RPOV

"Lord Dashkov." Adrian greets. His tone has sharpened up to a respectful degree. "Good to see you again."

On his and Adrian's clasped hands, Victor rests his other. At first, I take it as an affectionate gesture but then, staring at the grip Victor has it dawns on me that it's also a way to ensure Adrian can't get away.

"You too, you too. But I'm confused I thought you were to start College with Andre?"

"Uh, yes I am. We were visiting old friends and on the way back we thought we'd stop to pay our respects." Adrian's gaze switches to the Headmaster who had arrived with Victor and was politely waiting behind him.

"We?" Victor prompts with a smile. My eyes drop to their joined hands and I expect to see Victor's knuckles bleached. The thought surprises me.

"My father and myself." Adrian explains. The pleasant look on his face has become stagnant.

"Wonderful." Victor grins, their joined hands giving a final shudder before breaking apart. Victor turns aside and opens an arm to the headmaster. "My apologies, Headmaster Levandi this is Adrain Ivashkov."

They shake hands and Adrian offers his condolences. I look at Dimitri but he's staring past everyone and assessing the hall but beside him, Spiridon's lips are in a firm line and his eyes are alight.

"I hope our arrival isn't intrusive." Adrian says. "It just seemed wrong to be passing this way and not stop."

"We appreciate you thinking of us." The Headmaster returns. "I'll have two other suites prepared." His Guardian shadow steps up to his shoulder and he gives him the instructions in a quick undertone that I'm sure aren't in English.

"Where is Nathan?" Victor asks.

"He has one last visit to make so he sent me ahead. He should be here in a few hours." Adrian says and then turns to me. "And I'm glad he did because unexpectedly I've made a friend. This is Rose, Rose this is -."

"Oh, Adrian." Victor laughs. "We're acquainted. Rose is my Guardian Ben's sister, and now that I say it aloud I realise I haven't introduced everyone properly. Funny how etiquette goes out the window amidst the excitement."

"Well, that explains Natalie." Adrian grins, the playful look coming back into his face. "She's always excited."

"You know Natalie?" I find myself asking as Victor explains who she is to the headmaster.

"I've had the pleasure."

"And Lissa." Victor adds. "Adrian and Andre will be attending college together. Business is your major correct?"

"Andre's is. Mine is still to be decided."

"That's leaving it a bit late isn't it?"

"I'm hoping the pressure will help me make the right decision."

"And your father agrees with your approach?"

Adrian's smile is stagnant once again. "We have an agreement."

"Lord Ivashkov, I was just about to show Victor and his party the grounds, as well as our memorial. Would you like to accompany us?"

"I'd be honoured." Adrian accepts

The Headmaster grins and leads our party out of the hall. Soon he and Victor are talking about the 'weight of responsibility' on the youth and I hear Court mentioned before a hand on my elbow pulls me back a few paces.

"I don't know about you but I'm tired of politics." Adrian says.

"I can't say I understand a lot of it." I murmur.

We follow them down the stone steps and into a large courtyard and I try to not be resentful he's prevented me from eavesdropping. Eavesdropping isn't something I should do anyway…

There are students out here eating and laughing together although they stopped what they were doing when they looked our way, just for a moment, before they started whispering again with a new excitement buzzing around them. I could almost hear it. I can only assume it's the reaction to Victor after his speech.

So many eyes are flitting this way, skimming over us, and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up and staring back.

"So, where do you go to school? You're still in school right?" Adrian asks pleasantly.

Victor and Headmaster Levandi are ahead with Ben and Spiridon flanking either side. Dimitri is a couple of paces behind me so there is no one else to guide or steer the conversation or throw a life raft to questions. Fortunately, Dimitri and Spiridon had coloured in parts of my cover story this morning whilst I ate.

The best lies have a bit of the truth in them. I'd heard Victor say that.

"I was homeschooled."

"Really?" He asks, looking much more enthused by the answer than seemed necessary.

