Rose's POV

For a moment I almost thought he was remembering, too – the times when I certainly would not have asked him to be less rough with me. But it was a short moment of a few seconds at best before his stupid guardian mask came up again, and I wasn't sure what to believe.

"So… am I good to go?"

I shouldn't have spoken. My voice came out more shaky than I would have liked, and I really hoped Dimitri hadn't noticed. It didn't seem like he had. His only response was a little huff before he went back to cleaning the probably miniscule wound on my forehead.

Good. I sure as hell wasn't about to let him know what kind of effect he still had on me when I wasn't sure just how he felt yet. Of course, he had been the one to kiss me after our fight a while ago, but I'd suspected it had only been to distract me. Until I was certain that that wasn't the case, I would keep my walls up. I had to.

It's been years.

Yes, it had been years since we'd last seen each other. Made promises to each other.

I've got no claim on you.

But didn't he? I'd promised him forever, and he had done the same to me. Had these eight years really changed anything?

Nor do I wish to.

Maybe they had. Maybe they had changed everything.

Unless, of course, he had lied. He'd done it before, but listening to that hopeful little voice in my head would only lead to more heartbreak if it turned out to be wrong. I was better off tuning it out for now.

Besides, there were more pressing matters that required investigation than Dimitri's feelings – or lack thereof – for me. With the entire lunch break plus an additional hour of free time, this was the perfect chance to take a look at those files we had stolen… err… borrowed.

I tried to sound calmer than before when I spoke again. "If you're satisfied with your work, maybe we could continue our little investigation?"

"You should get something to eat," he said. Yeah, fine my ass.

He was very clearly not fine after what I had said earlier, and he clearly didn't want to spend any more time than he had to with me, but what was I supposed to do? I hadn't even meant it and had apologised regardless because I knew it had hurt him. What else could I do?

"The only thing I'm hungry for right now is knowledge."

That earned me an eyeroll and something that could have almost been a smile if he hadn't wiped it off his face so quickly. "If I don't go with you, you'll just do it alone, won't you?"

"Probably." Definitely.

He sighed begrudgingly. "Fine. I might need your help, anyway, since I have no idea what I'm looking for."

"And because we're working together now," I reminded him. "Don't forget that, comrade."

He mumbled something under his breath, and while my Russian was more than a bit rusty, I was pretty sure the words 'pain in my ass' were uttered. Nevertheless, Dimitri led me to his office after confirming one last time that I didn't feel dizzy or anything the like.

We didn't talk while we walked. Once upon a time, we had mastered the whole comfortable silence thing. Right now, though, it was awkward. I was glad when we finally arrived at his office. Like I suspected, he had locked away the files somewhere in there – a desk drawer. That was a bit less secure than I would have thought, and it would have been incredibly easy to get to them. Not a very complicated lock to pick. I was glad it hadn't come to that, though. Working with him was better than working against him, even if he apparently didn't see it that way right now.

He placed the files down on the desk. "Are you going to tell me what we're looking for?"

"Royals," I said. I wasn't sure exactly what we were looking for, but I knew it was political, and that meant royal Moroi were involved. "Discard anything about novices and guardians, but put everything that involves Moroi aside somewhere." It wasn't that non-royals didn't have strong opinions on politics, but Lissa was trying to help them, and I doubted they would try to assassinate her. But it was royals we were looking for, and specifically incidents that pointed towards a chapter of the Mână at the academy. I doubted Dimitri knew much about that. The academy had been attacked before I could tell him about the chapter that had popped up during my time here, and I'd never had the chance to talk to him about it. "Give anything you find about royals to me."

He raised an eyebrow. "And why don't you just tell me what to look out for? We'll be faster that way."

"Because it's complicated and I can't explain it," I groaned. "Have you heard about the Mână?"

Dimitri narrowed his eyes. "The Hand? What do you know about them?"

"Not much," I told him. "But more than I want to. Remember Jesse Zeklos and his crew? Mhm. Trust me, I know what I'm looking for."

He regarded me carefully for another couple of seconds, then nodded. "All right. I'll let you take the lead on this."

Let me? As if he had a choice. Just because he had heard about the phenomenon didn't mean he knew shit about it. This kind of stuff wasn't talked about in front of guardians like us, and it had only been thanks to Adrian that I had ever learnt about it. I decided not to comment on it only because I was worried he might change his mind and be even more difficult than he already was. "Good. Let's get to work."

And so we did. Unfortunately, what we found was rather underwhelming. While most of these files were about Moroi acting out – which made sense, since there wasn't much of a reason for anyone to keep incidents between guardians or novices quiet – nothing really stood out.

There were, however, a few incidents I could more or less confidently attribute to Mână shenanigans, especially when some of them happened in a relatively tight timeframe. In the end, we had a small stack of guardian and novice stuff – which, to my surprise, included a report of that time my mother had hit me in the face accidentally – and a slightly larger stack of Moroi stuff. The pile of reports about royals was significantly larger, but there didn't seem to be anything of interest in there. Finally, of course, we had the Mână stacks. Three of them. One was from my time at the academy, and included a report about my involvement after they had tried to force Lissa to join them. The other two were from twenty-five to twenty-three and forty-two to thirty-nine years ago respectively.

The younger of the two groups appeared to have been more violent – incidents of royals beating up non-royals and such – while the older one had seemingly focused more on psychological torture and compulsion. Both were concerning, but they gave us nothing in terms of where to go from here. Some names, of course, but too many of them to narrow it down just yet. Especially since we didn't know which of the groups to focus on.

"I really need to get access to that stupid archive," I muttered.

Dimitri furrowed his brow. "We got these from the archive. If you need to go back—"

"No," I said, shaking my head. He definitely didn't know as much about this as I did, then. "The Mână supposedly have this secret archive wherever they pop up. Like, they are technically separate groups, but they're still kind of… one, you know? They're far more organised than I initially thought – don't ask how I know – and they're all about tradition, and from what I've heard they have, like, these top secret Mână quarters that should include an archive where they keep some records. Probably stuff to blackmail their members with should they ever step out of line, if I had to guess."

This seemed to make sense to Dimitri and he nodded. "Do you know how to find it?"

"Yes and no," I admitted. "I know we can find it if there is a chapter of the Mână currently active here, but I have no idea if that's the case."

"And if there is no active chapter here?" he asked hesitantly.

He already knew the answer, but I told him, anyway, "Then we're fucked."