A DEADLY WARNING
When a fox with a slit throat is discovered in Lissa’s dorm room, Rose sees this as a serious and disturbing red flag. Lissa, who has a deep love for animals, immediately reaches for the poor thing to try to help it. But Rose restrains her. It reminds her too much of a dead raven Lissa also wanted to save once . . .
She turned to me, eyes almost wild. “Rose . . . do you remember . . . that one time . . .”
“Stop it,” I said. “Forget about it. This isn’t the same thing.”
“What if someone saw? What if someone knows? . . .”
I tightened my grip on her arm, digging my nails in to get her attention. She flinched. “No. It’s not the same. It has nothing to do with that. Do you hear me?” I could feel both Natalie’s and Dimitri’s eyes on us. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
—page 99
They have no idea who’d leave such a gruesome gift. Is this somebody’s idea of a stupid joke? Or is it a threat? And from whom? Mia? Or could it be someone with even darker intentions?
In class, a Moroi jerk named Ralf taunts Lissa about the fox. Other students know Rose and Lissa were brought back against their will to the school, so a new rumor is circulating that Lissa killed the fox so she’d be considered crazy enough to get expelled. Rose warns Ralf off, but he doesn’t take the hint . . .
At least not until he bursts into flames courtesy of Christian’s fire magic. Looks like Christian is getting a bit protective of Lissa. And he knows the stakes, too. Using magic in class is forbidden, and he gets kicked out for defending Lissa. But rather than impress Rose, all it does is convince her that Christian’s a serious danger to her friend. However, Rose worries it’s possible Lissa doesn’t feel the same way and that she might be starting to like the outcast. Later, Rose slips into her friend’s head—this is the first time she’s been able to do this with conscious effort—to see if her suspicions are correct. Yup. Lissa’s in the attic again with the fire starter himself.
To most Moroi, like Lissa, their elemental magic is peaceful, not something to be used as a weapon. Obviously, Christian feels differently. Moroi used to fight with their magic, to defend themselves against Strigoi rather than depend entirely on guardians. Some have forgotten, but others haven’t. This will soon become a very hot topic—no fire-magic pun intended—in the Moroi world.
Christian knows Lissa uses compulsion on others—and he’s right. Compulsion is the ability all Moroi have to mentally influence someone else—only some Moroi, like Lissa, are much stronger in it than others. It’s how the girls got by in the human world for so long. Same thing as lighting someone on fire, really. Both are forbidden abilities.
“What are you going to do then?” she asked. “ You going to turn me in?”
He shook his head and smiled. “No. I think it’s hot.”
—page 114
Despite herself, Lissa can’t help but be attracted to Christian. And it’s not just that. When she’s with him, she feels . . . at peace. Like she can be herself without trying to hide what she really is.
It’s always been Rose and Lissa against the world, but now it looks as if her best friend has found someone else. Rose can’t help but feel jealous about this.
The best way to deal with feeling cast aside? Hook up with a hot guy. Sounds like a plan. The hot guy in question is Jesse Zeklos, a Moroi who’s always found Rose gorgeous and with whom she’s fooled around a bit in the past. And right now, she definitely needs a bit of an ego boost.
That night, they find a private place to make out. When Jesse’s sharp fangs brush against Rose’s skin, it reminds her of what it feels like to be bit—really, really good. The endorphins in a Moroi’s bite make the act totally addictive. However, the last thing she needs is for everyone to start thinking she’s a blood whore—she hasn’t even gone all the way with anyone yet. Moroi guys love hooking up with dhampir girls, but it almost never leads to anything serious like marriage since Moroi like to keep their bloodlines going with other pure Moroi. And yet . . . she’s not totally pulling Jesse away and he’s starting to get encouraged.
But then the door bursts open. It’s Dimitri. Uh-oh.
“Mr. Zeklos, do you have permission to be in this part of the dorm ?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know the rules about male and female interactions around here?”
“ Yes, sir.”
“Then I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can before I turn you over to someone who will punish you accordingly. If I ever see you like this again”—Dimitri pointed to where I cowered, half-dressed, on the couch—“I will be the one to punish you. And it will hurt. A lot. Do you understand?”
—page 120
Dimitri successfully chases Jesse away and then turns his dangerous gaze on Rose. But then, as he studies her body, currently clad only in jeans and a bra, his gaze shifts to something more like . . . desire. Suddenly the thought of Dimitri touching her is all Rose can think about. Which, of course, she realizes is way wrong. He’s seven years older than she is. And her instructor. And . . . there are a lot of other reasons she shouldn’t be thinking of him this way—or vice versa.
What was I thinking? Was I out of my mind? Embarrassed, I covered my feelings with attitude.
“You see something you like?” I asked.
“Get dressed.”
—page 121
The heated moment passes and Dimitri’s all business again, chastising Rose for not taking her reinstatement at the school seriously. If she really wants to protect Lissa, she needs to focus. And she will. She wants Dimitri to teach her to really fight. So far all she’s had are remedial lessons with him as he’s attempted to catch her up on everything she’s missed out on in the last two years.
She wants to really learn how to fight?
Fine. They’ll start tomorrow.