"Uh, yeah." I look away from his keen expression. People are definitely watching us. Not so much me which is understandable, I am technically and theoretically a nobody, just a girl, but when their eyes slide over me they stick to Victor, their headmaster and Adrian. Mostly the girls watch Adrian and dissolve into whispers and giggles when they pass. He doesn't seem to notice. "Was it lonely? I had a tutor once and that was hell. All they wanted to talk about was proper grammar and the Renaissance."

He shoots me a grin and I smile because it seems like the best response. "So how did you make friends when you weren't chained to a desk?"

Two girls watch Adrian appreciatively as they pass. "I didn't have a lot of time for friends."

"Everybody needs friends. Who would lead us astray?"

There are lilies out here too. Simple glass vases host them proudly on solitary plinths, tea light candles keeping them company. "I had a friend."

"Just the one? They must have been special."

The buzzing courtyard becomes background noise. "They were."

"Wait. So you can still become Guardian through homeschooling? How does that work? I bet your dad is terrifying."

I take a deep breath and let the lie spill easily. "No, I was homeschooled and Ben went to St. Basils to train but now with the way things are it's thought best I start learning about the…way things are."

Adrian glances thoughtfully at the party ahead. "And Victor is…supporting your broadening horizon?"

What a strange way to put it. "Yes, he's been very kind."

We start on a path that curves around the side of the building. A high wall on our right side looks out into the silhouettes of trees that rise out of blackness on higher hills around the school. I crane my neck and see there's a sheer plunge on the other side, the tallest trees must still be twenty feet below and I can only make out some of its branches before it's lost to the black beneath.

A movement over my shoulder makes me look up and see Dimitri's scanning the hills with an animalistic keenness.

A small cough on my other side asks my attention.

"Pardon?"

Adrian looks graciously patient. Victor's party have gotten so far ahead. I fall back into step with the Moroi boy. The reality of it almost makes me snort. Me, strolling around a castle filled with students, with a Moroi at my side talking to me like we're equals. My mother would say…. What would my mother say? For a strange moment, her face is fuzzy in my mind but Adrian speaks and the thought of her turns to vapour.

"I asked if you were thinking of coming here then? But that seems a bit like… not knowing how to swim and then jumping into the deep end of the pool. Possibly with stones in your pockets."

"No, I won't be attending school here."

He looks relieved but for some reason, I can't help but feel disappointed. "I can't imagine your mother would allow that. I mean, this school has a lot of merit and it's produced some of the best but...what happened still happened." The path spits us out into a wide bit of ground with the main building still flanking us but up ahead is another building, a smaller one… it kind of reminds me of the Ozera's barn but it's all brick and not wood. A high slanted roof with a stone cross is presented at the front. The windows are coloured glass and they were lit up like glowing jewels against the inky darkness beyond the building. "She would probably prefer you to go somewhere a bit closer to her, huh?"

"I don't think it overly matters." I murmur, captivated by the jewelled windows and happy to see it was the building we were being led toward.

"Really? I'm worried my mother's going to follow me to college and it's not like I haven't lived away before. Yours might just be better at playing it cool."

Victor and Levandi are no longer speaking and that solemnness that coated the hall is back and I'm no longer intrigued by the building. A coolness pools in my stomach as we get close to the arching door and the sweetness hits me like a wall.

I take a deep breath and expect the smell to burn my lungs. There is smokiness mingling with it, coming from inside.

"This is going to give me a headache." I hear Adrian mutter.

"No, she's not playing it cool." I answer him, my head starting to swim as Victor steps through the doors.

"Oh?" Adrian's voice is tight as we step onto the threshold.

I look up at him and it's plain on his face the smell is bothering him too. "She's dead."

I follow Victor in.

You got used to the smell. I learned it wasn't just the lilies but incense and I also learned that lilies are the flowers for mourning which caused me to feel sickened with guilt. I had walked through the school and the grounds with flowers everywhere and I had taken them for nothing more than decoration, easily ignoring them.

They are a symbol of pain. They are a symbol of loss. They symbolized people here are hurting and once I realized it the old wound inside me began to split open, one stitch at a time. I tried to stay inside my head and not get dragged away into memories or emotions. Both would be pointless and what was the point of suffering here and now over things that couldn't change. It would be a selfish indulgence.

