If I went to Adrian, maybe he could pull some strings. He had his royal connections. Hell, the queen loved him, in spite of his slacker ways. As much as it killed me to accept, I was realizing that getting in to see Dimitri right away was going to be nearly impossible. But the medical center? Adrian might be able to get me in to see Lissa, even if it was crowded and chaotic. The bond was still blurry, and talking to her directly would allow me to score faster answers about Dimitri. Plus, I wanted to see for myself that she was all right.
Yet when I reached the housing Adrian stayed in at Court, I was informed by the doorman that Adrian had already left a little while ago to—ironically enough—go to the medical center. I groaned. Of course he’d already be there. With his healing abilities, they would have summoned him out of bed. Weak or not, he could definitely help.
“Were you there?” the doorman asked me as I started to turn away.
“What?” For a minute I thought he was talking about the medical center.
“The battle with the Strigoi! The rescue. We’ve been hearing all sorts of things.”
“Already? What did you hear?”
The guy’s eyes were wide and excited. “They say almost every guardian died. But that you captured a Strigoi and brought him back.”
“No, no . . . there were more injuries than deaths. And the other . . .” For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. What had happened? What had really happened with Dimitri? “A Strigoi was changed back to a dhampir.”
The doorman stared. “Were you hit on the head?”
“I’m telling the truth! Vasilisa Dragomir did it. With her spirit power. Spread that around.”
I left him with his mouth hanging open. And like that, I had no more options, no one else to get information from. I went back to my room feeling defeated but far too keyed up to sleep. At least, that’s what I initially thought. After some pacing, I sat on the bed to try to come up with a plan. Yet before long, I felt myself falling into a heavy sleep.
I awoke with a start, confused and aching in parts of my body that I hadn’t realized had taken hits in the fight. I peered at the clock, astonished at how long I’d slept. In vampire time, it was late morning. Within five minutes, I had showered and put on non-torn, non-bloody clothes. Just like that, I was out the door.
People were out and about their daily business, yet every couple or group I passed seemed to be talking about the battle at the warehouse—and about Dimitri.
“You know she can heal,” I heard one Moroi guy say to his wife. “Why not Strigoi? Why not the dead?”
“It’s insane,” the woman countered. “I’ve never believed in this spirit thing anyway. It’s a lie to cover up the fact that the Dragomir girl never specialized.”
I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation, but others I passed had similar themes. People were either convinced the whole thing was a scam or were regarding Lissa as a saint already. Every so often, I’d heard something weird, like that the guardians had captured a bunch of Strigoi to experiment on. In all the speculation, though, I never heard Dimitri’s name come up or knew what was really happening to him.
I followed the only plan I had: Go to the guardian building that held the Court’s jail, though I was unsure what I’d actually do when I got there. I wasn’t even entirely sure that was where Dimitri still was, but it seemed the most likely place. When I passed a guardian along the way, it took me several seconds to realize I knew him. I came to a halt and turned.
“Mikhail!” He glanced back and, seeing me, walked over. “What’s going on?” I asked, relieved to see a friendly face. “Have they let Dimitri out?”
He shook his head. “No, they’re still trying to figure out what happened. Everyone’s confused, even though the princess still swore up and down after she saw him that he’s not Strigoi anymore.”
There was a wonder in Mikhail’s voice—and wistfulness too. He was hoping that it was true, that there might be a chance for his beloved to be saved. My heart ached for him. I hoped he and Sonya could have a happy ending just like—
“Wait. What did you say?” His words drew my romantic musings to a halt. “Did you say Lissa saw him? You mean after the fight?” I immediately reached for the bond. It was gradually growing clearer—but Lissa was asleep, so I learned nothing.
“He asked for her,” Mikhail explained. “So they let her in—guarded, of course.”
I stared, my jaw nearly dropping to the ground. Dimitri was seeing visitors. They were actually letting him see visitors. The knowledge lit up the dark mood that had been building in me. I turned away. “Thanks, Mikhail.”
