"What are you doing here?" I asked, pulling back from Lissa. I led her over to the couch, pulling her down after me.

"Karolina called me a couple of weeks ago. She got my number from your phone," she said. "She told me they were going to throw a little gender reveal party for you and asked me if I wanted to come and surprise you."

"Where are all of your guardians?" I asked, suddenly noticing the lack of them. "You're the queen!"

Lissa laughed. "They're around. Most of them are outside. I managed to talk them into giving me a bit of space. Three of them are inside," she said. "They're all sworn to secrecy though, and we agreed not to mention certain names."

"So he's not—"

Lissa shook her head. "No. I would never do that to you. I gave half of the guardians some time off, and he was one of them. We agreed not to mention certain names so that if word does travel, it doesn't get easily tracked back to you or them."

"Thank you," I said. "You've thought of everything." I hugged her again, not wanting to let her go. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you, too," she said. Her face turned apologetic. "I can only stay today, though. It was hard enough to get a couple of days away with everything going on in the Council, and it's practically a two-day trip getting out here."

"Oh," I said.

"I'm sorry," Lissa said. "But I'll be back when you give birth and I'll get more time away then, I promise."

"It's okay. I understand," I said, fighting back the tears that popped up. These hormones were really starting to annoy me.

"Rose?" Olena spoke. "We'll give you guys some time to catch up, and then we'll get the party started."

"Oh, I'm being so rude," I said, jumping up. I introduced Lissa to each of the Belikova women in turn, though I was sure they had already introduced themselves. I saved Mark and Oksana for last. "And this is Mark and Oksana, a bonded pair that I met when I was in Russia back in April."

"You're a spirit user," Lissa said, taking in Oksana for the first time.

I remembered Oksana's gasp when Lissa had first walked into the room and realized now that she had likely seen Lissa's gold aura before she truly saw Lissa herself.

"So are you," Oksana said with a smile.

"You guys chat for a moment," I said. "I'll be back."

I walked into the kitchen, taking a moment to compose myself. Olena and Karolina followed me.

"Are you okay?" Karolina asked softly.

I nodded. "I'm fine, great even. I just wasn't expecting this," I said. "Thank you. Thank you to both of you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

"We're glad you're enjoying it," Olena said. "I was a bit worried that it would be too much. It was hard hiding it from you too."

"Yeah, I'll have to talk to Lissa about that, because usually I can tell when she's hiding something," I said. I was mostly talking to myself. "Maybe we've both gotten better at blocking each other."

"We have a whole thing planned since Lissa can only stay for today," Karolina said excitedly. "I know it was just meant to be a little gender reveal, but we've kind of turned it into a whole baby shower."

I laughed. "Of course it is."

"They're not common here," Karolina admitted. "But since you're American, we figured you might miss not having one. Lissa helped us plan it. She's the one who gave us the idea actually after we confirmed that she could come."

"Baby showers don't happen here?" I asked, stuck on that part.

Karolina shook her head. "No, and neither do gender reveals, typically. Some people believe that doing these before the baby is born is bad luck."

My hand automatically moved to rest on my stomach, and Karolina noticed the gesture.

"Don't worry," she said. "Yeva gave us her blessing for it to happen, and nothing could hurt your miracle, anyway."

Karolina's words didn't make me feel as good as I thought they were intended to, but I put a smile on my face.

"So, when does this party start?"

I followed them back into the living room and smiled at how Lissa and Oksana were still talking animatedly. It sounded like they were comparing abilities, and Lissa was currently picking Oksana's brain about the healings that she does for Mark. I had talked extensively with her about when I came back from Russia the first time, but I think she wanted to know more directly from the source. I watched them for a moment, letting them finish their conversation, but Lissa noticed me watching.

"We can finish talking later," she said. "I'd love to have you and Mark at Court sometime. Adrian, another spirit user that we know, would love to meet you."

Oksana smiled, but I could tell it would take a lot to get her to leave Russia. Lissa would have a long battle ahead of her and might just be better off bringing Adrian here. I frowned at the thought of Adrian in Baia, but quickly shook it away.

"Are you ready, Rose?" Lissa asked, a grin on her face.

I nodded. "Hit me with it."

Lissa clapped. "We have so many games to play!"

She proceeded to rattle off the games we'd be playing, and my eyes widened as the list went on.

"Maybe tone it down a bit, Liss?" I suggested.

