“Well, I grew up with it, so it doesn’t seem that strange to me. And like I said, I’m not sure I buy into it 100 percent.”
Adrian had joined the group by the plane and was protesting loudly about us not being able to board yet.
“I never thought of you as having a grandmother, either,” I told Dimitri. “I mean, obviously, you’d have to. But still . . . it’s just weird to think about growing up with one.” Contact with my own mother was rare enough, and I’d never even met any of my other family members. “Was it weird having a witch grandma? Scary? Was she always, like, threatening to cast spells if you were bad?”
“Most of the time she just threatened to send me to my room.”
“That doesn’t sound so scary to me.”
“That’s because you haven’t met her.”
I noted the wording. “Is she still alive?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’ll take more than old age to kill her off. She’s tough. She was actually a guardian for a while.”
“Really?” Much like with Ambrose, my fixed ideas about dhampirs, guardians, and blood whores were getting muddled. “So she gave it up to become a—uh, to stay with her kids?”
“She has very strong ideas about family—ideas that probably sound kind of sexist to you. She believes all dhampirs should train and put in time as guardians, but that the women should eventually return home to raise their children together.”
“But not the men?”
“No,” he said wryly. “She thinks men still need to stay out there and kill Strigoi.”
“Wow.” I remembered Dimitri telling me a little about his family. His father had popped back every so often, but that was about it for the men in his life. All of his siblings were sisters. And honestly, the idea didn’t sound so sexist. I had the same ideas about men going off to fight, which was why meeting Ambrose had been so weird. “You were the one who had to go. The women in your family kicked you out.”
“Hardly,” he laughed. “My mother would take me back in a second if I wanted to come home.” He was smiling like it was a joke, but I saw something in his eyes that looked a lot like homesickness. It was gone in a flash, though, as Dimitri turned around when Adrian started whooping about how we could finally board.
When we were settled on the plane, Lissa could hardly wait to tell our friends about the news. She started off with how I’d been called in to see the queen. That wasn’t a topic I’d wanted discussed, but she pushed forward, excited that the queen had wanted to “praise” me. Everyone seemed impressed except Adrian. The look on his face told me that he was sure that she most definitely hadn’t called me in for that. However, there was enough of a puzzled look in his eyes to make me think he had no clue about the real reason. It was about time I knew something he didn’t. I had a feeling he would have been as shocked by the idea of him hooking up with Lissa as I’d been.
Lissa then told them about the offer to live at Court and go to college at Lehigh. “I still can’t believe it,” she mused. “It sounds too good to be true.”
Adrian knocked back a glass of what looked like whiskey. How had he gotten a hold of that so soon? “Coming from my great-aunt? It is too good to be true.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. After being accused of being engaged in a fictitious romance by Tatiana and finding out she had a dhampir lover/feeder, nothing about her would surprise me anymore. “Is Lissa in trouble?”
“What, bodily? Nah. It’s just, my great-aunt doesn’t do things out of the kindness of her heart. Well,” Adrian amended, “sometimes she does. She’s not a total bitch. And I think she means it about worrying about the Dragomirs. I’ve heard she liked your parents. But as to why she’s doing this . . . I don’t know. You’ve got radical ideas. Maybe she does want to hear different opinions. Or maybe she wants to keep an eye on you, keep you from causing trouble.” Or maybe she wants to marry Lissa off to you, I silently added.
Christian didn’t like any of this. “He’s right. They could be trying to rein you in. You should go live with Aunt Tasha. You don’t have to go to a Moroi school.”
“But she’ll be safer if she does,” I admitted.
I was all for fighting the system—and keeping Lissa away from royal plans—but if she went to a college that wasn’t one the Moroi protected, she’d be in danger, and I certainly didn’t want that either. I started to add more, but just then, the plane took off. As soon as it was up in the air, my headache from yesterday returned. It was like all the air around us pressing on my skull.
