"MY TURN," MIA NODDED, turning the page in her book. I made a quick count. With Lissa done, and Mia starting, that left eleven more people to read – not counting Yeva. I wasn't sure if she was going to read for us or not. It was debateable. My eyes glanced over at the clock on the wall and I nodded.
"Alright, but after this chapter, we break for lunch, okay?" I said.
"Haven't you been eating all morning?" Mikhail laughed. I shrugged, unashamed.
"Hey, girl's gotta eat. Plus this is just snack food. It's not going to keep me going."
Olena smiled and reached over to pat my knee, "I'll cook us something. Don't worry." I flashed her an easy grin, glancing up at Dimitri, who seemed rather pleased that his mother and I got along. A sudden thought made me laugh – had we been a normal couple, in a normal universe, she'd be my mother in law. And I could live with that. Dimitri's mother in law, on the other hand... well, that would be another story in itself. Dimitri gave me an amused look.
"What're you thinking about?"
"Just... how interesting our family is," I murmured in reply. He chuckled.
Mia looked between us, "can I start now?" I nodded. "Alright."
"OR RATHER, THEY HAD BEEN Strigoi. A regiment of guardians had hunted them down and killed them. If rumours were true, Christian had witnessed it all when he was very young. And although he wasn't Strigoi himself, some people thought he wasn't far off, with the way he always wore black and kept to himself.
Strigoi or not, I didn't trust him. He was a jerk, and I silently screamed at Lissa to get out o there – not that my screaming did much good. Stupid one-way bond.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Taking in the sights, of course. That chair with the tarp on it is particularly lovely this time of year. Over there, we have an old box full of the writings of the blessed and crazy St. Vladimir. And let's not forget that beautiful table with no legs in the corner."
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes and moved toward the door, wanting to leave, but he blocked her way.
"Well, what about you?" he taunted. "Why are you up here? Don't you have parties to go to or lives to destroy?"
Some of Lissa's old spark returned. "Wow, that's hilarious. Am I like a rite of passage now? Go and see if you can piss off Lissa to prove how cool you are? Some girl I don't even know yelled at me today, and now I've got to deal with you? What does it take to be left alone?"
"Oh. So that's why you're up here. For a pity party."
"This isn't a joke. I'm serious." I could tell Lissa was getting angry. It was trumping her earlier distress.
He shrugged and leaned casually against the sloping wall. "So am I. I love pity parties. I wish I'd brought the hats. What do you want to mope about first? How it's going to take you a whole day to be popular and loved again? How you'll have to wait a couple weeks before Hollister can ship out some new clothes? If you spring for rush shipping, it might not be so long."
"Let me leave," she said angrily, this time pushing him aside.
"Wait," he said, as she reached the door. The sarcasm disappeared from his voice. "What... um, what was it like?"
"What was what like?" She snapped.
"Being out there. Away from the Academy."
She hesitated for a moment before answering, caught off guard by what seemed like a genuine attempt at conversation. "It was great. No one knew who I was. I was just another face. Not Moroi. Not royal. Not anything." She looked down at the floor. "Everyone here thinks they know who I am."
"Yeah. It's kind of hard to outlive your past." he said bitterly.
It occurred to Lissa at that moment – and me, too, by default – just how hard it might be to be Christian. Most of the time, people treated him like he didn't exist. Like he was a ghost. They didn't talk to or about him. They just didn't notice him. The stigma of his parents' crime was to strong, casting its shadow onto the entire Ozera family.
Still, he'd pissed her off, and she wasn't about to feel sorry for him.
"Wait –is this your pity party now?"
He laughed, almost approvingly. "This room has been my pity party for a year now."
"Sorry," said Lissa snarkily. "I was coming here before I left. I've got a longer claim."
"Squatters' rights. Besides, I have to make sure I stay near the chapel as much as possible so people know I haven't gone Strigoi... yet." Again, the bitter tone rang out.
