway. You're not a student anymore. You're learning what you need to protect our monarch."

"I think of that pretty much every single second of every single day I've been guarding her, Sir," I retorted. Hans gave me a hard glare.

"Don't sass me, Hathaway. I'm serious. No guardian's position is cut out for eternity, not even yours."

"I'm sorry. When will I start to learn piloting?"

Hans consulted his paper. "In October."

"Oh. And does anything come before October?"

"Lots. This is your schedule. It's lucky the Queen went easy on college classes this semester. You'll get a few things done."

Lissa had reduced her college workload significantly this term. She had given up on her ambition to finish her undergraduate studies in three years. You could only expect so much from a queen, after all. Now, we only needed to be in Lehigh for three days a week, leaving most of the week for us to be at Court.

Once out of Hans's office, I studied my schedule more thoroughly. It told me I'd have Crowd Management classes starting next week. The venue of the class – a lecture hall – made me expect the worst. Theory classes. Didn't I have enough of those at Lehigh? I went to all of Lissa's classes, after all!

"So, what do you start with?" Dimitri said, suddenly appearing in front of me.

"You did know about this."

"Of course, I had advanced training myself. I didn't know what classes they would put you in first, thought."

"Doesn't justify letting me go to Hans' fully expecting to have my guardian status revoked again!"

"You didn't expect that."

"One can never know. With Hans, everything is possible."

"I'd rather say, with you, everything is possible."

"Sounds better to me. Are we going to training now?"

"Yes."

"Let's go then."

"Um… I was hoping you would assist me with some special training that I have been assigned to do."

I raised an eyebrow. "Which would be?" Whatever could there be that Dimitri would be assigned to learn? Heck, the man already knew and could do everything. He was a guardian god.

"Ballroom dancing."

"Come again?"

"Yes. Dancing."

"You're kidding me."

"That's what I said when Hans gave me my training assignment."

"Really? You said You're kidding me to Hans?"

"Well, not exactly."

"Ballroom dancing? What would you need that for?"

"Apparently, it seems likely that my duties will one day involve going to a dance on an undercover mission."

"I hope we'll be together on this mission then, because I will have undercover mission training to complement the knowledge," I told him.

"I personally judge the likelihood of this mission ever happening fairly low," he retorted.

"Definitely, as long as you're guarding Christian. He's so not the ballroom dancing type." In fact, he'd probably set the ballroom on fire if anyone would ever be stupid enough to make him dance a waltz.

"The classes remain to be taken. That is why I was wondering whether you might assist me in my training by being my partner in tango classes today?"

"Are you kidding me?" I almost screamed. "Of course I will!"

Dancing a tango with him? Oh yes, I would.

Not surprisingly, there was no actual ballroom involved in guardian ballroom dancing classes. The training took place in one of the guardian gyms that had a large open space.

A little more surprising was the bad luck we had in the choosing of this particular gym. Because it just so happened that it was the very one where Moroi weight lifting training was taking place at the same time.

"Is this another thing you didn't tell me about on purpose?" I hissed to Dimitri as we assembled on the training mat next to the sweating Moroi. Christian lifted an arm to greet us. Trying to put on an innocent smile, I waved back.

"Would you have come if you'd known?" He whispered back.

"And purposely get laughed at by Christian? Of course not!"

"See? You would have let me endure this on my own!"

There was nothing I could do, because at this moment, the instructor showed up. We crowded together so we could all see the moves she showed us. With us standing around her, the Moroi couldn't see what kind of training we were having yet. This changed, however, when the instructor turned on the music she had brought for us to practice.

"Damn it," I murmured into Dimitri's shoulder as we faced the inevitable. I could already see the training Moroi's heads turning at the sound of the orchestra from the ghetto blaster. We squared off against each other more like we were starting a fight than a dance and stiffly went through the steps we had been shown.

"You move like robots," the instructor's voice interrupted our strained dance. "You are a couple. We should see that in a dance."

Over Dimitri's shoulders, I could see the weight lifting areas only too well. No one was doing any lifting any more. I got a good look at Christian's face when a slightly too vigorous turn brought me right in front of his machine. He was trying very, very hard not to laugh in my face. Well, at least he was trying.

We made it through the lesson painfully slowly. Although gradually, the interest in our dancing ceased, I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life. And there I had thought dancing with Dimitri was something enjoyable.

The Moroi had left by the time we were finally done. Both Dimitri and I gave a sigh of relief when we exited the gym into freedom again.

"Comrade – I wish you good luck for the remainder of these dance lessons. They will take place without me."

"I cannot believe you're abandoning me so heartlessly."

"I'm sorry. I have to see to my own survival."

"You have to do what your conscience tells you, Rose."

"Exactly. It tells me I now have to eat large portions of sugary stuff to make up for my loss of self-esteem. Will you join me in my endeavors to maintain my sugar high?"

"Much as I'd like to watch you eating doughnuts by the bucket loads, I need to leave. I'm on patrol duty in fifteen minutes."

"Well, then I shall brave this battle alone. See you tonight. Let's hope we won't run into him."

As luck would have it, I immediately ran into him. He was sitting on a couch with Lissa in her cozy little conference room, looking up as if he was innocence himself.

"Hey Rose," Lissa greeted me. "You can sit down for a minute, I need to finish reading these papers before we leave for the meeting."

While I did as she said, I fiercely held Christian's gaze, which was still as sweet as a puppy's. I decided to forestall him and breach the matter myself.

"What, no snarky comment?"

"I can't, Rose."

"No comment about what?" Lissa asked absent-mindedly, her nose already buried into her papers.

"Oh, come on Mr. Sarcasm. Surely you won't let this opportunity pass you by."

"No, really, I can't, Rose. It would be too cruel." Still, those icy blue eyes bore into me with the innocence of the holy Mary herself. "I can't bring myself to do it."

"What's wrong with you? Are you growing a heart?"

"Maybe. If you'd at least have been good… Then maybe I could find it in me to give you the tiniest of taunts. But having seen you… I just can't."

"What are you saying? That we weren't good? Christian, there is only one thing Dimitri and I can't do, and that is to be in the same room with you without wanting to gag you. We are not bad dancers."

"Um… You looked like robots. You seriously sucked at dancing." Christian looked like he had second thoughts about the wisdom of telling me this to my face, but eventually seemed to decide to brave my anger.

"We do not suck at dancing. No way. And why does everybody compare us to robots? There is no way that you could do even half the dancing that we are doing. We are governmentally certified at kicking ass. And that extends to all sorts of sports, dancing included," I ranted.

"Don't work him up, Rose, or he's going to suggest a competition between you guys and us," Lissa piped in, only half-conscious of the gravity of our discussion.

When Christian's eyes met mine, it was clearly evident that both of us wished that Lissa had been just a little more absorbed into her work just this one time. Now that she'd said this, there was no way out; we could neither of us be the first to back out of her unknowing suggestion. There was no further talk needed. Our hand met in a brief, decided handshake.

"It is on," I said menacingly.

Lissa looked up again confusedly. "What is on? What's up with you guys?"

"Too late, Lissa," Christian told her in a brave show of calmness. "There's no turning back. A tango competition it is."

….

"What have you done, Rose?" Dimitri's look betrayed at once that he grasped the full extent of a dancing competition between me and him and Lissa and Christian. "Look at them! Lissa moves like she's wearing Hermes' wings even when she only walks to the bathroom and Christian is a royal after all. They probably learned how to dance in Sunday school when they were five years old. We stand no chance."

There was so much wrong with this speech. "Are you saying I'm not graceful? And Christian is? What? And what's Hermes?"

"Oh, my Roza… we're doomed."