It was easy to stay in my head though, in the present, all I had to do was pay attention to everyone else's sadness and try to see it through a glass wall against myself.

The building is a church and it's where the lost are remembered. It's lit by candles and burning lanterns. There are framed pictures of the people that had gone missing or died in the attack. They sat on a table that was atop some stone steps and they were surrounded by candles, flowers, letters, cards, what looked like some candy pieces and marble stones. I didn't read any of the cards or letters. I didn't get too close. It didn't seem right to be so … inside other people's grief. This wasn't a TV show to entertain me.

The students here stood in tight groups of twos or threes. The girls held onto one and another and the boys held onto each other's shoulders, like without the support they'd become unstable and collapse.

Victor spoke to them and for a split second this seemed to me to be completely offensive and obnoxious but the compassion on his face and solace in his voice quickly changed to be a support that was needed. His empathetic hand on his shoulder and the mournful bow of his head stood out like warm light nestled in the dark.

I didn't speak. Neither did Adrian but we didn't leave each other. I think he felt a little how I did, like an imposter. We rotated around the hall, standing in front of the faces of the dead for a few minutes, before making our way back down to the back. Ben and Spiridon stationed themselves at either side of the room, letting Levandi's Guardian be the one to move with them. Adrian and I agree without words that it is time to leave and we make our way back down the hall, passing Dimitri at the door.

The candlelight is reflected in his dark eyes but there's nothing else.

Outside the hall the cool air is a welcome relief and forgetting to be respectful I stride to the far side of the open ground to a bench and drop down onto it.

"Yeah, I know right." Adrian says shakily having followed me. I don't know what to say, I feel drained. There's a small clicking noise and a little ball of light spring up near his face.

"You smoke." I state dumbly, trying to reconnect my mind to normal footing again.

"Does it bother you? I'm sorry. I need to clear my head after that …ha, irony."

It takes me a second but I get it and I grin. The smell of cloves dances past my nose, a spice to chase away the sweetness I felt clinging to me.

"It makes it all feel real, doesn't it?" He says quietly. "How close we really are to the end of everything."

I look out at the people coming and going from the church. "Or the beginning."

He sits down next to me and the reality hits me again. A Moroi boy and a slave girl. I wasn't a slave anymore but what was I.

What was I?

"I'm sorry." He suddenly says and I turn to find him watching me. Didn't any Moroi have dull eye colour? His reminded me of moss and trees. "About your mom. I'm sorry you lost her."

Yes, every lie had to have a little bit of truth in it. "So am I."

"But you have your brother. You have each other."

Where was the truth in that lie? "I hope so."

The lingering fog in my head, the lack of awareness of my limbs, all sharply disappear when his hand takes mine. He doesn't just cover it but holds it. Not a reproachful gesture but one with the confidence only a Moroi boy with the world at his feet could have, a boy who would never second guess if his touch on Dhampir was wrong.

His hands are soft and mild. Not warm and calloused.

I try to stay calm.

"I know I hardly know you and I don't want this to sound like some bullshit people say because they have to but…it will be okay. I know it will be."

I tug my hand back with a small smile.

"You don't believe me." He takes a drag from his cigarette. He made it look more appealing than the Guardians had but then again it was less likely he'd put it out on my shoulder.

"There's just no way of you knowing that. I have to learn what I can while I can and do what I can with it."

"Very eloquently put." He muses and I sort through my mental dictionary whilst trying to decipher his tone. "But I do, I know these things. I get feelings about people. Don't mistake that for a coded way of me declaring my love for you, I only do that after the third date, but I get a good read on people. You're going to be okay."

I give his speech the respectful few seconds that seem appropriate. "If you say so."

He chuckles and rests his elbow on his knee, tilting his head up toward me. He is definitely very pretty. "Not easily sold are you?"

"You'd be surprised. I've never been told my price."

He grins wider and I grin too at how utterly oblivious he is to my joke, to me and the truth. There's a power in it.

"How long are you here for?"