"I used to always see you at mass. Is that the only reason you go? To look good?" Strigoi couldn't enter holy ground. More of that sinning-against-the-world thing.
"Sure," he said. "Why else go? For the good of your soul?"
"Whatever," said Lissa, who clearly had a different opinion. "I'll leave you alone then."
"Wait," he said again. He didn't see to want her to go."
"Aww."
"Shut it."
"I'll make you a deal. You can hang out here too if you tell me one thing."
"What?" She glanced back at him.
He leaned forward. "Of all the rumours I heard about you today – and believe me, I heard plenty, even if no one actually told them to me – there was one that didn't come up very much. They dissected everything else: why you left, what you did out there, why you came back, the specialisation, what Rose said to Mia, blah, blah, blah. And in all of that, no one ever questioned that stupid story that Rose told about there being all sorts of fringe humans who let you take blood."
She looked away, and I could feel her cheeks starting to burn. "It's not stupid. Or a story."
He laughed softly. "I've lived with humans. My aunt and I stayed away after my parents... died. It's not that easy to find blood." When she didn't answer, he laughed again. "It was Rose, wasn't it? She fed you."
A renewed fear shot through both her and me. No one at school could know about that. Kirova and the guardians on the scene knew, but they'd kept that knowledge to themselves.
"Well. If that's not friendship, I don't know what it is," he said.
"You can't tell anyone," she blurted out.
This was all we needed. As I'd just been reminded, feeders were vampire-bite addicts. We accepted that as part of life but still looked down on them for it. For anyone else – especially a dhampir – letting a Moroi take blood from you was almost, well, dirty. In fact, one of the kinkiest, practically pornographic things a dhampir could do was let a Moroi drink blood during sex.
Lissa and I hadn't had sex, of course, but we'd both known what others would think of me feeding her.
"Don't tell anyone," Lissa repeated.
He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and sat down on one of the crates. "Who am I going to tell? Look, go grab the window seat. You can have it today and hang out for a while. If you're not still afraid of me."
She hesitated, studying him. He looked dark and surly, lips curled in a sort of I'm-such-a-rebel smirk. But he didn't look too dangerous. He didn't look Strigoi. Gingerly, she sat back down in the window seat, unconsciously rubbing her arms against the cold.
Christian watched her, and a moment later, the air warmed up considerably.
Lissa met Christian's eyes and smiled, surprised she'd never noticed how icy blue they were before. "You specialised in fire?"
He nodded and pulled up a broken chair. "Now we have luxury accommodations.
I snapped out of the vision."
"Do you have any idea how panicked I was, that first time?" Dimitri laughed suddenly, "You had just frozen up, and stopped blinking. Your face was blank, like you'd gone away, but yet you were also making facial expressions the whole time. It was... odd. I almost had a heart attack."
I grinned and kissed his cheek, "sorry Comrade."
"Rose? Rose?"
Blinking, I focused on Dimitri's face. He was leaning toward me, his hands gripping my shoulders. I'd stopped walking; we stood in the middle of the quad separating the upper school buildings.
"Are you all right?"
"I... yeah. I was... I was with Lissa..." I put a hand to my forehead. I'd never had such a long or clear experience like that. "I was in her head."
"Her... head?"
"Yeah. It's part of the bond." I didn't really feel like elaborating."
"Is she all right?"
"Yeah, she's..." I hesitated. Was she all right? Christian Ozera had just invited her to hang out with him. Not good. There was "coasting through the middle," and then there was turning to the dark side. But the feelings humming through our bond were no longer scared or upset. She was almost content, though still a little nervous. "She's not in danger," I finally said. I hoped.
"Can you keep going?"
The hard, stoic warrior I'd met earlier was gone – just for a moment – and he actually looked concerned. Truly concerned. Feeling his eyes on me like that made something flutter inside of me – which was stupid, of course. I had no reason to get all goofy just because the man was too good-looking for his own good."
Dimitri chuckled, "thank you, Roza." Christian gagged.
