Whatever optimism or truth I’d had in the cards pretty much disappeared with that. Given that she’d just said about a hundred things it could be, I didn’t really consider it authoritative. Usually, she noticed my skepticism, but her attention was still on the card as she frowned.
“But I just can’t tell. . . . There’s a cloud around it. Why? It doesn’t make sense.”
Something about her confusion sent a chill down my spine. I always told myself this was fake, but if she’d been making it all up . . . well, wouldn’t she have made something up about the Page of Cups? She wasn’t putting on a very convincing act if this last card was making her question herself. The thought that maybe there was some mystical force out there blocking her sobered up my cynical attitude.
With a sigh, she looked up at last. “Sorry that’s all I can tell you. Did the rest help?”
I scanned the cards. Heartache. An enemy. Accusations. Entrapment. Travel. “Some of it tells me things I already know. The rest leaves me with more questions.”
She smiled knowingly. “That’s how it usually is.”
I thanked her for the reading, secretly glad I didn’t have to pay for it. Ambrose walked me out, and I tried to shake off the mood Rhonda’s fortune had left me in. I had enough problems in my life without letting a bunch of stupid cards bother me.
“You going to be okay?” he asked when we finally emerged. The sun was climbing higher. The Royal Court would be going to bed soon, ending what had been a turbulent day. “I . . . I wouldn’t have brought you if I’d known how much it would upset you.”
“No, no,” I said. “It’s not the cards. Not exactly. There’s a bunch of other things going on . . . one you should probably know about.”
I hadn’t wanted to bring up the decree when we’d first run into each other, but as a dhampir, he had a right to hear about what had happened. His face was perfectly still as I spoke, save for his dark brown eyes, which grew wider while the story progressed.
“There’s some mistake,” he said at last. “They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t do that to sixteen-year-olds.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think so either, but they were apparently serious enough about it to throw me out when I, um, questioned it.”
“I can just imagine your ‘questioning.’ All this’ll do is make more dhampirs drop out of the guardians . . . unless, of course, being that young makes them more open for brainwashing.”
“Kind of a sensitive area for you, huh?” I asked. After all, he too was a guardian drop-out.
He shook his head. “Staying in this society was nearly impossible for me. If any of those kids do decide to drop out, they won’t have the powerful friends I did. They’ll be outcasts. That’s all this’ll do. Either kill off teens or cut them off from their own people.”
I wondered what powerful friends he’d had, but this was hardly the time to learn his life history. “Well, that royal bitch doesn’t seem to care.”
The thoughtful, distracted look in his eyes suddenly sharpened. “Don’t call her that,” he warned with a glare. “This isn’t her fault.”
Whoa. Cue surprise. I’d almost never seen sexy, charismatic Ambrose be anything but friendly. “Of course it’s her fault! She’s the supreme ruler of the Moroi, remember?”
His scowl deepened. “The Council voted too. Not her alone.”
“Yeah, but she voted in support of this decree. She swayed the vote.”
“There must have been a reason. You don’t know her like I do. She wouldn’t want this kind of thing.”
I started to ask if he was out of his mind but paused when I remembered his relationship with the queen. Those romantic rumors made me queasy, but if they were true, I supposed he might have legitimate concern for her. I also decided it was probably best that I didn’t know her the way he did. The bite marks on his neck certainly indicated some sort of intimate activity.
“Whatever’s going on between you is your business,” I told him calmly, “but she’s used it to trick you into thinking she’s someone she isn’t. She did it to me too, and I fell for it. It’s all a scam.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said, still stone-faced. “As queen, she’s put into all sorts of tough situations. There must be more to it—she’ll change the decree, I’m certain of it.”
“As queen,” I said, imitating his tone, “she should have the ability to—”
My words fell off as a voice spoke in my head. Lissa’s.
Rose, you’re going to want to see this. But you have to promise not to cause any trouble. Lissa flashed a location to me, along with a sense of urgency.
Ambrose’s hard look shifted to one of concern. “Are you okay?”