“Son of a bitch,” I groaned, putting my hand on my forehead.
“You’re sick again?” asked Lissa, worried. I nodded.
“Have you always had trouble flying?” asked Adrian, gesturing for someone to refill his drink.
“Never,” I said. “Damn it. I don’t want to go through this again.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the pain, as well as those black shapes again. It took some effort, but if I focused hard enough, I actually got it all to lessen a little. Weird. Still, I didn’t want to talk much after that, and everyone left me alone. The college conversation dropped off.
Hours passed. It was almost time to arrive back at the Academy. One of the Moroi flight attendants walked down the aisle to our group, a frown on her face. Alberta instantly snapped to attention. “What’s wrong?”
“An ice storm just blew through the area,” the flight attendant said. “We can’t land at St. Vladimir’s because the runway isn’t accessible with the ice and the winds. We need fuel, however, so we’re going to land at Martinville Regional. It’s a small airport a few hours away by car, but they weren’t as affected as much. Our plan is to land there, refuel, and then fly into the Academy once they’ve cleared the runway. It’s less than an hour by air.”
It was annoying news, but it didn’t sound too bad. Besides, what could we do? At the very least, I’d get some relief soon. If my headache behaved like before, it’d go away when we were on the ground. We settled back into our seats and put on our belts, readying for the landing. The weather looked miserable outside, but the pilot was good and landed with no difficulties.
And that’s when it happened.
As soon as we touched the ground, my world exploded. The headache didn’t go away; it got worse. Much worse—and I hadn’t thought that was possible. It felt like my entire skull was being ripped open.
But that was just the beginning. Because suddenly, all around me, were faces. Ghostly, translucent faces and bodies—just like Mason’s. And oh God, they were everywhere. I couldn’t even see the seats or my friends. Just those faces—and their hands. Pale, shining hands reached out for me. Mouths opened like they would speak, and all of those faces looked as though they wanted something from me.
And the more they came at me, the more of them I started to recognize. I saw Victor’s guardians, the ones who had been killed when we’d rescued Lissa. Their eyes were wide and terrified—over what? Were they reliving their deaths? Mixed in with them were children I didn’t recognize right away. Then—I knew. They were the ones Dimitri and I had found dead after a Strigoi massacre. These children had the same washed-out look Mason had, but their necks were covered in blood, just as they’d been at the house. Its scarlet hue stood out in stark contrast to their shadowy, luminescent bodies.
Thicker and thicker the faces grew. While none of them actually spoke, there seemed to be a buzzing in my ears that grew louder as more and more of them came. Three new figures joined the crowd. They should have blended into the rest, but they stood out almost as sharply as the blood on the children’s necks had.
It was Lissa’s family.
Her mother, her father, and her brother Andre. They looked exactly as they had the last time I’d seen them, just before the car accident. Blond. Beautiful. Regal. Like Mason, they wore no marks of their deaths, even though I knew the crash had done horrible things to them. And like Mason, they just stared at me with sad eyes, not speaking but clearly wanting to say
something. Only, unlike with Mason, I understood the message.
There was a large patch of blackness behind Andre that was steadily growing bigger. He pointed at me, and then he pointed at it. I knew, without understanding how I knew, that it was the entrance to the world of death, the world I had come back from. Andre—who’d been my age when he died—pointed again. His parents joined him. They didn’t have to speak for me to know what they were saying: You shouldn’t have lived. You need to come back with us. . . .
I started screaming. And screaming.
I thought someone on the plane was talking to me, but I couldn’t be sure, not when I couldn’t see anything but those faces, hands, and the blackness behind Andre. Every so often, Mason’s face materialized nearby, solemn and sad. I appealed to him for help.
“Make them go away!” I yelled. “Make them go away!”
But there was nothing he would—or could—do. Frantically, I undid my seat belt and tried to stand up. The ghosts didn’t touch me, but they were all too close, still reaching and pointing with skeletal hands. I waved my arms to fend them off, screaming for someone to help me and make this all stop.