"After all, he was an antisocial god, according to Mason. One who was supposedly going to leave me in all sorts of pain.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
I went into the gym's dressing room and changed into the workout clothes someone had finally thought to give me after a day of practicing in jeans and a T-shirt. Gross. Lissa hanging out with Christian troubled me, but I shoved that thought away for later as my muscles informed me they did not want to go through anymore exercise today. So I suggested to Dimitri that maybe he should let me off this time.
He laughed, and I was pretty sure it was at me and not with me.
"Why is that funny?"
"Oh," he said, his smile dropping. "You were serious."
"Of course I was! Look, I've technically been awake for two days. Why do we have to start this training now? Let me go to bed," I whined. "It's just one hour."
He crossed his arms and looked down at me. His earlier concern was gone. He was all business now. Tough love. "How do you feel right now? After the training you've done so far?"
"I hurt like hell."
"You'll feel worse tomorrow."
"So?"
"So, better to jump in now while you still feel... not as bad."
"That really was shit logic, Comrade," I teased, "I love you, but it's true." He chuckled.
"I know. But it was all I had."
"What kind of logic is that?" I retorted.
But I didn't argue anymore as he led me into the weight room. He showed me the weights and reps he wanted me to do, then sprawled in a corner with a battered Western novel. Some god.
When I finished, he stood beside me and demonstrated a few cool-down stretches.
"How'd you end up as Lissa's guardian?" I asked. "You weren't here a few years ago. Were you even trained at this school?"
He didn't answer right away. I got the feeling he didn't talk about himself very often. "No. I attended the one in Siberia."
"Whoa. That's got to be the only place worse than Montana."
A glint of something – maybe amusement – sparked in his eyes, but he didn't acknowledge the joke. "After I graduated, I was a guardian for a Zeklos lord. He was killed recently." His smile dropped, his face grew dark. "They sent me here because they needed extras on campus. When the princess turned up, they assigned me to her, since I'd already be around. Not that it matters until she leaves campus."
I thought about what he'd said before. Some Strigoi killed the guy he was supposed to have been guarding? "Did this lord die on your watch?"
"No. He was with his other guardian. I was away."
"Oh Dimka..." Olena frowned, "you don't blame yourself do you?"
Dimitri looked away, not answering. I had figured that out a long time ago.
"He fell silent, his mind obviously somewhere else. The Moroi expected a lot from us, but they did recognise that the guardians were – more or less – only human. So, guardians got pay and time off like you'd get in any other job. Some hard-core guardians – like my mom – refused vacations, vowing never to leave their Moroi's sides. Looking at Dimitri now, I had a feeling he might very well turn into one of those. If he'd been away on legitimate leave, he could hardly blame himself for what happened to that guy. Still, he probably did anyway. I'd blame myself too if something happened to Lissa."
"Oh Dimka..." Olena repeated, sighing.
"Hey," I said, suddenly wanting to cheer him up, "did you help come up with the plan to get us back? Because it was pretty good. Brute force and all that."
He arched an eyebrow curiously. Cool. I'd always wished I could do that."
"is that what that was about?" Dimitri laughed, "I'd always wondered." He paused a moment before processing the next part, "you can't arch your eyebrow?" I shrugged, making an attempt. I think I probably looked constipated. Or like I was about to sneeze. Or both. "Huh."
"You're complimenting me on that?"
"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried."
"Last one?"
"Yeah. In Chicago. With the pack of psi-hounds."
"This was the first time we found you. In Portland."
I sat up from my stretches and crossed my legs. "Um, I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who else could have sent them. They only answer to Moroi. Maybe no one told you about it."
"Maybe," he said dismissively. I could tell by his face that he didn't believe that.
I returned to the novices' dorm after that. The Moroi students lived on the other side of the quad, closer to the commons. The living arrangements were partly based on convenience. Being here kept us novices closer to the gym and training grounds. But we also lived separately to accommodate the difference in Moroi and dhampir lifestyles. Their dorm had almost no windows, aside from tinted ones that dimmed sunlight. The also had a special section where feeders always stayed on hand. The novices' dorm was built in a more open way, allowing for more light.