"I'm not sure. It depends on Victor I suppose."

"So you're going back west with your brother?"

I cross my legs. "Yes."

"So does that mean you'll be enrolling at St. Vladimirs since it'll be close to him?"

This was not covered. This was not briefed. "I'm…not sure."

"Well, what else are going to do? It's can't be too late for you to start punching through brick or holding your hand over flames, or whatever it is Dhampir's do in school."

"Don't you know how Dhampirs train?"

"Apart from being preached at about the failures in history and some droning about culture I didn't have much to do with Dhampirs. Although I do admire their dedication to being in peak physical form."

I tug my cuffs over my bony wrists. "Yeah…they're great."

"Are you okay? You're col - Ah, you seem upset."

I lift my chin and smile into his face letting that lie play out for him. He doesn't buy it straight away. He was looking up at me with a judging kind of look like he was trying to decide on something but just when I think I'm going to lose my grip on my smile he straightens up, expression mild.

"Why didn't you have 'much to do with Dhampirs'?" It's better to keep the questions pointed at him.

He swirls his cigarette at me and the spice makes my nose scrunch. "You sound so judgey little one." He takes a long draw. "It's not that I chose to have nothing to do with them they just weren't a part of my circle per se. I knew a few, obviously, but I wasn't close to any."

"Why?"

He looks over the quad and shrugs. "My school wasn't like Andres, it was a bit more elite. The Dhampirs there are more focused on their training and don't really deter from it. They just walk around hard-faced and stick with each other. Kinda like him." I follow the direction in which he nodded and see Dimitri stepping out of the church and scanning the open. His gaze quickly stops on us and he starts striding toward us. "God help the bastard who tries to get to Victor through him."

Now I smirk. "You're scared of Dimitri?

"His name isn't Goliath? Oh, hello there."

Dimitri tilts his head in greeting. His face is completely blank and in the dim light he seems bigger than usual or maybe it's just because we're sitting. "Headmaster Levandi and Lord Dashkov were wondering where you were."

Adrian leans back so he's slouched against the wall behind us. "It's a bit much in there."

"They're hoping you'd talk to some of the students."

"And say what?"

His tone takes me by surprise but Dimitri is unfazed. "I think they're hoping you'll share your sympathy with your peers and in your father's absence you'll be a positive presence, reassurance of their safety."

Adrian raises his eyebrows. "Because I can do that can I? Reassure safety?"

Dimitri considers him and my breathing has become shallow. "Yes, you can."

Adrian flicks his cigarette away and stands, wiping his palms on his fine trousers. "Sure. They've suffered through a massacre what's one lie?" And with that, he walks away.

What on earth was that about? I give Dimitri a look as to ask as much but he doesn't provide any kind of answer. "They shouldn't be too much longer."

"Kay." I pick up the cigarette stub and toss it in a trashcan.

"I'll take you back up to your room when they're finished here."

"Okay." We walk back toward the church but at a much slower pace, like both of us had no desire to be back inside. "Dimitri, what was your school like?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did you… did you have Moroi friends?"

He pauses and I look up at him. "A few. Why?"

"Adrian says he went to an 'elite' school and Dhampir's and Moroi didn't really speak to each other."

"Adrian's school are very firm about their belief in the social order." He responds flatly.

I stop walking and he pauses a pace ahead. "Social order?"

"They come first."

I frown. "That's believed everywhere though, isn't it?"

He exhales and takes that pace back toward me. "It's believed culturally but it's practised in a few places. The school is an example of one, where there is implicate segregation, and then there's the explicit practice."

I consider his words. "Me, right?"

He nods.

"Adrian thinks Dhampirs are beneath him in the order?"

"It's what his education subliminally told him."

"Subliminally?"

"Subconsciously." He explains and then he lowers his voice. "Did he say something to you?"

I shake my head. "He was nice." Which is why I now somehow feel betrayed.

"I shouldn't judge but I don't think Adrian's one to take his education seriously."

"What makes you think that?"

