DPOV.

I am not entirely lucid.

Compromised.

A disgrace.

I clench and unclench my hands.

These things should be enough to keep me grounded but they're not. In fact, I'm sure I haven't been in the room again but on an askew venture of thought. I had to focus on the room, the children, the teacher's dull voice, on Victor.

I look at Rose.

She looks to be paying attention to the teacher at the front of the room but I know in she's beyond bored. Not that it was a comment on the subject but rather the fact Rose didn't speak the language the subject was being taught in. Victor and Ben would have no problem following and I had a basic grasp on the language to know that the subject would be interesting if it weren't delivered in such a monotone way, it might have even helped keep me focused, but Spiridon and Rose are oblivious.

Rose's fingers tap the wall by her hip. She catches my eye and looks away, taking a deep breath that sets her shoulders. Defensive. I hadn't been the warmest with her earlier. I'd been abrupt, again.

I exhale heavily and ignore the pointed jab in my lower back.

I notice I'm not the only one paying attention to her as a boy in the second row is too. He looks her over and sits forward, hands clasped on the table not trying to keep his interest subtle. Rose pulls her braid over her shoulder to fidget and notices him. He grins at her and she stares back before sharply looking away to feign interest in the lesson. Soft pink begins to glow on her cheeks, muted embers. I look back at the boy and as if to confirm my thoughts he leans back, crossing his arms and watching Rose like a challenge he's accepted.

I've found a focus point.

Rose fiddles with her braid and I notice parts of it have escaped. Blunt strands.

Why had she cut her hair?

The bell sounds and instantly the room erupts in movement. I move with Victor, his shadow on the other side of the room, as he approaches the teacher with Rose and Ben in his wake. The teacher packs up his notes and seems indifferent to Victor's comments. They walk toward the door where Spiridon's posted and upon approach, he steps out into the hall to head them off.

Out there the same boy from before is leaning against the wall. He perks up when he clocks our party. As they go past he weaves through the passing students toward Rose. What was it with these boys and their insufferable need to pester her? The teacher turns to Rose ignoring whatever Victor had been saying and in perfect English, he asks her something.

The boy gets closer and the keen glint in his eye snaps something inside of me. I sidestep two girls so with a second I'm aligned with his course and I knock him off it. He stumbles and quickly rights himself setting his shoulders and he whirls around seeking confrontation. I raise an eyebrow and the blazing look in his eyes stalls. It was a question of pride now and whether his would come before his fall. He looks me over and with a sneer he moves off into the crowd.

There's a bare flicker of satisfaction in my chest before I remember myself and am quickly humbled by the fact that antagonising a novice was not gratifying in any shape or form. And if this isn't sobering enough then the thinly disguised look of confusion on Ben's face is.

I need to keep it together.

Neither Rose nor Victor have noticed my altercation, too engrossed with the Moroi teacher who seems to be interested in talking now. Rose laughs and something inside me eases. If she's happy now then that's one less thing to worry about, my promise is being somewhat upheld to Janine Hathaway.

Rose looks over her shoulder and catches my eye, still smiling.

A Blood Promise is for life and I hadn't understood the full implications of what that would entail when I made it. Until now. It's her smile. It's making sure she was more than safe but happy too. It's ensuring she never found herself trapped or alone in the dark in this chaotic world. It went beyond her part as Victor's leverage. I am tied to her for the rest of my living life. Whether that is an immediate role or whether I am an invisible force watching her move through the world. I'll always be protecting her.

Her smile drops a little as she holds my eye. I shouldn't have snapped at her.

She turns away and walks away with Victor.

We weave through the stream of children rushing to their next class or break, picking up enthused teachers along the way and gaining appraising stares from Guardians before reaching our rooms. In the hall, Spiridon whispers something to Rose causing her to roll her eyes and stalk off toward her room.

"Getting too big for her boots that one." He says to Ben and I.

"I think she's only starting to fill them out." Ben grins causing Spiridon to scowl.

Victor has his head bent over an email and is seemingly not paying attention to anyone.

"At what point do we stop giving her lee-weigh for being a poor neglected orphan?" The scorn hides what I suspect is some other misplaced frustration. Envy possibly...but that is a dark, complicated road I am not prepared to venture down. No matter how distracting it would be.

I've spent more than enough of my life trying to work Spiridon out, and the four-year break from him since graduation and taking this job hadn't been long enough.

I meet his exasperation levelly. "I never have."

He snorts. and walks inside throwing me instructions over his shoulder as a wave of vertigo hits me. "Tell her to ready to go in a few hours."

He shuts the door with more force than necessary and it passes through my head making me sway. I grip the wall. I need to keep it together. I breathe deep and slow but it doesn't amend my focus at all. I'm deteriorating. In the quiet, the anchor that had been keeping me functional is being dislodged. My nails bite into the thick wallpaper and before I get sucked down into a delirium I lurch toward Rose's door.