I had y own room because there were so few novices, let alone girls. The room they'd given me was small and plain, with a twin bed and a desk with a computer. My few belongings had been spirited out of Portland and now sat in boxes around the room. I rummaged through them, pulling out a T-shirt to sleep in. I found a couple of pictures as I did, one of Lissa and me at a football game in Portland and another taken when I'd gone on vacation with her family, a year before the accident.
I set them on my desk and booted up the computer. Someone from tech suppot had helpfully given me a sheet with instructions for renewing my e-mail account and setting up a password. I did both, happy to discover no one had realised that this would serve as a way for me to communicate with Lissa. Too tired to write to her now, I was about to turn everything off when I noticed I already had a message. From Janine Hathaway." We all glanced up at my mom, and Mia continued, "It was short:
I'm glad your back. What you did was inexecusable.
"Love you too, Mom," I muttered, shutting it all down.
When I went to bed afterward, I passed out before even hitting the pillow, and just as Dimitri had predicted, I felt ten times worse when I woke up the next morning. Lying there in bed, I reconsidered the perks of running away. Then I remembered getting my ass kicked and figured the only way to prevent that from happening again was to go endure some more of it this morning. My soreness made it all that much worse, but I survived the before-school practice with Dimitri and my subsequent classes without passing out or fainting."
"Barely," Eddie remarked in amusement.
"Hey!"
"Sorry Rose, but it's true. You looked like shit."
"At lunch, I dragged Lissa away from Natalie's table early and gave her a Kirova-worthy lecture about Christian – particularly chastising her for letting him know about our blood arrangement. If that got out, it'd kill both of us socially and I didn't trust him not to tell.
Lissa had other concerns.
"You were in my head again?" she exclaimed. "For that long?"
"I didn't do it on purpose," I argued. "It just happened. And that's not the point. How long did you hang out with him afterward?"
"Not that long. It was kind of... fun."
Christian smiled.
"Well, you can't do it again. If people find out you're hanging with him, they'll crucify you." I eyed her warily. "You aren't, like, into him, are you?"
She scoffed. "No. Of course not."
"Good. Because if you're going to go after a guy, steal Aaron back." He was boring, yes, but safe. Just like Natalie. How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe."
"Yeah, harmless," I grumbled, "because "harmless" apparently means turning Strigoi at your father's word and trying to dash my head against the ground."
"She laughed. "Mia would claw my eyes out."
"We can take her. Besides, he deserves someone who doesn't shop at Gap Kids." Mia looked up at me in exasperation. "Really, Rose?" She sighed, continuing. I fought a smile. "Rose, you've got to stop saying things like that."
"I'm just saying what you won't."
"She's only a year younger," said Lissa. She laughed. "I can't believe you think I'm the one who's going to get us in trouble."
Smiling as we strolled toward class, I gave her a sidelong glance. "Aaron does look pretty good though, huh?"
She smiled back and avoided my eyes. "Yeah. Pretty good."
"Ooh. You see? You should go after him."
"Whatever. I'm fine being friends now."
"Friends who used to stick their tongues down each other's throats."
She rolled her eyes.
"Fine." I let my teasing go. "Let Aaron stay in the nursery school," Mia looked at me again, shaking her head in amused disbelief, "Just so long as you stay away from Christian. He's dangerous."
"You're overreacting. He's not going Strigoi."
"He's a bad influence."
She laughed. "You think I'm in danger of going Strigoi?"
She didn't wait for my answer, instead pushing ahead to open the door to our science class. Standing there, I uneasily replayed her words and then followed a moment later. When I did, I got to see royal power in action. A few guys – with giggling, watching girls – were messing with a gangly-looking Moroi. I didn't know him very well, but I knew he was poor and certainly not royal. A couple of his tormentors were air-magic users, and they'd blown the papers off his desk and were pushing them around the room on currents of air while the guy tried to catch them.