The barest hint of amusement touches his features. "The more pristine a reputation the more amplified a blemish can be. I've overheard of the Ivashkov's having to pull strings to keep stories hushed and compensating for scandals having to blow over. Judge Adrian for yourself though, not by what you've heard even from me. Your gut instinct rarely lies."

"People can lie though, people can be great liars."

Our party emerge from the church. Victor's hand is resting compassionately on the Headmaster's shoulder, whose face seems rather blotchy, and behind them is Adrian looking paler.

"Yes, yes they can be." He murmurs and moves away.

Walking back through the grounds Headmaster Levandi has much more of an interest in talking to me and Adrian. Thankfully Adrian is better equipped with the appropriate responses and I know he's aware of how awkward I feel. It's not that the questions are hard or anything but being under somebody else's scrutiny, being asked what I think in the presence of others had sweat breaking out on the back of my neck and my bandages inching tighter around my ribs. I had no idea why I was irrationally anxious and it was pissing me off.

Lissa told me that I had a voice for a reason and I didn't have to justify that reason to anyone.

I missed them both.

"…I'm sure that within a few weeks they'll come to their senses and allow them back. Especially when the novelty of having a moody teenager in the house permanently wears off, maybe less than a few weeks if there's more than one." Adrian is saying and receives appreciative nods and smiles in response.

"What do you think, Rose?" Headmaster Levandi suddenly asks, craning his head past Adrian to see me. Would you consider attending here? Truthfully. I know you have not exactly been able to see much of what we have to offer Dhampir's academically but surely you've gotten a good sense of our school's values, our communal ties. "

Oh god. He looks so hopelessly expectant that I can't help but pity him. Now that I'm having to focus on his face it's hard not to notice the clear signs of stress. The lines that have been drawn to mark sleepless nights, the downturn of his mouth when it relaxes and the smudges beneath his eyes.

Every lie has a little bit of truth in it.

"I have and I would consider staying here if it were a simple choice." I say carefully. Trying to think, walk, ignore their eyes and breathe at the same time is extremely difficult. No one is offering any help. Dimitri and Ben are behind us. Spiridon is on my other side with Adrian on the other. I'm on my own and in the darkest pit of my stomach, a little spark is igniting. I try to focus on it. "But right now I want to stay close to my brother."

"Ah, I see." His tone is stiff with disappointment. Immediately I want to say something to insist that my lie isn't an outright lie, not the lie he thinks it is where I'm too scared by what happened here because I wasn't. Not completely. I don't know what to say.

"Well, that's understandable." Adrian jumps in with a look of sympathy that makes guilt swamp the spark. "You just lost your mother."

"Oh, oh I am so sorry." Levandi says, his expression changing rapidly into horror and the guilt is back as well as panic because beside Levandi, Victor was looking rather surprised too. His eyebrows had shot up into his hairline. It hadn't been a part of the brief that my, our, mother would be dead but … every lie was better with a bit of truth in it, right? And I couldn't see how it would matter…

"It's okay." I appease him pathetically but he's already turning around.

"My condolences." He murmurs heavily.

If Ben was surprised by new stitch work in the web of lies he doesn't show it. He doesn't show any emotion at all as he thanks him.

We begin moving again and I clench my sweaty palms. I can't put my finger on it but I think I've done something wrong here.

"Are you okay?" Adrian asks low enough for only me to hear. The concern on his face makes my step falter.

"Fine." I say hoarsely.

"It seems no one is escaping death these days." I hear Levandi say to Victor.

We cross back through the large courtyard which has fewer students than before and some of the tea lights had gone out. A Guardian is moving around, a silent shadow, relighting them. Stepping back into the main corridor of the school a woman strides purposely toward us, the second woman I've seen since being here excluding the students. She wears a deep green suit that is fitted to her perfectly, accenting her curves that I can't help but trace, and beneath her jack is a silky pearl blouse with embellishments around the collar. Her skin is a russet colour, like red earth, a colour I can't even describe because I've never seen anybody wear it before. But what's more startling and has me pause a beat before the whole party does, is that she is a Dhampir and not a Guardian.

