Just when her fate is looking bleak, Dimitri jumps to her defense. Rose is given another chance but put on probation. Plus, one day a week she’ll be required to do community service as punishment. Could be worse.
Later, when another novice guardian taunts Rose for her abysmal performance, her temper boils over, and she gets him back by putting his Moroi charge in immediate danger—from her. It actually takes Adrian and his strong compulsion to make Rose let the girl go. Rose is dealing with some major anger issues. Maybe Mason’s ghost stirred up some deep feelings in her.
Lissa’s angry too, since she incorrectly assumes that Rose purposefully screwed up with Christian all because she doesn’t like him. Rose can’t believe that her best friend would immediately think the worst of her.
“Do you really think I’d do this? Abandon Christian and make myself look stupid on purpose just to get back at my teachers?”
“No, ” she said finally. “You’d probably do it in a way where you wouldn’t get caught.”
“Dimitri said the same thing,” I grumbled. “I ’m glad everyone has so much faith in me.”
“We do, ” she countered. “That’s why all of this is so weird.”
“Even I make mistakes.” I put on my brash, overconfident face. “I know it’s hard to believe—kind of surprises me myself—but I guess it has to happen. It’s probably some kind of karmic way to balance out the universe. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair to have one person so full of awesomeness.”
—page 80
Rose knows she has to tell Lissa and the others about the Victor Dashkov trial they’re not invited to. And just as she expected, Lissa’s freaked by the very mention of his name. As Lissa struggles to get control over her emotions, Rose finds she’s losing control over her own. Her now-familiar black mood has seized her again, and she wants to let it out by ranting and raving about how mad she is that they can’t go to Victor’s trial.
But her first duty is to protect Moroi, not to give in to her own impulses. It’s the guardian mantra: They come first.
Those words are starting to annoy her.
That night, while Rose is camped out on Christian’s bedroom floor—being a guardian is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job—she’s drawn into one of Adrian’s spirit dreams. And he’s not exactly the sanest she’s ever seen him.
“Rose is in red
But never in blue
Sharp as a thorn
Fights like one too.”
Adrian dropped his arms and looked at me expectantly.
“How can a thorn fight?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Art doesn’t have to make sense, little dhampir. Besides, I’m supposed to be crazy, right?”
“Not the craziest I’ve ever seen.”
“Well,” he said, pacing over to study some hydrangeas. “I’ll work on that.”
—pages 91-92
Rose takes Adrian’s craziness in stride—it seems to simply be a part of who he is. She’s been feeling pretty crazy lately, too, but Adrian points out that truly crazy people rarely question whether or not they’re crazy. Good point. It makes her feel just a little bit better.
Adrian lets Rose know that he’s tired of her giving him the brush-off whenever he shows interest in her. He knows she’s into Dimitri, but come on, the guy isn’t perfect. He can’t get Rose into Victor Dashkov’s trial, but Adrian, on the other hand . . . well, he just might. He suggests she start being nicer to him.
When Christian and Rose meet up with Lissa and Eddie after class one day, they’re “attacked.”Eddie and Rose fight together to take down the “Strigoi” threat. Rose is so determined to kick butt that she forgets that being a guardian isn’t just about the glory of the fight. Eddie’s praised and Rose is chastised for not protecting the Moroi and instead looking for a chance to redeem herself. She really can’t win lately.
To make matters worse, Eddie got his face scraped in the scuffle, and Lissa can’t resist healing him with spirit. Adrian’s amazed by this use of their ability and scratches himself purposefully to get her to do it again so he can learn from it.
Rose’s mood drops further.
So does Christian’s, although not for the same reasons. He’s growing increasingly jealous at how much time Lissa and Adrian are spending together. Bottom line: Christian doesn’t feel that he’s good enough to be with Lissa. And Adrian . . . well, he’s the queen’s gorgeous, rich grand-nephew.
Rose assures Christian that he has nothing to worry about—Lissa’s crazy about him. But Christian isn’t convinced . . .