“Wait, Rose—”
But I didn’t stop. I ran to the guardians’ holding building at a full-out sprint, oblivious to the looks I got. I was too excited, too invigorated with this new info. I could see Dimitri. I could finally be with him, back the way he was supposed to be.
“You can’t see him.”
I literally came to a halt when the guardian on duty in the front reception area stopped me.
“Wh-what? I need to see Dimitri.”
“No visitors.”
“But Lissa—er, Vasilisa Dragomir got to see him.”
“He asked for her.”
I stared incredulously. “He must have asked for me too.”
The guardian shrugged. “If he did, no one’s told me.”
The anger I’d kept back last night finally awoke. “Then go find someone who knows! Dimitri wants to see me. You have to let me in. Who’s your boss?”
The guardian scowled at me. “I’m not going anywhere until my shift is over. If you’ve got clearance, someone will let you know. Until then, no one without special permission is allowed to go down there.”
After taking out a fair portion of Tarasov’s security, I felt pretty confident I could easily dispatch this guy. However, I felt equally confident that once I got to the depths of the jail cells, I’d run into a lot more guardians. For a second, taking them out seemed very reasonable. It was Dimitri. I would do anything for him. A slight stirring in the bond made me see reason. Lissa had just woken up.
“Fine,” I said. I lifted my chin and gave him a haughty look. “Thanks for the ‘help.’” I didn’t need this loser. I’d go to Lissa.
She was staying at almost the opposite end of the Court’s grounds from the holding area, and I covered the distance at a light jog. When I finally reached her and she opened the door to her room, I saw that she’d gotten ready almost as quickly as I had. In fact, I could feel that she’d been pretty close to leaving. Studying her face and hands, I was relieved to see that almost all of the burns were gone. A few red spots lingered on her fingers, but that was it. Adrian’s handiwork. No doctor could have made that happen. In a pale blue tank top, with her blond hair pulled back, she didn’t look at all like anyone who’d been through such a major ordeal less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Are you okay?” she asked. In spite of everything else that had happened, she’d never stopped worrying about me.
“Yeah, fine.” Physically, at least. “You?”
She nodded. “Fine.”
“You look good,” I said. “Last night . . . I mean, I was pretty scared. With the fire . . .” I couldn’t quite finish.
“Yeah,” she said, looking away from me. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable. “Adrian’s been pretty great healing people.”
“Is that where you’re going?” There was agitation and restlessness in the bond. It would make sense if she wanted to hurry over to the medical center and help out too. Except . . . further probing gave me the startling truth. “You’re going to see Dimitri!”
“Rose—”
“No,” I said eagerly. “It’s perfect. I’ll go with you. I was just over there, and they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Rose—” Lissa looked very uncomfortable now.
“They gave me some bullshit about how he’d asked for you and not me and that that’s why they couldn’t let me in. But if you’re going, they’
ll have to let me.”
“Rose,” she said firmly, finally breaking through my chatter. “You can’t go.”
“I—what?” I replayed her words, just in case I’d misheard them. “Of course I can. I need to see him. You know I do. And he needs to see me.”
She slowly shook her head, still looking nervous—but also sympathetic. “That guardian was right,” she said. “Dimitri hasn’t been asking for you. Only me.”
All my eagerness, all that fire, froze up. I was dumbstruck, confused more than anything. “Well . . .” I recalled how he’d clung to her last night, that desperate look on his face. I hated to admit it, but it kind of made sense why he would have asked for her first. “Of course he’d want to see you. Everything’s so new and strange, and you’re the one who saved him. Once he comes around more, he’ll want to see me too.”
“Rose, you can’t go.” This time the sadness in Lissa’s voice was mirrored through the bond, flooding into me. “It’s not just that Dimitri didn’t ask to see you. He asked specifically not to see you.”