There was no help for me, though. No help for all those hands and hollow eyes or the pain that consumed me. It grew so bad that glittering black spots began to dance across my field of vision. I had a feeling I was going to pass out, and I welcomed that. It would make the pain go away and save me from the faces. The spots grew bigger and bigger, and soon I could no longer see anything. The faces disappeared, and so did the pain as sweet black waters dragged me under.
EIGHTEEN
EVERYTHING BECAME FUZZY after that. I had vague impressions of moving in and out of consciousness, of people saying my name, and of being in the air again. Eventually, I woke up in the school’s infirmary and found Dr. Olendzki looking down at me.
“Hello, Rose,” she said. She was a middle-aged Moroi and often joked that I was her number one patient. “How are you feeling?”
The details of what had happened came back. The faces. Mason. The other ghosts. The terrible pain in my head. All of it was gone.
“Fine,” I said, half-surprised to be saying those words. For a moment, I wondered if maybe it had all been a dream. Then I looked beyond her and saw Dimitri and Alberta looming nearby. The looks on their faces told me the events on the plane had indeed been real.
Alberta cleared her throat, and Dr. Olendzki glanced back. “May we?” Alberta asked. The doctor nodded, and the other two stepped forward.
Dimitri, as always, was a balm to me. No matter what happened, I always felt a little safer in his presence. Yet even he hadn’t been able to stop what had happened at the airport. When he looked at me like he was now, with an expression of such tenderness and concern, it triggered mixed feelings. Part of me loved that he cared so much. The other part wanted to be strong for him and didn’t want to make him worry.
“Rose . . .” began Alberta uncertainly. I could tell she had no clue how to go about this. What had happened was beyond her realm of experience. Dimitri took over.
“Rose, what happened back there?” Before I could utter a word, he cut me off. “And do not say it was nothing this time.”
Well, if I couldn’t fall back on that answer, then I didn’t know what to say.
Dr. Olendzki pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “We only want to help you.”
“I don’t need any help,” I said. “I’m fine.” I sounded just like Brandon and Brett. I was probably only one step away from saying, “I fell.”
Alberta finally regained herself. “You were fine when we were in the air. When we landed, you were most definitely not fine.”
“I’m fine now,” I replied stonily, not meeting their eyes.
“What happened then?” she asked. “Why the screaming? What did you mean when you said we needed to make ‘them’ go away?”
I briefly considered my other fallback answer, the one about stress. That sounded completely stupid now. So, again, I said nothing. To my surprise, I felt tears build up in my eyes.
“Rose,” murmured Dimitri, voice as soft as silk against my skin. “Please.”
Something in that cracked me. It was so hard for me to stand against him. I turned my head and stared at the ceiling.
“Ghosts,” I whispered. “I saw ghosts.”
None of them had expected that, but honestly, how could they have? Heavy silence fell. Finally, Dr. Olendzki spoke in a faltering voice.
“W-what do you mean?”
I swallowed. “He’s been following me for the last couple of weeks. Mason. On campus. I know it sounds crazy—but it’s him. Or his ghost. That’s what happened with Stan. I locked up because Mason was there, and I didn’t know what to do. On the plane . . . I think he was there too . . . and others. But I couldn’t exactly see them when we were in the air. Just glimpses . . . and the headache. But when we landed in Martinville, he was there in full form. And—and he wasn’t alone. There were others with him. Other ghosts.” A tear escaped from my eye, and I hastily wiped at it, hoping none of them had seen it.
I waited then, not sure what to expect. Would someone laugh? Tell me I was crazy? Accuse me of lying and demand to know what had really happened?
“Did you know them?” Dimitri asked finally.
I turned back and actually met his eyes. They were still serious and concerned, no mockery. “Yeah . . . I saw some of Victor’s guardians and the people from the massacre. Lissa’s . . . Lissa’s family was there too.”