However, he is hungry. Rose accompanies Christian to the on-campus feeder room located near the cafeteria so he can get some blood. There, Jesse and Ralf, two Moroi guys that Rose hates, approach him with an offer to join a secret group they’ve recently formed, but Christian turns them down flat. While he’d like to be more accepted around school, even he has standards. Still, he wonders what kind of group it is . . .
ALMOST A DATE
Dimitri volunteers to help Rose with her community service, which surprises her. This is supposed to be his day off; why would he want to spend it cleaning the chapel?
As they clean, Rose is still plagued by her Mason sightings. This seems like as good a place as any to find answers, so she decides to ask the priest about ghosts. But what the priest tells her isn’t exactly what she wants to hear: some believe that those who die young and violently will wander the earth for a time after their deaths. Could Mason really be a ghost—and is he haunting her?
Rose still feels chilled by her conversation with the priest as she and Dimitri take some boxes across campus to the elementary dorm. Rose waits outside while Dimitri brings the boxes in, and that’s where she meets Jill Mastrano—a fourteen-year-old who’s totally starstruck by the infamous Rose Hathaway. Jill’s a young, super-enthusiastic Moroi who tells her she wants to learn to use her magic defensively—and also learn to throw a punch. Maybe Rose can teach her some moves some time? Moroi students are getting beaten up lately by “some psycho,” and Jill wants to know how to properly defend herself.
This makes Rose remember Brandon’s bruises from the other day. What is going on at St. Vlad’s and who is beating kids up?
Before Rose can show Jill any fighting techniques, Dimitri shows up. Jill is tongue-tied around the handsome Russian and scurries off. Rose is still surprised the girl would want help from her, but Dimitri’s not. Rose is outgoing and dedicated, and she excels at everything she does—she’s definitely earned a lot of respect.
Not enough to get an invite to the trial, though, she reminds him. She wants to know if he can do anything to help, but he can’t. He just doesn’t have as much influence as Rose might think.
To Rose, Dimitri should be able to do anything. Why not this when she wants it so much? She refuses to accept that there’s nothing he can do to help. And if he’s so disinterested in her, why did he even bother helping her clean the chapel today? Is he spying on her? Trying to keep her out of trouble?
“Why does there have to be some ulterior motive?”
I wanted to blurt out a hundred different things. Like, if there wasn’t a motive, then that meant he just wanted to spend time with me. And that made no sense, because we both knew we were only supposed to have a teacher-student relationship. He of all people should know that. He was the one who’d told me.
“Because everyone has motives.”
“Yes. But not always the motives you think.” He pushed open the door. “I’ll see you later.”
I watched him go, my feelings a tangle of confusion and anger. If the situation hadn’t been so strange, I would have almost said it was like we’d just gone on a date.
—page 133
OFF TO COURT
Turns out Rose shouldn’t have spent so much time worrying—Lissa has exciting news: they’re going to Victor’s trial! Somehow, Rose, Lissa, and Christian are now set to testify, and Eddie will come along too—the field experience doesn’t stop just because Lissa’s going
off campus. A happy Rose apologizes to Dimitri—obviously he came through and got them invited. But it wasn’t him. Huh? But if it wasn’t him, then how did they get the opportunity to testify and the chance to do their part to send Victor Dashkov to prison?
On the flight to the Moroi Royal Court, Rose isn’t feeling so good. She has a massive headache, her mood is nasty, and she sees shadows darting through the plane. Adrian notes her aura is black . . . very black. Lissa tries to heal her headache with spirit, but it doesn’t do any good. Once at Court, though, Rose feels a bit better—but she’s still troubled by the memory of the shadows.
Lissa is called before Queen Tatiana. In the past, the queen has made it quite clear that Lissa shamed her family name by running away from St. Vlad’s, and Lissa is nervous about what she might say this time. She asks Rose to watch through the bond for moral support. Even if she can’t be there in person, Lissa will still feel better knowing she’s there in spirit.