My instincts urged me to do something, maybe go smack one of the air users. But I couldn't pick a fight with everyone who annoyed me, and certainly not a group of royals – especially when Lissa needed to stay off their radar. So I could only give them a look of disgust as I walked to my desk. As I did, a hand caught my arm. Jesse."
Cue more grumblings from Dimitri.
"Hey," I said jokingly. Fortunately, he didn't appear to be participating in the torture session. "Hands off the merchandise."
He flashed me a smile but kept his hand on me. "Rose, tell Paul about the time you started the fight in Ms. Karp's class."
I cocked my head toward him, giving him a playful smile. "I started a lot of fights in her class."
"The one with the hermit crab. And the gerbil."
I glanced up, immediately noticing Sonya's disapproving look. I offered a sheepish grin.
"I laughed, recalling it. "Oh yeah. It was a hamster, I think. I just dropped it into the crab's tank, and they were both worked up from being so close to me, so they went at it."
Paul, a guy sitting nearby whom I didn't really know, chuckled too. He'd transferred last year, apparently, and hadn't heard of this. "Who won?"
I looked at Jesse quizzically. "I don't remember. Do you?"
"No. I just remember Karp freaking out." He turned toward Paul. "Man, you should have seen this messed-up teacher we used to have. Used to think people were after her and would go off on stuff that didn't make any sense. She was nuts. Used to wander campus while everyone was asleep."
I smiled tightly, like I thought it was funny. Instead, I thought back to Ms. Karp again, surprised to be thinking about her for the second time in two days. Jesse was right – she had wandered campus a lot when she still worked here. It was pretty creepy. I'd run into her once – unexpectedly.
I'd been climbing out of my dorm window to go hang out with some people. It was after hours, and were all supposed to be in our rooms, fast asleep. Such escape tactics were a regular practice for me. I was good at them.
But I fell that time. I had a second-floor room, and I lost my grip about halfway down. Sensing the ground rush up toward me, I tried desperately to grab hold of something and slow my fall. The building's rough stone tore into my skin, causing cuts I was too preoccupied to feel. I slammed into the grassy earth, back first, getting the wind knocked out of me."
Lissa winced in sympathy. "Ouch. Y'know, you never told me this story."
"Never told anyone," I replied.
"Bad form, Rosemarie. You should be more careful. Your instructors would be disappointed."
Peering through the tangle of my hair, I saw Ms. Karp looking down at me, a bemused look on her face. Pain, in the meantime, shot through every part of my body.
Ignoring it as best I could, I clambered to my feet. Being in class with Crazy Karp while surrounded by other students was one thing. Standing outside alone with her was an entirely different matter. She always had an eerie, distracted gleam in her eye that made my skin break out in goosebumps. There was also now a high likelihood she'd drag me off to Kirova for a detention. Scarier still.
Instead, she just smiled and reached for my hands. I flinched but let her take them. She tsked when she saw the scrapes. Tightening her grip on them, she frowned slightly. A tingle burned my skin, laced with a sort of pleasant buzz, and then the wounds closed up. I had a brief sense of dizziness. My temperature spiked. The blood disappeared, as did the pain in my hip and leg.
Gasping, I jerked my hands away. I'd seen a lot of Moroi magic, but never anything like that.
"What... what did you do?"
She gave me that weird smile again. "Go back to your dorm, Rose. There are bad things out here. You never know what's following you."
I was still staring at my hands. "But..."
I looked back at her and for the first time noticed scars on the sides of her forehead. Like nails had dug into them. She winked. "I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me."
"Sorry, Sonya, but that was one of the creepiest nights of my life," I said.
"I jumped back to the present, unsettled by the memory of that bizarre night. Jesse, in the meantime, was telling me about a party.
"You've got to slip your leash tonight. We're going up to that spot in the woods around eight thirty. Mark got some weed."