“I—yeah. Lissa needs me.” I sighed. “Look, I don’t want us to fight, okay? Obviously we’ve each got different views of the situation . . . but I think we both agree on the same key point.”
“That kids shouldn’t be sent off to die? Yeah, we can agree on that.” We smiled tentatively at each other, and the anger between us diffused. “I’ll talk to her, Rose. I’ll find out the real story and let you know, okay?”
“Okay.” I had a hard time believing anyone could really have a heart-to-heart with Tatiana, but again, there might be more to their relationship than I realized. “Thanks. It was good seeing you.”
“You too. Now go—go to Lissa.”
I needed no further urging. Along with the sense of urgency, Lissa had passed one other message through the bond that sent my feet flying: It’s about Dimitri.
TWENTY-THREE
I DIDN’T NEED THE BOND to find Lissa. The crowd tipped me off to where she—and Dimitri—were.
My first thought was that some kind of stoning or medieval mobbing was going on. Then I realized that the people standing around were simply watching something. I pushed through them, heedless of the dirty looks I got, until I stood in the front row of the onlookers. What I found brought me to a halt.
Lissa and Dimitri sat side by side on a bench while three Moroi and—yikes—Hans sat opposite them. Guardians stood scattered around them, tense and ready to jump in if things went bad, apparently. Before I even heard a word, I knew exactly what was going on. This was an interrogation, an investigation to determine what Dimitri was exactly.
Under most circumstances, this would be a weird place for a formal investigation. It was, ironically, one of the courtyards Eddie and I had worked on, the one that stood in the shadow of the statue of the young queen. The Court’s church stood nearby. This grassy area wasn’t exactly holy ground, but it was close enough to the church that people could run to it in an emergency. Crucifixes didn’t hurt Strigoi, but they couldn’t cross over into a church, mosque, or any other sacred place. Between that and the morning sun, this was probably as safe a location and time as officials could muster up to question Dimitri.
I recognized one of the Moroi questioners, Reece Tarus. He was related to Adrian on his mom’s side but had also spoken in favor of the age decree. So I took an instant dislike to him, particularly considering the haughty tone he used toward Dimitri.
“Do you find the sun blinding?” asked Reece. He had a clipboard in front of him and appeared to be going down a checklist.
“No,” said Dimitri, voice smooth and controlled. His attention was totally on his questioners. He had no clue I was there, and I kind of liked it that way. I wanted to just gaze at him for a moment and admire his features.
“What if you stare into the sun?”
Dimitri hesitated, and I’m not sure anyone but me caught the sudden glint in his eyes—or knew what it meant. The question was stupid, and I think Dimitri—maybe, just maybe—wanted to laugh. With his normal skill, he maintained his composure.
“Anyone would go blind staring into the sun long enough,” he replied. “I’d go through what anyone else here would.”
Reece didn’t seem to like the answer, but there was no fault in the logic. He pursed his lips together and moved on to the next question. “Does
it scald your skin?”
“Not at the moment.”
Lissa glanced over at the crowd and noticed me. She couldn’t feel me the way I could through our bond, but sometimes it seemed she had an uncanny sense of when I was around. I think she sensed my aura if I was close enough, since all spirit users claimed the field of light around shadow-kissed people was very distinct. She gave me a small smile before turning back to the questioning.
Dimitri, ever vigilant, noticed her tiny movement. He looked over to see what had distracted her, caught sight of me, and faltered a little on Reece’s next question, which was, “Have you noticed whether your eyes occasionally turn red?”
“I . . .” Dimitri stared at me for several moments and then jerked his head back toward Reece. “I haven’t been around many mirrors. But I think my guards would have noticed, and none of them have said anything.”
Nearby, one of the guardians made a small noise. He barely managed to keep a straight face, but I think he too had wanted to snicker at the ridiculous line of questioning. I couldn’t recall his name, but when I’d been at Court long ago, he and Dimitri had chatted and laughed quite a bit when together. If an old friend was starting to believe Dimitri was a dhampir again, then that had to be a good sign.