EIGHTEEN
THE THING THAT REALLY SUCKS about being psychically linked to someone is that you have a pretty good idea when they’re lying—or, in this case, not lying. Still, my response was immediate and instinctive.
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She gave me a pointed look. She too knew that I could feel the truth in her words.
“But that . . . it can’t . . . ” I wasn’t at a loss for words very often—and certainly not with Lissa. So frequently in our relationship, I’d been the one being assertive and explaining to her why things had to be the way they were. Somewhere along the way, with me not realizing it, Lissa had lost that fragility.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice still kind but also firm. The bond betrayed how much she hated telling me unpleasant things. “He asked me . . . told me specifically not to let you come. That he doesn’t want to see you.”
I stared at her pleadingly, my voice almost childlike. “But why? Why would he say that? Of course he wants to see me. He must be confused. . . .”
“I don’t know, Rose. All I know is what he told me. I’m so sorry.” She reached for me like she might hug me, but I stepped away. My head was still reeling.
“I’ll go with you anyway. I’ll wait upstairs with the other guardians. Then, when you tell Dimitri I’m there, he’ll change his mind.”
“I don’t think you should,” she said. “He seemed really serious about you not coming—almost frantic. I think knowing you’re there would upset him.”
“Upset him? Upset him? Liss, it’s me! He loves me. He needs me.”
She winced, and I realized I’d been shouting at her. “I’m just going on what he said. It’s all so confusing . . . please. Don’t put me in this position. Just . . . wait and see what happens. And if you want to know what’s going on, you can always . . .”
Lissa didn’t finish, but I knew what she was suggesting. She was offering to let me see her meeting with Dimitri through the bond. It was a big gesture on her part—not that she could have stopped me if I wanted to do it. Still, she didn’t usually like the idea of being “spied” on. This was the best thing she could think of to make me feel better.
Not that it really did. All of this was still crazy. Me being denied access to Dimitri. Dimitri allegedly not wanting to see me! What the hell? My gut reaction was to ignore everything she’d just said and go along with her, demanding access when she arrived. The feelings in the bond were begging me not to, though. She didn’t want to create trouble. She might not understand Dimitri’s wishes either, but she felt they should be honored until the situation could be better assessed.
“Please,” she said. The plaintive word finally cracked me.
“Okay.” It killed me to say it. It was like admitting defeat. Think of it as a tactical retreat.
“Thank you.” This time she did hug me. “I swear I’ll get more information and figure out what’s going on, okay?”
I nodded, still dejected, and we walked out of the building together. With grim reluctance, I parted with her when the time came, letting her go off to the guardians’ building while I headed toward my room. As soon as she was out of my sight, I immediately slipped into her head, watching through her eyes as she walked through the perfectly manicured grass. The bond was still a little hazy but growing clearer by the minute.
Her feelings were a jumble. She felt bad for me, guilty that she’d had to refuse me. At the same time, she was anxious to visit Dimitri. She needed to see him too—but not in the same way I did. She still had that feeling of responsibility for him, that burning urge to protect him.
When she arrived at the building’s main office, the guardian who’d stopped me gave her a nod of greeting and then made a quick phone call. A few moments later, three guardians entered and gestured for Lissa to follow them into the depths of the building. They all looked unusually grim, even for guardians.
“You don’t have to do this,” one of them told her. “Just because he keeps asking . . .”
“It’s fine,” she said with the cool, dignified air of any royal. “I don’t mind.”
“There’ll be plenty of guards around just like last time. You don’t need to worry about your safety.”
She gave all of them a sharp look. “I was never worried about it to begin with.”
Their descent into the building’s lower levels brought back painful memories of when Dimitri and I had visited Victor. That had been the Dimitri I’d had a perfect union with, the Dimitri who understood me entirely. And after the visit, he’d been enraged at Victor’s threats against me. Dimitri had loved me so much that he’d been willing to do anything to protect me.