Today, Tatiana is a bit more gracious and curious about seeing Lissa’s spirit ability in action. Since Victor’s on trial for forcing Lissa to use her rare ability to help heal his disease, her previously secret abilities are no longer secret. Queen Tatiana has Lissa demonstrate her mysterious and intriguing magic by bringing a plant back to life—and is very impressed by what she sees. Impressing the queen is not an easy feat, and Lissa (and Rose, through the bond) is thrilled.
Feeling that Lissa is doing just fine on her own, Rose breaks the bond and decides to go out exploring the grounds. She meets up with Eddie and Christian, who are with a familiar face—her former nemesis, Mia Rinaldi. After their traumatic experience in Spokane, as well as losing her mother, Mia left St. Vlad’s and moved to Court to be with her father. Mia’s since made friends with guardians here and is learning to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Since the kidnapping, Rose thinks Mia has changed for the better. However, she can’t say the same for herself. Rose feels that she’s worse off now than she was before—to her, the constant dark moods seem to be proof of this.
The four of them being together after all they experienced is not easy—it only makes them think of Mason.
Soon, they’re joined by Lissa and Adrian. Christian asks if the meeting with the queen helped clue her in on who got them the invite to the trial.
It certainly did. It was Adrian. As Tatiana’s favorite great-nephew, he was able to convince the queen that they needed to be there. And he didn’t do it for Lissa . . . he did it for Rose. This generous gesture surprises her deeply.
“I just thought . . .”
I couldn’t finish. I’d thought Dimitri would be the one who came through for me, the one who—despite what he said—could make almost anything happen. But he hadn’t.
“Thought what?” Adrian prompted.
“Nothing.” With much effort, I managed to utter the next words. “Thank you for helping us.”
“Oh my God,” he said. “A kind word from Rose Hathaway. I can die a happy man.”
—page 174
Mia gives Rose a note she was told to deliver. It’s from Victor Dashkov, and it’s a taunt that he intends to share stories of Rose and Dimitri’s forbidden romantic escapades, thanks to his lust-charmed necklace, in court—something that would get both of them in serious trouble.
She shares this unsettling news with Dimitri. He makes a quick phone call to a contact who he knows will be able to get them in to see Victor.
When they arrive at the Court’s prison facilities, seeing Victor for the first time since he was imprisoned at St. Vlad’s after Lissa’s kidnapping makes Rose’s skin crawl.
Compared to how sickly he’d looked before, now he appears young and healthy—but it’s unlikely to last. Frequent healings from Lissa would have been required to keep his disease permanently at bay. For now, though, he’s in good health to face his trial.
Victor is delighted at the chance to taunt Rose and Dimitri in person. The question is, what does he want from them? But Victor really isn’t interested in petty things like revenge. He has his sights set on higher aspirations: revolution. There’s been a lot of unrest building in the Moroi community, with people clamoring for a more forward-thinking government. And Victor would think that Rose of all people would be interested in overthrowing a government that holds on to archaic traditions like the virtual enslavement of the dhampir race. He even believes there’s someone she knows who would be the perfect person to spearhead this revolution—Lissa. With her compulsion and spirit magic, nothing would be impossible if she was in a position of power.
The conversation ends when Victor threatens to discuss Dimitri and Rose’s relationship, especially pertaining to the lust charm, and the normally controlled Dimitri offers up his own veiled threats. If Victor tries to ruin Rose, he’s ruining his chance to get Lissa to help him with his rebellion fantasies.
“And it’ll all be pointless anyway, because you won’t stay alive long enough in prison to stage your grand plans. You aren’t the only one with connections.”
My breath caught a little. Dimitri brought so many things to my life: love, comfort, and instruction. I got so used to him sometimes that I forgot just how dangerous he could be. As he stood there, tall and threatening while he glared down at Victor, I felt a chill run down my spine. I remembered how when I had first come to the Academy, people had said Dimitri was a god. In this moment, he looked it.
—page 188
When they leave, Dimitri seems shaken by the confrontation. Rose wonders if he meant what he said. Would he really have Victor killed?