The wait between knocks seems both too long and too short before she answers. Surprise touches her wary face. "I thought you just barged in whenever you felt like it?"

I try to cast anchor and hope my hand on the doorframe comes across more nonchalant than necessary. "As I know Adrian Ivashkov's leave is imminent I didn't feel like barging was necessary."

Her eyes narrow. She turns on her heel braid whipping out behind her and I can't help but agree with Ben. I almost grin but instead, I take two measured steps and close the door. My head and feet feel like lead.

"We're leaving tomorrow so you need to pack."

"I already have." She flops down onto the couch and picks up Viktoria's book.

"Victor will dine with Levandi and then we will meet on the front steps for formal farewells." She's is pointedly ignoring me. "Then we'll leave for Talinn."

"To meet the informant?" She doesn't look up.

A wave of vertigo comes over me again and pushes me back. "Yes."

"Okay." Her eyes have paused on the page and when she looks up she's reverted to her timid shadow. "Where were you this morning?"

I try not to tense. "Resting."

Her gaze doesn't waver. "It doesn't look like it."

"Thanks."

She continues to watch me so I take a seat on the other couch, stretching out and appearing the picture of ease. It isn't hard to evade her suspicion because I have more than enough scope to evade it. Not like with the other three because they're in the know. However, there is something about her that makes me always feel like she's able to see right through me. Maybe not with complete clarity but enough to not trust me. Or my paranoia is being given free rein.

My head feels so heavy that when I lean back against the cushion I'm not even sure I'll be able to lift it.

"What happened?"

I take a few seconds to gather the dregs of myself together. "We found the nest of the Strigoi pack that attacked the school. We dealt with it."

"How did Ben hurt his face? What happened to yours?"

"We fell." I reiterate keeping a mental block up and trying to focus on the carving detail of the fireplace.

"Guardians don't just fall."

"No, we don't." I murmur.

I hear the book snap shut and out of the corner of my eye I see her draw herself up straight tucking her legs beneath her. I close my eyes and brace myself for it.

"You said I could ask you anything and I'm asking about last night. I got left with Spiridon today and I know you don't care about what he says or does but that's because he doesn't pick at you the same. I can barely deal with it. And he shouted at me about what I said about – about my mother. I understand now why it matters that I said that because it made Victor look bad but what does it really matter? And there's what happened with Adrian and your mad about that I know-"

"I'm not mad."

"-but I didn't tell him anything and he told me the truth in the end and I immediately came and told you all and then you left. And then you both came back and Ben was hurt so yes, I'd like to know what happened because what if you hadn't come back? Would Spiridon even tell me what had happened or would I just have to go back to having a Guardian order me around and yelling at me for no reason?"

I crack an eye open enough to peer at her flushed face. "Feel better?" Her eyes narrow into slits and I save myself from the next tirade. "I came back. I'll always come back."

"But what happened?"

"Rose, has it occurred to you that maybe I just don't want to talk about it?"

"I…no."

"No." I murmur and close my eyes again.

A minute or five go by, I can't tell, but her quiet voice finds me. "You were hurt, weren't you? Worse than that cut." I make myself open my eyes to look at her. I nod.

"Worse than Ben?"

"I'm alright. I just need to take it easy."

"You look exhausted." Before I can say anything accusation blares in her voice. "You didn't rest at all, did you?"

I follow the patterns on the ceiling, feeling my mind slip and spin with the loops. "I tried."

"You haven't slept since… since..." the frustration in her voice makes it hit home about how bad this is, the amount of risk involved and what numerous consequences there could have been. The very least would be collapsing in service and that would still be a huge blunder as it would show vulnerability in Victor's defence. It could invite an attack. "How are you even functioning right now?"

I roll my head to the side to look at her and for once I don't try and write it off with some excuse or smoke screen because, in all honesty, I didn't have the strength. This just infuriates her more. She snatches up a cushion and with surprising ferocity throws it at me.

"And how is that supposed to help?"

"I don't know, you all only seem to respond to pain so there."

"So there?"

"SO THERE!" She takes a deep breath but her eyes are still blazing. I should sit up, take ownership of her concerns and appease them but I just can't find it in myself. She jumps up from the couch and moves out of sight. "I bet you haven't eaten either."

She doesn't wait for a reply as she starts banging around the kitchen. It makes the pain in my head pulse but I don't mind, I deserve it for my own stupidity.

"Leave it, Rose. Dinners soon."

"You'll pass out in it." She snaps. Well, that isn't implausible I must admit. She comes back into my line of vision, and becomes my only line of vision as she stands in front of me with a bag of chips. "What's funny?"

"The answer…to your concern of sustenance…is chips?"

