Dimitri's POV

A cold shower was in order after that conversation with Rose, but I had my own responsibilities to get back to, so that was not a luxury I could afford myself right now. I'd given myself another shift outside the elementary school dorms and I was already running late. I scolded myself for getting so worked up over Ivashkov's messages, but I'd worried that he was using some code I could not decipher to contact Rose. In retrospect, that had been a stupid assumption, and the dates made more sense albeit not by much.

It was already fairly late, and not a lot was happening around the campus, so I pulled out my phone to look over the messages again. Yes, those were definitely dates, reaching back to about seventy-five years ago, but what was their meaning? Why did Ivashkov send these to Rose? Why had she asked for them?

My first guess was people of interest's birthdays, but I had to discount that idea when I realised the most recent date was just over ten years ago. Adrian was strange, but I doubted even he would suspect a child of conspiring against the crown. It had to be something else.

Try as I might, though, I couldn't make sense of the numbers, and my head was beginning to hurt. I would have to wait until the morning for answers. Worse even, I would have to depend on Rose being reasonable for once.

I was lucky that, today of all days, I had scheduled Guardian Alto for the shift right after mine. As per usual, he was a few minutes early, which allowed me to head to the front gate before Rose's own shift was over. I'd told her to come to me after, but I wasn't willing to bet on the fact that she would. Quite unsurprisingly, she was not happy to see me.

"Am I that untrustworthy that I need to be escorted back after my shift now?" she asked. Irritation was radiating off her in waves as she walked beside me, and I knew I had made the right call. She wouldn't have come to speak to me, though I had no idea how she expected to gain access to the information Ivashkov had sent without me.

I gave her a level look. "I believe you promised me answers."

"I didn't promise you shit."

Closing my eyes for a moment, I breathed in and out deeply. Once. Twice. If she wasn't going to be reasonable, I would have to remain calm. She was getting on my nerves, true, but if this escalated again, we wouldn't get anywhere. She'd been right last week, we were on the same side. We both wanted the best for Lissa and Christian and each other. I wondered briefly when I'd lost my tight grip on the control I'd worked so hard for my entire life, but being forced to work with a woman you had once loved and then lost would do that to a man, I supposed.

"You're the one who wanted us to do this together," I began. I had to choose my words carefully if I didn't want to set her off again. "We've been going at this the wrong way, and I have no interest in fighting you."

She didn't believe a word I was saying. In her place, I wouldn't have believed me, either. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Can we have this discussion after you tell me what it is that you and Lord Ivashkov have found out?" I asked. I could feel the headache from earlier was about to return, and a throbbing pain behind my eyes was not likely to make me any less irritable.

Rose stayed silent for longer than I had expected, but I didn't rush her. She was thinking about something, and all I could do was hope she would come to the right conclusion. "Fine. We didn't find anything."

"Rose—"

"No, I mean, those dates aren't really important, but… damn it. Okay." She shook her head as if it would help her clear her mind. "There must be a place here that holds the guardians' old records about… everything about this school, correct?"

"Yes," I confirmed. If this was going where I feared it was, we would both be disappointed. She didn't think I'd spent two months here and hadn't thought of looking there, did she?

"And I'm assuming you have access to it?"

Oh. So she really did think I was that dumb. "I do, but I've already been there. There's nothing to be found in those archives."

"That's because you didn't know what you were looking for," she said, a twinkle in her eyes that almost made me believe her.

I shook my head. "But you do?"

"Yes, actually." She looked up at me imploringly. "Just trust me. We need access to all incident reports from the past sixty or so years, including the classified ones. I'll explain later but, right now, daylight is running out."

"I've already checked everything, there is nothing suspicious to be found the—"

That last date I'd read in the final message – March, ten years ago. The battle at the academy, the rescue mission during which I had lost my humanity. "Rose, where exactly did Ivashkov get those dates?"

She had the decency to look ashamed. "I think it's better if you don't know that. Plausible deniability or whatever."

If those dates were what I thought they were – and Rose had all but confirmed that just now – then, perhaps, she did have a point. Perhaps, we could find now what I hadn't been able to identify as odd when I'd first looked through the reports.

The answers you seek lie only at St. Vladimir's.

"Come on, let's go," I said and picked up the pace. She was right about the daylight running out, too, and I really didn't want to be seen taking her down to the archives by more people than absolutely necessary.

I led Rose to the elevator that would take us down into the basement, but she didn't follow me inside. The doors were about to close, but I managed to put my foot between them before they did. Was this another trick? Did she want me to go down there by myself as a distraction while she went and did something else? I couldn't imagine how that could possibly benefit her, seeing as I still had my phone, and she didn't look like she was scheming. She looked… terrified. It took me another moment before I realised why – she'd taken this elevator downstairs before, though she'd gone down several stories more than we would now. The academy's jail was located beneath the archives, and memories of that day were now flooding my mind, too.

Victor Dashkov's cocky attitude. His daughter with chalky white skin and red-rimmed eyes. And, worst of all, Roza's lifeless body slumped against the wall. Then, the first time I had admitted to my feelings for her, not knowing if she'd even heard what I'd said, or if she'd ever wake up again. She had, though.

"Rose," I said gently, careful not to startle her. "We need to go."

She adjusted her posture, pushing her shoulders back and lifting her head a little higher, then stepped into the elevator with me. "Right. Mysteries to solve, vampiric society to save. Very important stuff."

Author's Note:

I know this one's super short, but I'm hoping I'll be able to upload another one later today!