A key card-protected door finally allowed access to the holding level, which consisted mostly of a long hallway lined with cells. It didn’t have the depressing feel that Tarasov had had, but this place’s stark and steel-lined industrial air didn’t exactly inspire warm and fuzzy feelings.
Lissa could hardly walk down the hall because it was so crowded with guardians. All that security for one person. It wasn’t impossible for a Strigoi to break through a cell’s steel bars, but Dimitri was no Strigoi. Why couldn’t they see that? Were they blind?
Lissa and her escort made their way through the crowd and came to a stop in front of his cell. It was as cold looking as everything else in this prison area, with no more furnishings than were absolutely required. Dimitri sat on the narrow bed, his legs drawn up to him as he leaned into a corner of the wall and kept his back to the cell’s entrance. It wasn’t what I had expected. Why wasn’t he beating at the bars? Why wasn’t he demanding to be released and telling them he wasn’t a Strigoi? Why was he taking this so quietly?
“Dimitri.”
Lissa’s voice was soft and gentle, filled with a warmth that stood out against the harshness of the cell. It was the voice of an angel.
And as Dimitri slowly turned around, it was obvious he thought so too. His expression transformed before our eyes, going from bleakness to wonder.
He wasn’t the only one filled with wonder. My mind might have been tied to Lissa’s, but back across Court, my own body nearly stopped breathing. The glimpse I’d gotten of him last night had been amazing. But this . . . this full-on view of him looking at Lissa—at me—was awe-inspiring. It was a wonder. A gift. A miracle.
Seriously. How could anyone think he was a Strigoi? And how could I have possibly let myself believe the Dimitri I’d been with in Siberia was this one? He’d cleaned up from the battle and wore jeans and a simple black T-shirt. His brown hair was tied back into a short ponytail, and a faint shadow across his lower face showed that he needed to shave. Probably no one would let him get near a razor. Regardless, it almost made him look sexier—more real, more dhampir. More alive. His eyes were what really pulled it all together. His death white skin—now gone—had always been startling, but those red eyes had been the worst. Now they were perfect. Exactly as they
used to be. Warm and brown and long-lashed. I could have gazed at them forever.
“Vasilisa,” he breathed. The sound of his voice made my chest tighten. God, I’d missed hearing him speak. “You came back.”
As soon as he began approaching the bars, the guardians around Lissa started closing rank, ready to stop him should he indeed bust through. “Back off!” she snapped in a queenly tone, glaring at everyone around her. “Give us some space.” No one reacted right away, and she put more power into her voice. “I mean it! Step back!”
I felt the slightest trickle of magic through our link. It wasn’t a huge amount, but she was backing her words with a little spirit-induced compulsion. She could hardly control such a large group, but the command had enough force to make them clear out a little and create space between her and Dimitri. She turned her attention back to him, demeanor instantly changing from fierce to kind.
“Of course I came back. How are you? Are they . . .” She cast a dangerous look at the guardians in the hall. “Are they treating you okay?”
He shrugged. “Fine. Nobody’s hurting me.” If he was anything like his old self, he would have never admitted if anyone was hurting him. “Just a lot of questions. So many questions.” He sounded weary, again . . . very unlike a Strigoi who never needed rest. “And my eyes. They keep wanting to examine my eyes.”
“But how do you feel?” she asked. “In your mind? In your heart?” If the whole situation hadn’t been so sobering, I would have been amused. It was very much a therapist’s line of questioning—something both Lissa and I had experienced a lot of. I’d hated being asked those questions, but now I truly wanted to know how Dimitri felt.
His gaze, which had so intently focused on her, now drifted away and grew unfocused. “It’s . . . it’s hard to describe. It’s like I’ve woken up from a dream. A nightmare. Like I’ve been watching someone else act through my body—like I was at a movie or a play. But it wasn’t someone else. It was me. All of it was me, and now here I am, and the whole world has shifted. I feel like I’m relearning everything.”
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