MS. KARP AND THE RAVEN
Her many issues and interactions with Dimitri are very distracting, but Rose’s first priority is her best friend’s safety now that they’re back at the school. What happened with the dead fox in Lissa’s room weighs heavily on Rose’s mind. It’s much too similar to what happened two years ago just before they ran away.
Back then, Ms. Karp, a young, pretty teacher at the school who always acted a bit loony, caught Rose and Lissa in the woods with booze in hand. Busted. The three of them then found a dead raven on the ground and Lissa, seemingly transfixed, reached for it . . . and brought it back to life with her touch!
Another time, Ms. Karp had healed one of Rose’s injuries. Was the ability to heal the raven—and Lissa’s need to do the same with the fox—the same kind of thing? It’s the first sign that there are some strange similarities between Ms. Karp and Lissa. Just like Lissa, Ms. Karp never specialized in a specific element with her magic like all other Moroi do.
Their teacher was disturbed by the incident with the raven and made them promise not to say anything about it. She warned Rose never to let Lissa attempt to bring something back to life again. Ms. Karp’s paranoia worked, instilling Rose with a fear of anyone finding out about Lissa’s ability to heal—to the point of bringing animals back to life. It would put her friend in jeopardy.
With the dead fox, it was clear to Rose that Lissa wanted to resurrect the dead fox too—but that would risk others finding out about Lissa’s strange and secret ability.
But does someone already know what it is?
FALLING FOR DIMITRI
Rose tries to focus on her next session with Dimitri, the first where they’re going to work on taking her training to the next level. She’s supposed to hit him, but he easily knocks her to the ground, which is frustrating. When he turns his back, Rose tries to attack, but he’s able to grab her and pin her to the ground.
It’s full body contact with the gorgeous Russian.
All of a sudden, it occurred to me that he was still holding me down. The skin on his fingers was warm as he clutched my wrists. His face
hovered inches from my own, and his legs and torso were actually pressing against mine. Some of his long brown hair hung around his face, and he appeared to be noticing me too, almost like he had that night in the lounge. And oh God, did he smell good.
—page 141
It’s a very sexy moment, and Rose realizes she’s seriously crushing on her gorgeous, older mentor. Bad idea! It’s absolutely the last thing she needs right now with the rest of the problems she’s dealing with!
Thankfully, there’s something else for Rose to focus on. Queen Tatiana, the leader of the Moroi world, is coming to the school on an official visit in celebration of All Saints’ Day, and the school is buzzing in anticipation and excitement of this. Rose isn’t too impressed, though. Visits from the queen and her royal party are fairly common, but after being given permission to attend the event, it does give her the chance to socialize with others at the royal banquet.
This doesn’t go so well—not for Lissa, anyway. During the welcoming assembly, the queen pauses to speak with the last remaining Dragomir—but their conversation quickly takes a nosedive when the queen intimates, in front of everyone, that Lissa shamed her family name by running away. Lissa is mortified.
Mia, of course, makes a point to mock Lissa for this public embarrassment. Rose jumps to Lissa’s defense as always and, in a heated moment, disses Mia’s family for being “servants.” Dimitri breaks up the verbal sparring, sending Mia on her way, and he begins to escort Rose back to her dorm to avoid any further trouble. As they leave, Rose notices Christian making a beeline for her distraught friend, but she stops him before Lissa sees him. Rose thinks Christian’s a bad influence and decides to lie to him, to tell him Lissa doesn’t like him and thinks he’s a freak. The lie works perfectly, and a hurt Christian steers clear of Lissa that night.
Later, Rose is awakened by Lissa’s emotions flowing through their bond—she’s incredibly upset. When Rose makes it to her friend’s dorm room, she sees that someone has left another horrific gift for Lissa—a dead rabbit. This time there’s a note attached warning Lissa that the sender knows what she is and that she won’t survive if she stays at the Academy. The grave message is enough to put her over the edge, and she resorts to her old method of dealing with stress. Cutting herself helps refocus her pain. This is a very bad sign for Rose, since this isn’t the first time Lissa’s done this. It happened before they ran away from the school, and it means Lissa’s becoming more mentally fragile by the day. Rose is very worried about her friend.
As desperate as Rose is to help Lissa, the next day she has other major problems she can’t ignore. There’s now a devastating rumor going around that Rose had sex with both Jesse and his friend Ralf...and she let them drink her blood. Everyone’s saying that Rose Hathaway is a blood whore. Rose is willing to bet the mastermind behind this little catastrophe is Mia—Jesse and Ralf are just her meathead tools.
But this realization doesn’t help matters. The damage is done.
A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. I thought about the friends and respect I’d managed to eke out, despite our low profile. That would be gone. You couldn’t come back from something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood whore, always a blood whore. What made it worse was that some dark, secret part of me did like being bitten.
—page 173
Sickened by the rumors, Lissa resolves to protect Rose from now on, just as Rose has always protected her. She begins to use her compulsion to get everyone to shun Mia and accept Rose again.