I sighed wistfully, regret replacing the chill I'd felt over the memory of Ms. Karp. "Can't slip that leash. I'm with my Russian jailer."
He let go of my arm, looking disappointed, and ran a hand through his bronze-coloured hair. Yeah. Not being able to hang out with him was a damned shame. I really would have to fix that someday. "Can't you ever get off for good behaviour?" he joked.
I gave him what I hoped was a seductive smile as I found my seat. "Sure," I called over my shoulder. "If I was ever good."
Christian groaned. "When are we getting to the good stuff?"
I looked up in confusion, "the... good stuff?"
"Yeah," he shrugged, running a hand through his messy black hair, "you know. Like the Badica attack. Or when you guys went to the caves. When you ran away from St. Vlad's. Your time away from St. Vlad's. Breaking Victor out of prison,"
"Excuse me?!"
"Oh, shit, did your mom not know?"
Both my mother and Alberta were giving me a very stern look and I groaned. How perfect. And yet, he continued on, "and all that stuff. And your time away from Court. I mean, it's cool and all, but right now it's all kind of high school drama."
I gave him a tight smile, "well, the first few months were just high school drama. And," I sighed, "you realise, of course, that the "good stuff" you're talking about is all actually rather painful memories for me?" Well, that and filled with sexual tension. But I wouldn't mention that, "so... yeah. They aren't really memories I'd like to relive. But I have to. And you all get to experience that with me," I groaned, "so... just be patient."
He grumbled a little but nodded.
"But I think... some cool stuff is coming soon?" I offered, "Like, a little while after the church, the animals start. And then I'm caught in the lounge with Jesse."
Once again, Dimitri grumbled, causing Olena to smile over at us. "I really just want to see Dimka and Rose fall in love." She stated. I felt my cheeks heat up and I took a step behind Dimitri. I wasn't shy, not really, but suddenly his back was very interesting to look at. "When does that start happening?"
I noticed that Adrian was pointedly staying out of this conversation. Viktoria on the other hand, had no such reservations. "I really don't want to see that, mom. I mean, ew, that's my brother."
Dimitri laughed and nudged me so that I was beside him again, and not able to hide. "Well," I stated, "that's coming up, too. Right then I was only attracted to him. It wasn't until after some very nasty rumours about me were spread that I actually began developing a crush, which later turned into love." I sighed, "I guess we should keep reading then. What're we at now, five? Six? Who's turn is it to read?"
We glanced around but no one seemed that eager to read aloud. Finally, Eddie raised a hand in a slight wave, "I'll do it. Might as well." I nodded and rubbed the bridge of my eyes, before realising. "Hey, wait, weren't we going to stop after that chapter for some lunch?"
As if on cue, Viktoria's stomach growled. Olena, seeming to have some super hearing even for a dhampir, immediately went to the kitchen to cook something for all of us. Relieved at the break, however short it may be, I began cleaning up the mess of cookies and pop, pouring another glass for everyone – except Sydney, who seemed to only want water. Jill, Christian and Adrian took their turn for the feeders, Sonya, Mia and Abe deciding to wait for the next chapter. Sonya went to check the garden outside, followed by Lissa. Not wanting to leave her alone, I moved to follow her.
"How're you taking all this?" Lissa asked me, bending to touch one of the flower beds. To her delight, tulips popped up. I shivered slightly – both from the cold, and just from the magic. I'd never get over that. Her gentle eyes turned to look at me, and I glanced away.
"I'm fine," I shrugged.
"You're lying."
"I am not."
"Yes, you are. I can tell."
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, "okay, so maybe it's a little weird for me. I mean, it's not so bad now, but it's going to get worse. Like what Christian said, the Badica attack and my leaving St. Vladimir's and everything else. But even in this... book... there's going to be some stuff I don't want to relive, or else, don't want everyone knowing about. Like how the blood whore rumours made me cry. Or like getting beat up by Natalie. Or the lust charm. I mean, my parents are there. Alberta is here. Hell, even Dimitri's mom is here, and his grandmother and baby sister. I don't want to go through all that again with them here." I took a deep breath, "but I guess it's gonna be hard for both of us. I mean, it's not just my thoughts we're going through, right? Because... I kinda slipped into your head often. So I'm going to be living your thoughts all over again too."