Her eyes harden. "They're good." She rips open the bag.

"I'm sure they are." I mutter closing my eyes again.

"Dimitri! You have told me repeatedly about needing to eat so you better eat these or I'm putting the bag over your head."

I peer up at her. "I'm being a hypocrite?"

"That's one of things I'd call you right now."

"Oh? What other inappropriate terms has Mr. Ivashkov been teaching you?"

"There is no such thing as inappropriate language but just better-suited circumstances."

"You didn't learn that from Adrian."

"No, I read it." She shoves the bag toward me and I have no choice but to take it. She watches me take a few chips and put them in my mouth. It feels annoyingly like being babied but again, not implausible. The mixture of salt and flavour serves to light up a part of my brain that had been completely shut down.

"You had one of those things you made me drink before, didn't you?"

Now my head is clearer it gives room to be ashamed of my own foolishness. "Yes."

"You need to sleep before we go."

"I do."

"Victor doesn't know it's this bad does he?" She says quietly.

I sit up. "It's been a trying couple of days Rose. Nothing is 'bad'. I'm understandably tired."

She stares back at me. "Ben and Spiridon are okay. You don't sleep enough at home either and you're always running."

"I'm fine."

She doesn't say anything but her face says it all. If she wanted to conceal it she could, she hides things so well but right now she was allowing me to see that she wasn't buying what I was selling. That is annoying too but I'm too tired to argue so I eat more.

"I know you don't want to talk about it…" She begins in a quieter and more respectful voice. "But maybe, one day, will you?"

"Will I tell you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

I expect her to answer in regards to her curious nature, because having been so ignorant of the world she understandably wants to know everything she can, but instead she says, "So I can know you better."

I don't have an answer to that. "On the way back a nomad crossed our path, it may have been a leftover from the nest we didn't have time to ask questions. It was more familiar with the terrain than we were. It was able to get Ben down but I... interceded."

"And interceding means you got hurt?"

"Scratches and bruises. Don't worry."

Her eyes roam over me but there isn't anything visible. I'd made sure of that. The stimulant had made the pain more manageable. It was one of its side effects which was why I had given it to her back the Ozera manor. The borrowed energy and adrenaline allowed my body to function around injury which is good for the short term but now as it wore off it's becoming increasingly harder to find the will to move.

"Do you want a blanket?" She sounds far away. When had I shut my eyes?

I force them open to make sure she doesn't want me to leave. I was in her space after all.

"I can...I should go back to my room."

"I don't mind."

I can't keep my eyes open. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. Earlier."

"I forgive you."

That's good. I slip a bit further.

"Do you want a blanket?" I think she's already asked me that but I'm not sure.

It takes all my will to crack my lids open again. "No, thank you."

She doesn't look angry anymore, softer somehow. She has lovely eyes. "Okay. Go to sleep."

I watch her long enough to see her curl back up on the couch and take up Viktoria's book. Relief passes through me and it washes away the last dregs of my energy. I set aside the chips with a hand made of concrete. The room is blurring before my eyes so I shut them again to make the vertigo stop. She says something else but I've sunk too far already.

When I wake later the lights have been turned down and the fire has been lit, casting an orange hue against the shadows. The TV's on but the sound is muted and I'm not even surprised to see the familiar actors of that New York sitcom. A rustle of paper and I look down to see Rose sitting on the floor by my knees, her fork poised halfway to the plate on the coffee table but her head is bent over the book in her lap. I lift my head to see she has a small fraction of pages left.

I wonder what expression is on her face right now. Awe, rapture, excitement, suspense? What was playing through her head as the book hit its climactic moments. Her fork lowers as the characters take precedence over food. Speaking of, it looks like dinner had been another pork dish with potatoes and of course, there's an accompanying platter of bread and cheese, well the remains of one anyway.

She'd turned all but one lamp off so it and the fire are the only things casting light into the room, enough for her to read by and the shadows enough for me to sleep. I let myself be for once. I just let myself be inside this safe cocoon with the rustle of a page, the crackle of the fire and the faint scent of Rose. Sweet and light. Honey and milk. I think that was the label of one of the various products Natalie had rained down on her.

She's taken her hair out of her braid. The waves falling below the sofa's edge with a few shortened tendrils flicking out by her arms, butchered pieces. Why had she done that?

Her poised fork makes a stab at her plate and with haste, she pops the forkful into her mouth as if to make up for the time wasted reading.

After a while, my stomach growls ending the contented state I'd been drifting in. By the time Rose turns her head I've sat up straighter and I'm trying to work a crick out of my neck.

"Hi." She says quietly.

"How long was I asleep?" I find myself asking back in a tone not much louder than hers. It seemed wrong, crude almost to talk any louder. Like shouting in a library or church hall.