"Ah, Lord Dashkov, Lord Ivashkov this is Zoey Blake. She has overseen the new security placement your Guardian Ben suggested and the general management of new Guardian enforcements. She's been nothing short of incredible."

Most Guardians would merely nod in acknowledgement, modest, composed but Zoey smiles. It's small, and dignified but it relays that she agrees with him. I like her.

"It is a pleasure to meet you both." Her accent is thicker than Levandi's but understandable. "I cannot take that credit. I was given incredible guidelines and procedures to follow. It is Guardian White who is incredible in this instance." Her hazel eyes stare past the two Moroi and she nods in respect. Ben looks rather abashed and I swallow my laugh. Adrian raises his eyebrows at me. "I'm hoping we can discuss your ideas for the southern perimeter later."

All eyes are on Ben.

"Yes. Of course."

Satisfied with his response she turns to Levandi. "Prince Nathan Ivashkov is waiting in your chambers. I had two seats added to your dining table. I hope that is appropriate."

"Yes, thank you Zoey." Levandi says. "How nicely this has worked out, yes?"

Victor hums. "Yes, how convenient. Shall we? Oh, could one of you show Rose back to her suite?"

It hadn't entered my mind that I would be joining them but it hadn't occurred to me either that I was the surplus, and that would mean I would be very obviously be asked to leave the party. If I'd been thinking, if I'd not allowed myself to get so distracted like I had been then I wouldn't be feeling so rawly dejected and rejected, and completely embarrassed about it.

"I'll see Rose back." Spiridon says, surprising at least four of us but three hide it well. My self-discipline had become so lax.

"We'll check in on you later." Victor assures me with a smile that has a degree of an apology.

God is it so obvious? Or was he just covering bases encase he was being rude in any way? Since being here I felt like I didn't know him at all like he was a stranger or rather that the lines were drawn better between us. He is an important Moroi and I was a shadow in his wake. "Let's not keep Nathan waiting. We know how he hates that.

"Oooh, don't we just." Adrian says blandly and then whispers to me. "I wish you were coming. At least there'd be someone to talk to about things that didn't make me want to be face down in my soup."

I can't help but laugh. He smiles to the degree his fangs show and my stomach flips but he's already following after the others.

"Move it." Spiridon orders. His Guardian face is still on but his grey eyes were flint.

I roll my eyes and as we walk back to the room I wonder if this is the point where he gets his revenge. He could hardly hurt me as badly as I had ever been hurt, physically…. Not here. Unless he hurt me where it couldn't be seen but he wouldn't do that right? Dimitri would go insane. Maybe like he had with Alec and that would be terrible for everybody. Unless he counted on my pride to keep me silent. A trembling works its way down my legs as we climb the stairs to the suite.

He stays ahead the entire time, not doing me any favours about keeping pace but happy to highlight how weak I was in comparison. I hated it and it made me want to trip him. He only stops when he's in front of my door. I pull the key from my pocket and try to ignore the impatience radiating from him.

I open the door and step inside, rounding to close it behind me but to my surprise, and horror, he pushes past me and strides in.

Oh god, this was going to be bad.

Spiridon picks up the phone in the sitting room and punches in a short number. He looks over his shoulder. "Why are you loitering? Ah, Tere õhtust..."

I contemplate it and then shut the door behind me. I give him a wide birth feigning needing water from the kitchen. I can't understand a word of Estonian he's saying but the conversation is short.

"Dinner's being sent up but other than that you shouldn't have any other visitors."

"Okay." I lean back against the counter and grasp the water bottle between my hands to ground me. "What are you mad about?"

"What?"

I take a deep breath. "You're angry with me."

He cocks his head and the Guardian's face falls. Yeah, he's pissed. "Is this self-obsession newly founded or have you been hiding it all this time?"

"What?"

"Your mommy's dead?"

The bottle crunches under my fingers. "I didn't… I thought it wouldn't-"

"You weren't supposed to think." He hisses. "You were told the story you needed to sell. It didn't require you to give it subplots."

My face is in flames. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause problems for Victor."

