There were three other novices in the class who were guarding Moroi. Since the culinary science room was large and open, with lots of windows, the four of us worked together to come up with a plan to pool our efforts and secure the whole room. When I'd watched novices do their field experiences in past years, I'd only ever paid attention to the fights. I'd never noticed the teamwork and strategizing that must have been going on. Theoretically, the four of us were here to only protect our assigned Moroi, but we'd slipped into a role where we were protecting the whole class.
My post was by a fire door that led outside of the school. Coincidentally, it was right by the station Christian was working at. The class normally cooked in pairs, but there was an odd number of students. Rather than work in a group of three, Christian had volunteered to be by himself. No one had seemed to mind. Many still regarded him and his family with the same prejudice that Jesse did. To my disappointment, Christian wasn't making a cake.
"What is that?" I asked, watching him take out a bowl of some kind of raw, ground-up meat from the refrigerator.
"Meat," he said, dumping it onto a cutting board.
"I know that, you idiot. What kind?"
"Ground beef." He pulled another container out and then another. "And this is veal. And this is pork."
"Do you have, like, a T.rex that you're going to feed?"
"Only if you want some. This is for meatloaf."
I stared. "With three kinds of meat?"
"Why eat something called meatloaf if you aren't actually going to get some meat out of it?"
I shook my head. "I can't believe this is only the first day with you."
He glanced down, focusing on kneading his tri-meat creation together. "You sure are making a big deal out of this. Do you really hate me that much? I heard you were screaming at the top of your lungs back in the gym."
"No, I wasn't. And ... I don't hate you at all," I admitted.
"You're just taking it out on me because you didn't get paired with Lissa."
I didn't answer. He wasn't that far off.
"You know," he continued, "it might actually be a good idea for you to practice with someone different."
"I know. That's what Dimitri says too."
Christian put the meat into a bowl and started adding some other ingredients. "Then why question it? Belikov knows what he's doing. I'd trust anything he says. It sucks that they're going to lose him after we graduate, but I'd rather see him with Lissa."
"Me too."
He paused and looked up, meeting my eyes. We both smiled, amused at how shocked we were to have agreed with each other. A moment later, he returned to his work.
"You're good too," he said, not too grudgingly. "The way you handled yourself..."
He didn't finish the thought, but I knew what he was talking about. Spokane. Christian hadn't been around when I killed the Strigoi, but he'd been instrumental in helping with the escape. He and I had teamed up, using his fire magic as a means of letting me subdue our captors. We'd worked well together, all of our animosity put aside.
"I guess you and I have better things to do than fight all the time," I mused. Like worry about Victor Dashkov's trial, I realized. For a moment, I considered telling Christian what I'd learned. He'd been around the night it had all gone down with Victor last fall, but I decided not to mention the news just yet. Lissa needed to hear it first.
"Yup," Christian said, unaware of my thoughts. "Brace yourself, but we aren't that different. I mean, I'm smarter and a lot funnier, but at the end of the day, we both want to keep her safe." He hesitated. "You know...I'm not going to take her away from you. I can't. No one can, not as long as you guys have that bond."
I was surprised he'd brought this up. I honestly suspected that there were two reasons he and I argued a lot. One was that we both had personalities that liked to argue. The other reason - the big one - was that we were each envious of the other's relationship with Lissa. But, as he'd said, we really had the same motives. We cared about her.
"And don't think the bond will keep you guys apart," I said. I knew the link bothered him. How could you ever get romantically close to someone when they had that kind of connection with another person, even if that other person was just a friend? "She cares about you. ..." I couldn't bring myself to say "loves." "She has a whole separate place for you in her heart."
Christian put his dish in the oven. "You did not just say that. I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other." He was trying to look disgusted at my sentiment, but I could tell he liked being told that Lissa cared about him.
"I already have a nickname for you, but I'll get in trouble if I say it in class."
"Ah," he said happily. "That's the Rose I know."
He went off to talk to another friend while his meatloaf cooked, which was probably just as well. My door was a vulnerable position, and I shouldn't have been chatting away, even if the rest of the class was. Across the room, I saw Jesse and Ralf working together. Like Christian, they'd chosen a blow-off class too.