"Not my business. If it was big enough to take you over like that, then it must be serious. But if push comes to shove, I feel safe with you, Rose. I know you'd protect me if there was really a Strigoi there." He yawned. "Okay. Now that I've bared my soul, can we please go to bed? Maybe you don't need beauty sleep, but some of us aren't that lucky."
I let him sleep and soon gave into exhaustion myself. I'd had a long day and was still short on rest from the previous night. Once heavily asleep, I began to dream. As I did, I felt the telltale signs of one of Adrian's contrived dreams.
"Oh no," I groaned.
I stood in a garden in the middle of summer. The air was heavy and humid, and sunshine beat down on me in golden waves. Flowers of every color bloomed around me, and the air was heavy with the scent of lilacs and roses. Bees and butterflies danced from blossom to blossom. I wore jeans and a linen tank top. My nazar, a small blue eye made of glass that allegedly warded off evil, hung around my neck. I also wore a beaded bracelet with a cross, called a chotki, on my wrist. It was a Dragomir heirloom Lissa had given me. I rarely wore jewelry in my daily duties, but it always showed up in these dreams.
"Where are you?" I called. "I know you're here."
Adrian stepped around from behind an apple tree that was thick with pink and white flowers. He wore jeans - something I'd never seen him in before. They looked good and were undoubtedly a designer brand. A dark green cotton T-shirt - also very simple - covered his upper body, and the sunlight brought out highlights of gold and chestnut in his brown hair.
"I told you to stay out of my dreams," I said, putting my hands on my hips.
He gave me his lazy smile. "But how else are we supposed to talk? You didn't seem very friendly earlier."
"Maybe if you didn't use compulsion on people, you'd have more friends."
"I had to save you from yourself. Your aura was like a storm cloud."
"Okay, for once, can we please not talk about auras and my impending doom?"
The look in his eyes told me he was actually really interested in that, but he let it go. "Okay. We can talk about other things."
"But I don't want to talk at all! I want to sleep."
"You are sleeping." Adrian smiled and walked over to study a flowering vine that was winding up a post. It had orange and yellow flowers shaped like trumpets. He gently ran his fingers over one of the flowers' edges. "This was my grandmother's garden."
"Great," I said, making myself comfortable against the apple tree. It looked like we could be here for a while. "Now I get to hear your family history."
"Hey she was a cool lady."
"I'm sure she was. Can I go yet?"
His eyes were still on the vine's blossoms. "You shouldn't knock Moroi family trees. You don't know anything about your father. For all you know, we could be related."
"Would that mean you'd leave me alone?"
Strolling back over to me, he switched subjects as though there'd been no interruption. "Nah, don't worry. I think we come from different trees. Isn't your dad some Turkish guy anyway?"
"Yeah, according to my - Hey, are you staring at my chest?"
He was studying me closely, but his eyes were no longer on my face. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared.
"I'm staring at your shirt," he said. "The color is all wrong."
Reaching out, he touched the strap. Like ink spreading across paper, the ivory fabric turned the same shade of rich indigo as the vine's blossoms. He narrowed his eyes like an expert artist studying his work.
"How'd you do that?" I exclaimed.
"It's my dream. Hmm. You're not a blue person. Well, at least not in the color sense. Let's try this." The blue lit up into a brilliant crimson. "Yes, that's it. Red's your color. Red like a rose, like a sweet, sweet Rose."
"Oh man," I said. "I didn't know you could kick into crazy mode even in dreams." He never got as dark and depressed as Lissa had last year, but spirit definitely made him weird sometimes.
He stepped back and threw his arms out. "I'm always crazy around you, Rose. Here, I'm going to write an impromptu poem for you." He tipped his head back and shouted to the sky:
"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."
I started to ask again about when I could go "back" to sleep, but our exchange brought something to my mind.
"Adrian ... how do you know if you're crazy or not?"
He turned from the flowers, a smile on his face. I could tell he was about to make a joke, but then he looked at me more closely. The smile faded, and he turned unusually serious.
"Do you think you're crazy?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said, looking down at the ground. I was barefoot, and sharp blades of grass tickled my feet. "I've been ... seeing things."
"People who are crazy rarely question whether they're crazy," he said wisely.
I sighed and looked back up at him. "That doesn't really help me."