"Yeah.I'm fine."

I went into the gym's dressing room and changed into the workout clothes someone had finally thought to give me after a day of practicing in jeans and a T-shirt. Gross. Lisa hanging out with Christian troubled me, but I shoved that thought away for later as my muscles informed me they did not want to go through any more exercise today.

So I suggested to Dimitri that maybe he should let me off this time.

He laughed, and I was pretty sure it wasat me and notwith me.

"Why is that funny?"

«Oh,» hesaid, his smile dropping. "You were serious."

"Of course I was! Look, I've technically been awake fortwo days. Why do we have to start this training now? Let me go to bed, " I whined. "It's just one hour."

He crossed his arms and looked down at me. His earlier concern was gone. He was all business now.

Tough love. "How do you feel right now? After the training you've done so far?"

"I hurt like hell."

"You'll feel worse tomorrow."

"So?"

"So, better to jump in now while you still feel…not as bad."

"What kind of logic is that? " I retorted.

But I didn't argue anymore as he led me into the weight room. He showed me the weights and reps he wanted me to do, thensprawled in a corner with a battered Western novel.Some god.

When I finished, he stood beside me and demonstrated a few cool-down stretches.

"How'd you end up as Lisa's guardian? " I asked. "You weren't here a few years ago. Were you even trained at this school?"

He didn't answer right away. I got the feeling he didn't talk about himself very often. "No. I attended the one inSiberia."

"Whoa. That's got to be the only place worse thanMontana."

A glint of something-maybe amusement-sparked in his eyes, but he didn't acknowledge the joke.

"After I graduated, I was a guardian for a Zeklos lord. He was killed recently. " His smile dropped, his face grew dark. "They sent me here because they needed extras on campus. When the princess turned up, they assigned me to her, since I'd already be around. Not that it matters until she leaves campus."

I thought about what he'd said before. Some Strigoi killed the guy he was supposed to have been guarding? "Did this lord die on your watch?"

"No. He was with his other guardian. I was away."

He fell silent, his mind obviously somewhere else. The Moroi expected a lot from us, but they did recognize that the guardians were-more or less-only human. So, guardians got pay and time off like you'd get in any other job. Some hard-core guardians-like my mom-refused vacations, vowing never to leave their Moroi's sides. Looking at Dimitri now, I had a feeling he might very well turn into one of those. If he'd been away on legitimate leave, he could hardly blame himself for what happened to that guy. Still, he probably did anyway. I'd blame myself too if something happened to Lisa.

«Hey,» I said, suddenly wanting to cheer him up, "did you help come up with the plan to get us back?

Because it was pretty good.Brute force and all that."

He arched an eyebrow curiously. Cool. I'd always wished I could do that. "You're complimenting me on that?"

"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried."

"Last one?"

"Yeah.InChicago.With the pack of psi-hounds."

"This was the first time we found you.InPortland."

I sat up from my stretches and crossed my legs. "Um, I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who else could have sent them? They only answer to Moroi. Maybe no one told you about it."

«Maybe,» he said dismissively. I could tell by his face he didn't believe that.

I returned to the novices' dorm after that. The Moroi students lived on the other side of the quad, closer to the commons. The living arrangements were partly based on convenience. Being here kept us novices closer to the gym and training grounds. But we also lived separately to accommodate the differences in Moroi and dhampir lifestyles. Their dorm had almost no windows, aside from tinted ones that dimmed sunlight. They also had a special section where feeders always stayed on hand. The novices' dorm was built in a more open way, allowing for more light.

I had my own room because there were so few novices, let alone girls. The room they'd given me was small and plain, with a twin bed and a desk with a computer. My few belongings had been spirited out ofPortland and now sat in boxes around the room. I rummaged through them, pulling out a T-shirt to sleep in. I found a couple of pictures as I did, one of Lisa and me at a football game in Portland and another taken when I'd gone on vacation with her family, a year before the accident.

I set them on my desk and booted up the computer. Someone from tech support had helpfully given me a sheet with instructions for renewing my e-mail account and setting up a password. I did both, happy to discover no one had realized that this would serve as a way for me to communicate with Lisa. Too tired to write to her now, I was about to turn everything off when I noticed I already had a message.From Janine Hathaway. It was short:

I'm glad you're back. What you did was inexcusable.

"Love you too, Mom, " I muttered, shutting it all down.

When I went to bed afterward, I passed out before even hitting the pillow, and just as Dimitri had predicted, I felt ten times worse when I woke up the next morning. Lying there in bed, I reconsidered the perks of running away. Then I remembered getting my ass kicked and figured the only way to prevent that from happening again was to go endure some more of it this morning.

My soreness made it all that much worse, but I survived the before-school practice with Dimitri and my subsequent classes without passing out or fainting.

At lunch, I dragged Lisa away from Natalie's table early and gave her a Kirova-worthy lecture about Christian-particularly chastising her for letting him know about our blood arrangement. If that got out, it'd kill both of us socially and I didn't trust him not to tell.

Lisa had other concerns.

"You were in my head again? " she exclaimed. "Forthat long?"

"I didn't do it on purpose, " I argued. "It just happened. And that's not the point. How long did you hang out with him afterward?"

"Not that long. It was kind of…fun."

"Well, you can't do it again. If people find out you're hanging out with him, they'll crucify you. " I eyed her warily. "You aren't, like, into him, are you?"

She scoffed. "No.Of course not.

"Good. Because if you're going to go after a guy, steal Aaron back. " He was boring, yes, but safe. Just like Natalie. How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe.

She laughed. "Mia would claw my eyes out."

"We can take her. Besides, he deserves someone who doesn't shop at Gap Kids."

"Rose, you've got to stop saying things like that."

"I'm just saying what you won't."

"She's only a year younger, " said Lisa. She laughed. "I can't believe you thinkI'm the one who's going to get us in trouble."

Smiling as we strolled toward class, I gave her a sidelong glance. "Aaron does look pretty good though, huh?"

She smiled back and avoided my eyes. "Yeah.Pretty good."

"Ooh. You see? You should go after him."

"Whatever. I'm fine being friends now."

"Friends who used to stick their tongues down each other's throats."

She rolled her eyes.

"Fine. "I let my teasing go. "Let Aaron stay in the nursery school. Just so long as you stay away from Christian. He's dangerous."

"You're overreacting. He's not going Strigoi."

"He's a bad influence."

She laughed. "You thinkI'm in danger of going Strigoi?"

She didn't wait for my answer, instead pushing ahead to open the door to our science class. Standing there, I uneasily replayed her words and then followed a moment later. When I did, I got to see royal power in action. A few guys-with giggling, watching girls-were messing with a gangly-looking Moroi. I didn't know him very well, but I knew he was poor and certainly not royal. A couple of his tormentors were air-magic users, and they'd blown the papers off his desk and were pushing them around the room on currents of air while the guy tried to catch them.