The Moroi next to Reece glared around, trying to figure out where the noise had come from, but discovered nothing. The questioning continued, this time having to do with whether Dimitri would step into the church if they asked him to.
“I can go right now,” he told them. “I’ll go to services tomorrow if you want.” Reece made another note, no doubt wondering if he could get the priest to douse Dimitri in holy water.
“This is all a distraction,” a familiar voice said in my ear. “Smoke and mirrors. That’s what Aunt Tasha says.” Christian now stood beside me.
“It needs to be done,” I murmured back. “They have to see that he isn’t Strigoi anymore.”
“Yeah, but they’ve barely signed the age law. The queen gave the go-ahead for this as soon as the Council’s session let out because it’s sensational and will make people pay attention to something new. It was how they finally got the hall cleared. ‘Hey, go look at the sideshow!’”
I could almost hear Tasha saying that word for word. Regardless, there was truth to it. I felt conflicted. I wanted Dimitri to be free. I wanted him to be the way he used to be. Yet I didn’t appreciate Tatiana doing this for her own political gain and not because she actually cared about what was right. This was possibly the most monumental thing to happen in our history. It needed to be treated as such. Dimitri’s fate shouldn’t be a convenient “sideshow” to distract everyone from an unfair law.
Reece was now asking both Lissa and Dimitri to describe exactly what they’d experienced the night of the raid. I had a feeling this was something they’d recounted quite a bit. Although Dimitri had been the picture of nonthreatening composure so far, I still sensed that gray feel to him, the guilt and torment he felt over what he had done as a Strigoi. Yet, when he turned to listen to Lissa tell her version of the story, his face lit up with wonder. Awe. Worship.
Jealousy flashed through me. His feelings weren’t romantic, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had rejected me but regarded her as the greatest thing in the world. He’d told me never to talk to him again and sworn he’d do anything for her. Again I felt that petulant sense of being wronged. I refused to believe that he couldn’t love me anymore. It wasn’t possible, not after all he and I had been through together. Not after everything we’d felt for each other.
“They sure seem close,” Christian noted, a suspicious note in his voice. I had no time to tell him his worries were unfounded because I wanted to hear what Dimitri had to say.
The story of his change was hard for others to follow, largely because spirit was still so misunderstood. Reece got as much out of it as he could and then turned the questioning over to Hans. Hans, ever practical, had no need for extensive interrogation. He was a man of action, not words. Gripping a stake in his hand, he asked Dimitri to touch it. The standing guardians tensed, probably in case Dimitri tried to grab the stake and go on a rampage.
Instead, Dimitri calmly reached out and held the top of the stake for a few moments. There was a collective intake of breath as everyone waited for him to scream in pain since Strigoi couldn’t touch charmed silver. Instead, Dimitri looked bored.
Then he astonished them all. Drawing his hand back, he held out the bottom of his muscled forearm toward Hans. With the sunny weather, Dimitri was wearing a T-shirt, leaving the skin there bare.
“Cut me with it,” he told Hans.
Hans arched an eyebrow. “Cutting you with this will hurt no matter what you are.”
“It would be unbearable if I were a Strigoi,” Dimitri pointed out. His face was hard and determined. He was the Dimitri I’d seen in battle, the Dimitri who never backed down. “Do it. Don’t go easy on me.”
Hans didn’t react at first. Clearly, this was an unexpected course of action. Decision finally flashed across his features, and he struck out, swiping the stake’s point against Dimitri’s skin. As Dimitri had requested, Hans didn’t hold back. The point dug deep, and blood welled up. Several Moroi, not used to seeing blood (unless they were drinking it), gasped at the violence. As one, we all leaned forward.
Dimitri’s face showed he definitely felt pain, but charmed silver on a Strigoi wouldn’t just hurt—it would burn. I’d cut a lot of Strigoi with stakes and heard them scream in agony. Dimitri grimaced and bit his lip as the blood flowed over his arm. I swear, there was pride in his eyes at his ability to stay strong through that.