“I ’d do a lot of things to protect you, Roza.”
My heart pounded. He only used “Roza” when he was feeling particularly affectionate toward me.
—page 189
THE TRIAL
When Victor is brought into the courtroom the next day, Rose can feel Lissa’s fear through the bond. It’s the first time her friend has seen the man since he kidnapped her and forced her to heal him with spirit.
Witnesses are called to testify against Victor, including Dimitri. The tense part is when he speaks about the lust charm—after all, he can’t exactly admit the lust part. Instead, he says the charm made Rose attack him (not that far from the truth, really), which delayed them from getting help for Lissa. It’s obvious to Rose that lying on the stand is difficult for Dimitri, but there’s no way around it.
After Christian testifies, it’s Rose’s turn. She does her best to brush over the “attack” charm and tries to ignore Victor’s knowing smirk.
Lissa’s account as Victor’s victim is the most moving—and she even works in a little spirit-induced charisma to gain everyone’s sympathy as she painfully relates how she was tortured by Victor’s henchman.
Victor takes the stand as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. His defense is that he was dying and felt he had no choice but to use Lissa’s magic to heal him. Worst of all, he takes no responsibility for convincing his own daughter Natalie to turn Strigoi to rescue him. As he says, Natalie made her own decisions, ones that ultimately led to her death.
“Can you say that about everyone you used to meet your ends? Guardian Belikov and Miss Hathaway had no say in what you made them do.”
Victor chuckled. “Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I honestly don’t think they minded. But if you have time after this case, Your Honor, you might want to consider trying a statutory rape case.”
—page 199
Rose is stunned, but luckily, no one believes him, thinking he’s just trying to shift focus off himself. Looks like he’d just wanted to tease them. Evil jerk.
The queen delivers her verdict: Victor’s found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Finally, Lissa can move on from her ordeal and feel safe again.
Adrian gives Rose a congratulatory hug in public (one that will lead the queen to want to chat with her later). But first, Tatiana wants to see Lissa and offer the last Dragomir a chance to come to live at Court after graduation and attend the nearby Lehigh University. Liss
a graciously accepts the generous offer.
Then it’s Rose’s turn. She expects that she’ll be told, as Lissa’s future guardian, that she’ll have to be extra careful of the princess at the university, but that’s not the subject at hand. The queen wants Rose to stop the affair she’s having with Adrian.
Say what?
“Um, Your Majesty . . . there’s some kind of mistake. There’s nothing going on between Adrian and me.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” she asked.
Wow. That was an opening.
“No, Your Majesty.”
—page 207
The queen assumes Rose is a “cheap dhampir girl” looking to run off with a rich Moroi lord. And Rose’s former party-girl reputation doesn’t exactly help matters. Tatiana even brings up Rose’s mother, Janine, who was once involved with a Moroi named Ibrahim—but even she learned that Moroi men don’t marry dhampir girls. They just play with them. That’s when the queen unleashes the greatest threat in her arsenal: if Rose doesn’t end things with Adrian, Tatiana will ensure that she isn’t assigned as Lissa’s guardian after graduation.
The queen’s plans are very clear. She wants Adrian and Lissa to have an arranged marriage that will help further the Dragomir line. The princess’s current relationship with Christian is unacceptable. Thanks to his parents’ decision to become Strigoi, his being a royal is irrelevant.
Wow. This is info Rose definitely isn’t ready to share with the others, not until she has time to process it herself.
A GLIMPSE AT THE FUTURE
While they’re waiting for the flight back to St. Vlad’s, Lissa takes Rose to the spa. Since Rose uses her hands so much to punch things, a manicure sounds like total luxury. While there, Rose meets Ambrose, a to-die-for hot guy who sure isn’t like any other dhampir she’s ever met—by the bite marks on his neck, it’s obvious he’s a male blood whore. That is so not normal. But Ambrose is very happy with his choices—and they are choices, unlike Rose, who really never had a say in what she’s become and where her future will lead.
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