"A few hours. When they brought dinner I took it from them at the door so they wouldn't wake you. Are you hungry?"

"Ya mog s"yest' medvedya." I pull the band from my hair and work at another knot in my neck. I grin at her baffled expression. "Very much, yes."

She stands in one fluid motion, her knees cracking in admission to how long she'd been sitting down there, and mutters something along the lines of 'should just say that then'.

"Would you like to know what I said?" I ask evenly, trying to push myself up straighter without wincing. I was going to need more pain medication soon but not before eating something. And I would have to take another Adrenaline mix for tomorrow's agenda. I didn't like it but there was no other choice, sitting out wasn't an option. Victor needs us all.

I was going to have to check in soon.

"No." Her quiet voice sails to me on its own indignation and I grin despite myself. Suddenly a plate is presented to my right and I take it from her, trying to recall if I'd heard her footsteps.

"You must be like a wraith among men." Galina had told us.

I wonder what she would make of Rose. The thought of Galina knowing of her and the circumstances around her sends a wave of guilt through me. And dread. What would she think of what I'd helped do, what I was doing - protecting Victor's assets and leverage, be that on paper or in person.

She hadn't been supportive of Spiridon's decision to take a private contract straight out of school. It's like she already knew how...much darker and more complicated it would be. Having to operate in the grey areas, in the fissures that had widened in our society.

But Spiridon was built dark and complicated.

I take the plate from her and rest it on my lap. I give a fleeting thought to the expensive furniture and how I ought to sit at the breakfast bar before I dig in. My grandmother would be appalled.

"Ben said to send you over when you woke up." She says settling back down on the floor. She reaches for the platter and I marvel how she could possibly still have room for more bread and cheese when she presents it to me.

"Thank you. Yes, I'll go over shortly. What time is it?" I could find out myself but the question gave her the opportunity to exercise her grasp on the clock. Literature, language and writing she had adapted to rapidly but arithmetic is harder for her and I wonder could that be all down to her upbringing or just preference. Just like how Natalie hated calculus, Lissa physical education and Spiridon general manners.

She considers the clock on the mantle and I eat. "It's four am."

"When did he come by?"

"About an hour and a little bit ago…after dinner."

My stomach clenches and unclenches painfully after being empty for so long. I ignore it the best I can and reach for the water she's brought me also. As the first drop touches my tongue I realize how dry my throat which is why chewing had been more effort than usual. The bottle crackles as I drain it.

"Do want another?" I shake my head and focus on not bringing it all back up again. I really am a mess. I lean back against the cushions. I don't have to open my eyes to know she's watching me. I always knew. "You're very pale."

"It's the light."

"You're going to finish that."

"Yes, I will."

"Okay." She's worried, I know. I can't muster the energy to lie and say I'm fine or tell the truth, that I will be fine. Truth carried on a weak voice can be worse than a confident lie. "Where are we going?"

"Into the city. A public space. That's all I know."

"Am I going with you to meet this person?"

"As far as I'm aware. Victor needs his full Guard and we won't leave you alone."

"Because of Strigoi?"

"Well, that's a possibility but a slight one. It'll most likely be the middle of the day when this takes place so there's less threat. But we wouldn't leave you simply because we wouldn't leave you." If I hadn't looked then I would have missed it. How this information drew her back slightly and her eyes widen like I'd said something profound and affectionate. It makes me a little self-conscious. Maybe I had. I take up the cutlery again. "And we'd want to leave directly for the jet afterwards so making a detour would be an unnecessary delay."

That looks melts off her face. "Right. Who is the informant?"

"Just that at this point. We may have a name but, well, we might but I wouldn't know." I run a hand through my hair. It would need cut soon or Tasha would start calling me 'Danielle' again.

"You look better now." She says quietly.

"I feel it." I lie. I put the plate down resigned to defeat but take another slice of bread to compensate. Carbs, energy, filling and it would deter Rose from scolding.

"I'm going to look in with the others. You are packed and ready to leave, yes?" She nods. "Good. I'll come back for you both soon." I angle my body as I rise so my face is turned away from her and so she doesn't see me wince. It takes all I have not to curl in on myself as the pain jabs through my side and chest, and even more to walk with a normal gait. At the door, I turn back to where she's still seated on the carpet, her dark hair catching the firelight. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For…letting me be." Her eyebrows crease and I'm not entirely sure I could explain it if she asked so I excuse myself before she does. "Enjoy the book."

I leave her inside the cocoon of firelight and shadow wishing I could stay too.

Updated 17/04/2022

Original note:

HIII THERE. So free time is not something I'm getting a lot of at the moment but I'm trying. This is half of the chapter but i wanted to post something before I go on Holiday tomorrow. I'll post the rest when i'm home. I'd rather wait and give characters the grand entrance they deserve ;D