When it became obvious he wouldn’t start flailing, Lissa reached toward him. I sensed her intentions; she wanted to heal him.
“Wait,” said Hans. “A Strigoi would heal from this in minutes.”
I had to give Hans credit. He’d worked two tests into one. Dimitri shot him a grateful look, and Hans gave a small nod of acknowledgment. Hans believed, I realized. Whatever his faults, Hans truly thought Dimitri was a dhampir again. I would love him forever for that, no matter how much filing he made me do.
So, we all stood there watching poor Dimitri bleed. It was kind of sick, really, but the test worked. It was obvious to everyone that the cut wasn’t going anywhere. Lissa was finally given leave to heal it, and that caused a bigger reaction among the crowd. Murmurs of wonder surrounded me, and those enraptured goddess-worshipping looks showed on people’s faces.
Reece glanced at the crowd. “Does anyone have any questions to add to ours?”
No one spoke. They were all dumbfounded by the sights before them.
Well, someone had to step forward. Literally.
“I do,” I said, striding toward them.
No, Rose, begged Lissa.
Dimitri wore an equally displeased look. Actually, so did almost everyone sitting near him. When Reece’s gaze fell on me, I had a feeling he was seeing me in the Council room all over again, calling Tatiana a sanctimonious bitch. I put my hands on my hips, not caring what they thought. This was my chance to force Dimitri to acknowledge me.
“When you used to be Strigoi,” I began, making it clear that I believed that was in the past, “you were very well connected. You knew about the whereabouts of lots of Strigoi in Russia and the U.S., right?”
Dimitri eyed me carefully, trying to figure out where I was going. “Yes.”
“Do you still know them?”
Lissa frowned. She thought I was going to inadvertently implicate Dimitri as still being in contact with other Strigoi.
“Yes,” he said. “So long as none of them have moved.” The answer came more swiftly this time. I wasn’t sure if he’d guessed my tactic or if he just trusted that my Rose-logic would go somewhere useful.
“Would you share that information with the guardians?” I asked. “Would you tell us all the Strigoi hideouts so that we could strike out against them?”
That got a reaction. Proactiv
ely seeking Strigoi was as hotly debated as the other issues going around right now, with strong opinions on all sides. I heard those opinions reiterated behind me in the crowd, some people saying I was suggesting suicide while others acknowledged we had a valuable tool.
Dimitri’s eyes lit up. It wasn’t the adoring look he often gave Lissa, but I didn’t care. It was similar to the ones we used to share, in those moments where we understood each other so perfectly, we didn’t even need to vocalize what we were thinking. That connection flashed between us, as did his approval—and gratitude.
“Yes,” he replied, voice strong and loud. “I can tell you everything I know about Strigoi plans and locations. I’d face them with you or stay behind—whichever you wanted.”
Hans leaned forward in his chair, expression eager. “That could be invaluable.” More points for Hans. He was on the side of hitting out at Strigoi before they came to us.
Reece flushed—or maybe he was just feeling the sun. In their efforts to see if Dimitri would burn up in the light, the Moroi were exposing themselves to discomfort. “Now hold on,” Reece exclaimed over the increasing noise. “That has never been a tactic we endorse. Besides, he could always lie—”
His protests were cut off by a feminine scream. A small Moroi boy, no more than six, had suddenly broken from the crowd and run toward us. It was his mother who had screamed. I moved in to stop him, grabbing his arm. I wasn’t afraid that Dimitri would hurt him, only that the boy’s mother would have a heart attack. She came forward, face grateful.
“I have questions,” the boy, obviously trying to be brave, said in a small voice.
His mother reached for him, but I held up my hand. “Hang on a sec.” I smiled down at him. “What do you want to ask? Go ahead.” Behind him, fear flashed over his mother’s face, and she cast an anxious look at Dimitri. “I won’t let anything happen to him,” I whispered, though she had no way of knowing I could back that up. Nonetheless, she stayed where she was.
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