She'd wandered outside to an adjacent courtyard, one that matched the Academy's grand external style. A roof of carved, twisting wood covered the garden, with little holes here and there to let in some light, but not enough to cause damage to Moroi. Trees, leaves now gone for the winter, lined the area and guarded paths leading out to other gardens, courtyards, and the main quadrangle. A pond, also emptied for the winter, lay in a corner, and standing over it was an imposing statue of St. Vladimir himself. Carved of gray rock, he wore long robes and had a beard and mustache.
Rounding a corner, I stopped when I saw Natalie had beaten me to Lissa. I considered interrupting but stepped back before they could see me. Spying might be bad, but I was suddenly very curious to hear what Natalie had to say to Lissa.
"She shouldn't have said that," Natalie said. She wore a yellow dress similar in cut to Lissa's, but somehow lacked the grace and poise to make it look as good. Yellow was also a terrible color on her. It clashed with her black hair, which she'd put up into an off-center bun. "It wasn't right," she went on. "Don't let it bother you."
"Kind of late for that." Lissa's eyes were locked firmly on the stone walkway below.
"She was wrong."
"She's right," Lissa exclaimed. "My parents...and Andre...they would have hated me for what I did."
"No, they wouldn't have." Natalie spoke in a gentle voice.
"It was stupid to run away. Irresponsible."
"So what? You made a mistake. I make mistakes all the time. The other day, I was doing this assignment in science, and it was for chapter ten, and I'd actually read chapter elev - " Natalie stopped herself and, in a remarkable show of restraint, got herself back on track. "People change. We're always changing, right? You aren't the same as you were then. I'm not the same as I was then."
Actually, Natalie seemed exactly the same to me, but that didn't bother me so much anymore. She'd grown on me.
"Besides," she added, "was running away really a mistake? You must have done it for a reason. You must have gotten something out of it, right? There was a lot of bad stuff going on with you, wasn't there? With your parents and your brother. I mean, maybe it was the right thing to do."
Lissa hid a smile. Both of us were pretty sure Natalie was trying to find out why we had left - just like everyone else in the school. She sort of sucked at being sneaky.
"I don't know if it was, no," Lissa answered. "I was weak. Andre wouldn't have run away. He was so good. Good at everything. Good at getting along with people and all that royal crap."
"You're good at that too."
"I guess. But I don't like it. I mean, I like people...but most of what they do is so fake. That's what I don't like."
"Then don't feel bad about not getting involved," Natalie said. "I don't hang out with all those people either, and look at me. I'm just fine. Daddy says he doesn't care if I hang out with the royals or not. He just wants me to be happy."
"And that," I said, finally making my appearance, "is why he should be ruling instead of that bitch of a queen. He got robbed."
Natalie nearly jumped ten feet. I felt pretty confident her vocabulary of swear words mostly consisted of "golly" and "darn."
"I wondered where you were," said Lissa.
Natalie looked back and forth between us, suddenly seeming a little embarrassed to be right between the best-friends dream team. She shifted uncomfortably and tucked some messy hair behind her ear. "Well...I should go find Daddy. I'll see you back in the room."
"See you," said Lissa. "And thanks."
Natalie hurried off.
"Does she really call him 'Daddy'?"
Lissa cut me a look. "Leave her alone. She's nice."
"She is, actually. I heard what she said, and as much as I hate to admit it, there was nothing there I could really make fun of. It was all true." I paused. "I'll kill her, you know. The queen, not Natalie. Screw the guardians. I'll do it. She can't get away with that."
"God, Rose! Don't say that. They'll arrest you for treason. Just let it go."
"Let it go? After what she said to you? In front of everyone?"
She didn't answer or even look at me. Instead, she toyed absentmindedly with the branches of a scraggly bush that had gone dormant for the winter. There was a vulnerable look about her that I recognized - and feared.
"Hey." I lowered my voice. "Don't look like that. She doesn't know what she's talking about, okay? Don't let this get you down. Don't do anything you shouldn't."
She glanced back up at me. "It's going to happen again, isn't it?" she whispered. Her hand, still clutching the tree, began to tremble.
"Not if you don't let it." I tried to look at her wrists without being too obvious. "You haven't?..."
"No." She shook her head and blinked back tears. "I haven't wanted to. I was upset after the fox, but it's been okay. I like the coasting thing. I miss seeing you, but everything's been all right. I like..." She paused.
I could hear the word forming in her mind.
"Christian."
"I wish you couldn't do that. Or wouldn't."
"Sorry. Do I need to give you the Christian's-a-psychopathic-loser talk again?"
"I think I've got it memorized after the last ten times," she muttered.