And it actually starts to work. Before long, the rumors about Rose begin to fade—and not only that, Lissa’s accepted back into the popular crowd and has successfully stolen Aaron away from the vengeful Mia. While she’s not in love with her ex, it’s a way to snub Mia and hang out with the royal students again now that she isn’t trying to keep a low profile around school anymore—which hasn’t really gained them anything. Besides, dating-wise, it’s not like Christian is even acknowledging her existence anymore, so what difference does it make if she dates Aaron? Lissa, of course, doesn’t realize that Christian is only distancing himself from Lissa because of what Rose told him.
But the more Lissa uses compulsion to fix things, the darker her moods become. Rose finds herself worrying more and more about Lissa’s ever-diminishing emotional stability, and this sends her straight back to researching the story of St. Vladimir. The similarities to Lissa and Ms. Karp are striking—like them, he was able to heal. But his talents didn’t end there. He could also bring people back from the dead. Rose needs to know more, but information on the saint is extremely hard to find.
Fortunately, there’s a box of St. Vlad’s writings in the chapel’s attic—Rose remembers Christian pointing out a box to Lissa that he said was “full of the writings of the blessed and crazy St. Vladimir.” Rose sends Mason, who’s been helping her research St. Vlad at the library, with a message to Christian to bring them to her. He does, which is a bit of a surprise given their unfriendly relationship, especially in regard to Lissa.
Rose reads St. Vlad’s diary and is intrigued when he mentions his gratitude toward his “shadow-kissed” guardian, Anna, and his ability to heal. It scares Rose to read that the more he used his powers, the crazier and more depressed he became, leading to an attempted suicide. It’s more proof that there are similarities between St. Vlad, Lissa, and Ms. Karp, especially in light of Lissa’s increasingly darker moods . . . Rose’s concern for Lissa is turning to real worry.
It only gets worse when Lissa has a big party in her room. She gets drunk, and her emotions begin to run rampant. It reminds Rose of another party two years ago when Lissa had gone over the edge—and nearly used her compulsion to force a jerk of a guy to bludgeon himself to death with a baseball bat after he’d abused a helpless human feeder.
Luckily, Rose managed to stop her then, but the darkness and anger coming from Lissa scared her deeply. Before they left the school last time, Ms. Karp had eventually gone completely insane from the darkness that ruled her mind. Rose didn’t want the same to happen to her best friend.
This is why Rose had insisted they run away two years ago. With everything happening—the dead animals, the warnings, the overuse of compulsion—are they headed down that road again?
Rose does more research on St. Vladimir and is struck by one phrase in particular: St. Vlad was said to be “full of spirit.” Just like Ms. Karp and Lissa, he never specialized in an element whereas all other Moroi will specialize in fire, air, earth, or water magic.
When Rose tells Lissa what she’s learned, Lissa is edgy, defensive, and quick to argue. However, she finally agrees to stop compelling people and using her healing ability to see if it makes a difference in her moods.
Even though Lissa has been dating the popular, good-looking Aaron in order to regain her status in the school’s royal social stratosphere, get revenge on Mia, and work her influence on everyone to clear Rose’s reputation, Rose isn’t so sure anymore that he’s the best choice of boyfriends. He’s boring. Christian, however, isn’t boring and might actually be good for her friend.
He was creepy and dark and liked to set people on fire, true. On the other hand, he was smart and funny—in a twisted way—and somehow had a calming effect on Lissa.
—page 222
Damn. Rose had messed it all up. She now knows she made a big mistake about lying to Christian about Lissa’s real feelings, letting anger and jealousy get the best of her. Lissa was better when she was friends with him, and she seems worse off without him in her life.
Rose apologizes to Christian for lying, but even if he believes her, he’s not sure he wants to be friends with Lissa anymore. After all, she’s been acting very royal by hanging out with her old, snobby friends and seemingly embracing her old elitist “Princess Lissa” ways. That’s definitely not the outcast Christian’s scene, even if there are reasons behind Lissa’s actions other than a grasp at her previous popularity. Rose then relates her worries about Lissa and how she won’t lis
ten to Rose’s advice, but she might listen to Christian. Finally, reluctantly, he agrees to talk to her and try to help her, even though he thinks that any big problems—like Lissa’s secret cutting—should be discussed with Kirova or Dimitri.
“Lissa wouldn’t like that.” I considered. “Neither would I.”
“Yeah, well, we all have to do things we don’t like. That’s life.”
My snarky switch flipped on. “What are you, an after-school special?”
A ghostly smile flickered across his lips. “If you weren’t so psychotic, you’d be fun to hang around.”
“Funny, I feel the same way about you.”
—page 227
But before Rose has time to hope things might get better, the girls receive another threat in the form of a dead dove. They still have no idea who it’s from or what they want other than trying to scare the girls away from the school.
FIELD TRIP
Despite their mounting problems, a few days later the girls are invited on a shopping trip with Natalie and her ailing father, Victor. Since Rose is still basically “grounded” as punishment for running away, Dimitri suggests they justify the trip away from the school by treating it as a training exercise—Rose’s first official day in the real world as Lissa’s unofficial guardian. In the future, she’s reminded by another guardian along for the day, both she and the gorgeous Dimitri will be required to guard Lissa together—so they better start practicing.