Even as I floated along, my mind churned over something else that I'd been thinking about. "You know, there's something funny about Tasha's scars."

"What's that?" he asked.

"The scars…they mess up her face," I began slowly. I was having trouble putting my thoughts into words. "I mean, it's obvious she used to be really pretty. But even with the scars now … I don't know. She's pretty in a different way. It's like…like they're part of her. They complete her." It sounded silly, but it was true.

Dimitri didn't say anything, but he gave me a sidelong glance. I returned it, and as our eyes met, I saw the briefest glimpse of the old attraction. It was fleeting and gone too soon, but I'd seen it. Pride and approval replaced it, and they were almost as good.

When he spoke, it was to echo his earlier thoughts. "You're a fast learner, Roza."

CHAPTER 6

I was feeling pretty good about life when I headed to my before-school practice the next day. The secret gathering last night had been super fun, and I felt proudly responsible for fighting the system and encouraging Dimitri to go with Tasha. Better still, I'd gotten my first crack at a silver stake yesterday and had proven I could handle one. High on myself, I couldn't wait to practice even more.

Once I was dressed in my usual workout attire, I practically skipped down to the gym. But when I stuck my head inside the practice room from the day before, I found it dark and quiet. Flipping on the light, I peered around just in case Dimitri was conducting some kind of weird, covert training exercise. Nope. Empty. No staking today.

"Shit," I muttered.

"He's not here."

I yelped and nearly jumped ten feet in the air. Turning around, I looked straight into my mother's narrowed brown eyes.

"What are you doing here?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, her appearance registered with me. A stretchy spandex shirt with short sleeves. Loose, drawstring workout pants similar to the ones I wore. "Shit," I said again.

"Watch your mouth," she snapped. "You might behave like you have no manners, but at least try not to sound that way."

"Where's Dimitri?"

"Guardian Belikov is in bed. He just got back a couple of hours ago and needed to sleep."

Another expletive was on my lips, and I bit it back. Of course Dimitri was asleep. He'd had to drive with Tasha to Missoula during daylight in order to be there during human shopping hours. He'd technically been up all of the Academy's night and had probably only just gotten back. Ugh. I wouldn't have been so quick to encourage him to help her if I'd known it'd result in this.

"Well," I said hastily. "I guess that means practice is canceled-"

"Be quiet and put these on." She handed me some training mitts. They were similar to boxing gloves but not as thick and bulky. They shared the same purpose, however: to protect your hands and keep you from gouging your opponent with your nails.

"We've been working on silver stakes," I said sulkily shoving my hands into the mitts.

"Well, today we're doing this. Come on."

Wishing I'd been hit by a bus on my walk from the dorm today, I followed her out toward the center of the gym. Her curly hair was pinned up to stay out of the way, revealing the back of her neck. The skin there was covered in tattoos. The top one was a serpentine line: the promise mark, given when guardians graduated from academies like St. Vladimir's and agreed to serve. Below that were the molnija marks awarded each time a guardian killed a Strigoi. They were shaped like the lightning bolts they took their name from. I couldn't gauge exact numbers, but let's just say it was a wonder my mom had any neck left to tattoo. She'd wielded a lot of death in her time.

When she reached the spot she wanted, she turned toward me and adopted an attack stance. Half expecting her to jump me then and there, I quickly mirrored it.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Basic offensive and defensive parrying. Use the red lines."

"That's all?" I asked.

She leapt toward me. I dodged-just barely-and tripped over my own feet in the process. Hastily, I righted myself.

"Well," she said in a voice that almost sounded sarcastic. "As you seem so keen on reminding me, I haven't seen you in five years. I have no idea what you can do."

She moved on me again, and again I just barely kept within the lines in escaping her. That quickly became the pattern. She never really gave me the chance to go on the offensive. Or maybe I just didn't have the skills to take the offensive. I spent all my time defending myself-physically, at least. Grudgingly, I had to acknowledge to myself that she was good. Really good. But I certainly wasn't going to tell her that.

"So, what?" I asked. "This is your way of making up for maternal negligence?"

"This is my way of making you get rid of that chip on your shoulder. You've had nothing but attitude for me since I arrived. You want to fight?" Her fist shot out and connected with my arm. "Then we'll fight. Point."

"Point," I conceded, backing up to my side. "I don't want to fight. I've just been trying to talk to you."

"Mouthing off to me in class isn't what I'd really call talking. Point."

I grunted from the hit. When I'd first begun training with Dimitri, I'd complained that it wasn't fair for me to fight someone a foot taller than me. He'd pointed out that I'd fight plenty of Strigoi taller than me and that the old adage was true: size doesn't matter. Sometimes I thought ht was giving me false hope, but judging from my mom's performance here, I was starting to believe him.

I'd never actually fought anyone smaller than me. As one of the few girls in the novice classes, I accepted that I was almost always going to be shorter and slimmer than my opponents. But my mother was smaller still and clearly had nothing but muscle packed into her petite body.

"I have a unique style of communication, that's all," I said.

"You have a petty teenage delusion that you've somehow been wronged for the last seventeen years." Her foot hit my thigh. "Point. When in reality, you've been treated no differently than any other dhampir. Better, actually. I could have sent you off to live with my cousins. You want to be a blood whore? Is that what you wanted?"

The term "blood whore" always made me flinch. It was a term often applied to the single dhampir mothers who decided to raise their children instead of becoming guardians. These women often had short-term affairs with Moroi men and were looked down on for it-even though there wasn't really anything else they could have done, since Moroi men usually ended up marrying Moroi women. The "blood whore" term came from the fact that some dhampir women let men drink blood from them during sex. In our world, only humans gave blood. A dhampir doing it was dirty and kinky-especially during sex. I suspected only a few dhampir women actually did this, but unfairly, the term tended to get applied to all of them. I had given blood to Lissa when we had run away, and although it had been a necessary act, the stigma still stayed with me.

"No. Of course I don't want to be a blood whore." My breathing was becoming heavy. "And they're not all like that. There're only a few that actually are."

"They bring that reputation on themselves," she growled. I dodged her strike. "They should be doing their duty as guardians, not continuing to fool around and have flings with Moroi."

"They're raising their children," I grunted. I wanted to yell but couldn't waste the oxygen. "Something you'd know nothing about. Besides, aren't you the same as they are? I don't see a ring on your finger. Wasn't my dad just a fling for you?"

Her face turned hard, which is saying something when you're already beating up your daughter. "That," she said tightly, "is something you know nothing about. Point."