"Oh, you haven't. You don't wield that much of an influence little girl." He sneers and begins to walk toward the door. "Someone will check in later."

The flames in my face are moving to encase my entire body and I can't stand it. So I have to throw the fire somewhere else. "Why are you like this to me? What did I do?"

"The moment the attention isn't on you, you had to bring it back around again. Make everyone pity you, just couldn't bear everyone else's pain to take prescedence. You're a selfish little brat."

I wish he'd hit me. I'd understand that. Dislike and bad temperament, plus me, plus Guardian, equals physical pain. That made sense.

"That's not what I wanted. Adrian…he asked me about my mother and –"

"Do you know how it then made Victor look because he hadn't mentioned it to Levandi? Do you know how that thread of insensitivity could undermine him? No of course you don't because you don't understand anything going on here. So just shut up Rose, just shut up and do as you're told."

He yanks open the door. "There are people out there who have lost everybody who meant something to them. Nobody to care whether they live or die and those that do have somebody left need to be fucking grateful. So think about how privileged you are to announce somebody dead that isn't, somebody who is out there loving you." And he shuts the door with a resolute bang.

The whole evening Spiridon's words stay with me. Sitting on the opposite couch and staring into my face, demanding some explanation but I have nothing to say. I wish I could say that the way I felt made me lose my appetite but years of valuing food didn't allow it. So when dinner did arrive I ate every bit of it and felt ashamed for enjoying it.

So I'm guilty, greedy and ashamed.

Who am I becoming?

Was Spiridon right? Was I so used to being someone's concern that I needed to hold on to it… I didn't think so. I didn't want to believe so. I had told Adrian what I had because seeing all the pain and grief in the faces here, feeling the misery and longing and heartbreak inside that church… I carried a pocket of that with me all the time. It's how thinking of her made me feel and for once I could tell someone and have them begin to understand that.

I didn't expect Adrian to tell anybody else that. That was careless.

Did Dimitri and Ben think I was a self-centred brat? Did Victor? Did he think I was going to be more trouble than I was worth? What if he did leave me here? No that's stupid.

A knock on the door nearly makes me fall off the couch. Who would be worse coming to yell at me? Dimitri or Victor? If it were Spiridon again I'd be at risk of losing my temper which would be so so so bad. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and walk the too short a distance to the door.

I take a deep breath and setting my shoulders I swing it open ready to take whatever verbal beating is waiting on the other side.

"Wow, did I interrupt the watershed romance part of the movie?" Adrian asks.

I blink and the breath I'd been holding whooshes out. "Uh, what…what are you doing here?"

He leans on the door frame. "I escaped political debate number one hundred and thirty-four, and was hoping you're feeling the way I do in the sense that you're respectfully so over feeling depressed and want to do something to take your mind off death…and everything else wrong in the world."

"I think I followed that."

"Yeah, I get told a lot I can be too cryptic."

I raise an eyebrow.

He grins. "Layman's terms. Would you want to escort this rather lonely, bored and semi-gent on –"

"Adrian."

He laughs and straightens up. "Wanna come to a party?"

"Um." I look down the empty hallway, save for the Guardian posted at the bottom of the corridor. "There's a party?"

"It's pretty private. No faculty or respected government figures are allowed. Just us crazy kids."

"I'm not sure I'm allowed…"

"Well, that just makes it more appealing." His grin fades as he watches me and it's like he knows I'm about to turn the offer down. "Look when I left it was dessert, after that comes coffee and then the brandy and then the heated debates around the subjects they tip-toe around through the main courses. They'll never know you're gone."

"I can't really afford to get into trouble right now." I say, toeing the moulding at the doorway

"Rose." I lift my head and look at someone who makes all that shame melt away. Someone who didn't know about the words waiting in the room behind me, "Why would I get you into trouble? I'm your friend."

Updated: 17/04/2022

Hi there! So currently I am in my last semester at university so my schedule is really hectic right now with things and throw in a part time job … yeah. I don't need the added stress of setting update deadlines.

Thanks for bearing with me though, I appreciate it.

A follow up chapter should be up this week.

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