Nobody said anything after that. They all just sort of exchanged glances, hoping perhaps that one of the others might shed light on all this.
Dr. Olendzki sighed. “Could I speak with the two of you privately?”
The three of them stepped out of the examining room, shutting the door behind them. Only it didn’t quite catch. Scrambling off the bed, I crossed the room and stood by the door. The tiny crack was just enough for my dhampir hearing to pick up the conversation. I felt bad about eavesdropping, but they were talking about me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that my future was on the line here.
“—obvious what’s going on,” hissed Dr. Olendzki. It was the first time I’d ever heard her sound so irate. With patients, she was the picture of serenity. It was hard to imagine her angry, but she was clearly pissed off now. “That poor girl. She’s undergoing post-traumatic stress disorder, and it’s no wonder after everything that’s happened.”
“Are you sure?” asked Alberta. “Maybe it’s something else. . . .” But as her words trailed off, I could tell she didn’t really know of anything else that would explain it.
“Look at the facts: a teenage girl who witnessed one of her friends getting killed and then had to kill his killer. You don’t think that’s traumatic? You don’t think that might have had the tiniest effect on her?”
“Tragedy is something all guardians have to deal with,” said Alberta.
“Maybe there’s not much to be done for guardians in the field, but Rose is still a student here. There are resources that can help her.”
“Like what?” asked Dimitri. He sounded curious and concerned, not like he was challenging her.
“Counseling. Talking to someone about what happened can do worlds of good. You should have done that as soon as she got back. You should do it for the others who were with her while you’re at it. Why doesn’t anyone think of these things?”
“It’s a good idea,” said Dimitri. I recognized the tone in his voice—his mind was spinning. “She could do it on her day off.”
“Day off? More like every day. You should pull her from this entire field experience. Fake Strigoi attacks are not the way to recover from a real one.”
“No!” I had pushed open the door before I realized it. They all stared at me, and I immediately felt stupid. I’d just busted myself for spying.
“Rose,” said Dr. Olendzki, returning to her caring (but slightly chastising) doctor mode. “You should go lie down.”
“I’m fine. And you can’t make me quit the field experience. I won’t graduate if you do.”
“You aren’t well, Rose, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of after what’s happened to you. Thinking you’re seeing the ghost of someone who died isn’t too out there when you consider the circumstances.”
I started to correct her on the thinking you’re seeing part but then bit it off. Arguing that I’d really seen a ghost wasn’t probably going to do me any favors, I decided, even if I was starting to believe that was exactly what I was seeing. Frantically, I tried to think of a convincing reason to stay in the field experience. I was usually pretty good at talking myself out of bad situations.
“Unless you’re going to put me in counseling 24/7, you’re just going to make it worse. I need something to do. Most of my classes are on hold right now. What would I do? Sit around? Think more and more about what happened? I’ll go crazy—for real. I don’t want to sit on the past forever. I need to get moving with my future.”
This threw them into an argument about what to do with me. I listened, biting my tongue, knowing I needed to stay out of it. Finally, with some grumbling from the doctor, they all decided I would go on half-time for the field experience.
It proved to be the ideal compromise for everyone—well, except me. I just wanted life to go on exactly as it had. Still, I knew this was probably as good a deal as I’d get. They decided that I’d do three days of field experience a week, with no night duties. During the other days, I’d have to do some training and whatever bookwork they dug up for me.
I’d also have to see a counselor, which I wasn’t thrilled about. It wasn’t that I had anything against counselors. Lissa had been seeing one, and it had been really useful for her. Talking things out helped. It was just . . . well, this was just something I didn’t want to talk about.
But if it came down to this or being kicked out of the field experience, I was more than happy to go with this. Alberta felt they could still justify passing me on half-time. She also liked the idea of having counseling going on at the same time I was dealing with fake Strigoi attacks—just in case they really were traumatizing.
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