She nodded. "Can do."

She then passed out string to everyone.

"It's a classic game," she explained. "We have to guess how big Rose's belly is."

Everybody turned to look at me. I was still wearing the loose shirt from earlier and knew nobody could tell I was even pregnant with it on. I thought about taking it off since I had the thermal on underneath, but I knew that would make it easier, and I was never one to make it easy.

They went around the room making their guesses, and cutting the string to what they thought would be the right size. Once everybody had their string cut, they came up one by one and wrapped the string around my midsection, trying to see who had the best guess. Paul's length was the funniest, and it was easily two times as big as I really was. Surprisingly, Oksana came the closest, with only an inch or so of extra room.

After that game, Lissa had us race at putting a diaper on a baby doll while blindfolded. She split us into teams. We were technically an odd number, but Yeva sat and watched, not participating in the games, which allowed us to be able to be split up evenly. When it was my turn, I did horribly, and Karolina and Lissa kept making jokes at my expense.

"Don't worry, baby," I said, talking to my stomach. "I won't be blindfolded when changing you."

I caught Lissa watching me, a small smile on her face and a faraway look on her face. She was startled out of her thoughts by it being her time at the game, and she quickly blindfolded herself before effortlessly changing the diaper.

"Have you been practicing?" I asked with a laugh. "You did plan most of this."

"I'll never tell," Lissa said, sticking her tongue out at me.

The final game we were playing was one where Lissa passed around pictures of me as a child, and everybody had to guess my age in each photo. Olena also passed around photos of Dimitri as a kid, and I nearly laughed when they made their way to me. He had looked so serious as a kid, and I realized Viktoria was right: Paul was a splitting image of Dimitri. I stared at the photos a little longer than I was supposed to, and I jerked out of my trance to pass them to the next person. I knew that if I had a boy, he would likely look just like Dimitri, and that would be something I'd have to deal with for the rest of my life, no matter how hard it was.

"Where did you get some of these?" I asked Lissa as my own pictures made their way to me. Most of them were of me and Lissa, but there were a few of me as a toddler I hadn't seen before.

"I have my ways," Lissa said, a smirk on her face.

I rolled my eyes, laughing.

Since Lissa and Olena knew the answers, they didn't play this round, and it came down to me and Viktoria for the most right. We had both guessed six of the pictures right but had also both gotten three of them wrong. There was one picture of Dimitri left that would be our tiebreaker. In the end, Viktoria had ended up guessing right, while I had put a year older than Dimitri really was. I laughed as Viktoria pumped the air, excited to have won a game.

"Thank you all for playing," Lissa said. "Time for presents, and then we'll find out the gender and cut the cake!"

Most of the presents were gender-neutral since nobody knew what I was having. Lissa had gotten me vouchers for the spa at Court in addition to presents for the baby, and part of me knew it was her way of making sure I returned to Court. I tucked the vouchers away and continued opening the presents. I received a lot of onesies and three boxes of diapers, which based on how quickly Katya went through hers, wouldn't last me long. I also received a few sets of bottles, some bibs, baby cutlery, and a few toys. My favorite gift was a baby blanket Yeva had knitted. She didn't look at me while I opened my presents, but I knew she was happy to have another baby in the family and to spread the Belikov genes.

"Thank you, guys," I said. "I really appreciate everything you've all done for me." I started tearing up again and tried to dry my eyes to no avail. "Damn it, I didn't want to cry."

Lissa laughed and hugged me. "Thank you, Rose. For being the best friend a girl could ask for and for letting me shower you with all of this love."

I hugged Lissa to me tightly. "Are you ready to find out if you're going to have a niece or a nephew?"

Lissa nodded. "Everybody ready?"

They all nodded, and Karolina rose to fetch the cake from the kitchen. It was a small round cake, and Karolina brought along a clear glass cup with her. She set the cake in front of me, having already taken it out of its box.

"Okay, Rose," she said. "When you're ready, use the cup to cut into the cake. You'll close your eyes and then pull the cup away from the cake. It should reveal the color inside when you do."

I nodded, taking the cup from Karolina. Butterflies swirled in my stomach as I positioned the cup over the cake. Before I could press the cup into the cake, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up, expecting it to be one of Lissa's guardians. And it was. But not the one I was expecting. Dimitri was staring at me from the entrance of the living room, his eyes wide with shock.