"It's okay." she said, after a moment. She sighed and touched my arm. "Fine. We'll stay and we'll keep out of all that stuff. We'll 'coast through the middle' like you want. Hang out with Natalie, I guess."
To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any of that. I wanted to go to all the royal parties and wild drunken festivities like we'd done before. We'd kept out of that life for years until Lissa's parents and brother died. Andre should have been the one to inherit her family's title, and he'd certainly acted like it. Handsome and outgoing, he'd charmed everyone he knew and had been a leader in all the royal cliques and clubs that existed on campus. After his death, Lissa had felt it was her family duty to take his place.
I'd gotten to join that world with her. It was easy for me, because I didn't really have to deal with the politics of it. I was a pretty dhampir, one who didn't mind getting into trouble and pulling crazy stunts. I became a novelty; they liked having me around for the fun of it.
Lissa had to deal with other matters. The Dragomirs were one of the twelve ruling families. She'd have a very powerful place in Moroi society, and the other young royals wanted to get in good with her. Fake friends tried to schmooze her and get her to team up against other people. The royals could bribe and backstab in the same breath - and that was just with each other. To dhampirs and non-royals, they were completely unpredictable.
That cruel culture had eventually taken its toll on Lissa. She had an open, kind nature, one that I loved, and I hated to see her upset and stressed by royal games. She'd grown fragile since the accident, and all the parties in the world weren't worth seeing her hurt.
"All right then," I said finally. "We'll see how this goes. If anything goes wrong - anything at all - we leave. No arguments."
She nodded.
"Rose?"
We both looked up at Dimitri's looming form. I hoped he hadn't heard the part about us leaving.
"You're late for practice," he said evenly. Seeing Lissa, he gave a polite nod. "Princess."
As he and I walked away, I worried about Lissa and wondered if staying here was the right thing to do. I felt nothing alarming through the bond, but her emotions spiked all over the place. Confusion. Nostalgia. Fear. Anticipation. Strong and powerful, they flooded into me.
I felt the pull just before it happened. It was exactly like what had happened on the plane: her emotions grew so strong that they "sucked" me into her head before I could stop them. I could now see and feel what she did.
She walked slowly around the commons, toward the small Russian Orthodox chapel that served most of the school's religious needs. Lissa had always attended mass regularly. Not me.
I had a standing arrangement with God: I'd agree to believe in him - barely - so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.
But as she went inside, I could feel that she wasn't there to pray. She had another purpose, one I didn't know about. Glancing around, she verified that neither the priest nor any worshippers were close by. The place was empty.
Slipping through a doorway in the back of the chapel, she climbed a narrow set of creaky stairs up into the attic. Here it was dark and dusty. The only light came through a large stained-glass window that fractured the faint glow of sunrise into tiny, multicolored gems across the floor.
I hadn't known until that moment that this room was a regular retreat for Lissa. But now I could feel it, feel her memories of how she used to escape here to be alone and to think. The anxiety in her ebbed away ever so slightly as she took in the familiar surroundings. She climbed up into the window seat and leaned her head back against its side, momentarily entranced by the silence and the light.
Moroi could stand some sunlight, unlike the Strigoi, but they had to limit their exposure. Sitting here, she could almost pretend she was in the sun, protected by the glass's dilution of the rays.
Breathe, just breathe, she told herself. It'll be okay. Rose will take care of everything.
She believed that passionately, like always, and relaxed further.
Then a low voice spoke from the darkness.
"You can have the Academy but not the window seat."
She sprang up, heart pounding. I shared her anxiety, and my own pulse quickened. "Who's there?"
A moment later, a shape rose from behind a stack of crates, just outside her field of vision. The figure stepped forward, and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized. Messy black hair. Pale blue eyes. A perpetually sardonic smirk.
Christian Ozera.
"Don't worry," he said. "I won't bite. Well, at least not in the way you're afraid of." He chuckled at his own joke.
She didn't find it funny. She had completely forgotten about Christian. So had I.