That reminded me, "you're not going to be able to read the parts about your Queen trials," I commented. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. She hadn't thought about that. "Hopefully they won't land on your... turn. But there's still the possibility." Not to mention that everyone was going to know about how I killed Victor. I sat down on the deck's staircase, bringing my knees up to my chest. "I don't want to do this, Lissa."
She sat down beside me, wrapping a comforting arm around me, "maybe if we ask them to stop?"
I shook my head, "I don't know whoever this "The Author" is, but something tells me they won't be satisfied until we've read them all. Besides, you heard Christian, he wants to hear it all. And I'm sure he's not the only one. I wouldn't mind some of it so much, it's just the other stuff... like me being a blood whore for Dimitri when he was Strigoi. And when I watched him get overtaken. And Mason's death. I can't go through that again, Liss. I can't." I was shocked to hear my voice break. She sighed and squeezed my shoulder, but there was nothing else for her to say.
"I'm going to go inside," Lissa said to me, "you going to be okay?"
I nodded, "yeah. I'll be fine. I'll be in soon." She looked at me, uncertain. "I'll be fine," I repeated firmly. She nodded and went inside, and I sighed, closing my eyes. I'd be fine. I had to be fine. I couldn't focus on me – this would be hard on Lissa, too. Her needs were more important.
To my surprise, Sonya approached me. I'd forgotten she was even there, really, but glancing around, I noticed how beautiful the garden was. I wondered if we could keep this place as a summer house. Secure – I think there were even wards. At least, it seemed like it – and rather beautiful in its isolation. She stood in front of us.
"Rose?"
"Hm?"
"Earlier, when Alberta and Dimitri were handing out the books, what were you doing?" I looked at Sonya, remembering the odd look she'd given me.
"I was trying to look at the ghosts, see if I could still do it," I replied. No point in lying. I just hoped she wouldn't ask me frowned.
"Were you successful?" She asked instead.
I hesitated. Was I successful? I mean, I hadn't seen any ghosts, but... "I don't think so," I answered, "when I released the wall, I had that normal headache, and I did see glowing shadows flit around. But no ghosts. And the wall – and subsequent headache – was way too easy for me to push back. Nothing like how it used to be." I paused before adding, "why?"
"It's likely nothing," Sonya hesitated, "but your aura... it's no longer attached to Vasilisa's of course, because you're no longer bonded. But in that moment... it reached for hers. As if to recreate that connection. And some of the old shadows, from when you were shadow-kissed, returned – if only briefly."
Alarm shot through me, "did it make the connection?"
"No," she replied. My anxiety dimmed until she spoke her next words, "but it did brush against hers. And the gold flared up. It seems fine but... be careful. There's still a lot to Spirit we don't know. You may believe yourself to be completely detached from Lissa, but you did go to the land of the dead and you were Shadow-kissed. Even after your bond was severed from you returning... there's no telling what scars that may leave on the soul. No telling what changes may be permanent."
I shuddered, thoroughly chilled by her words, but was saved from responding by my mother. She popped her head out, looking at the three of us with surprise on her face. "Are you still out here?" She asked, as if it weren't obvious, "well, anyways. Ms. Belikova's finishing up and we're ready to start."
I gaped. "Finishing up? She's been in there for less than five minutes! How on earth can she be done already?" But my words fell on deaf ears; the others had already headed for the door. With a sigh, I stood up and followed them in.
I'm so glad everyone is enjoying this so far. I forgot how much I enjoyed posting fanfictions online. To those that are reading Spirit Swap: I'm working on getting another chapter out. I have a fledgling of an idea for the story now, which is good because I really want to get to the sequels.