"Rose is in red

But never in blue

Sharp as a thorn

Fights like one too."

Adrian dropped his arms and looked at me expectantly.

"How can a thorn fight?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Art doesn't have to make sense, little dhampir. Besides, I'm supposed to be crazy, right?"

"Not the craziest I've ever seen."

"Well," he said, pacing over to study some hydrangeas, "I'll work on that."

I started to ask again about when I could go «back» to sleep, but our exchange brought something to my mind.

"Adrian … how do you know if you're crazy or not?"

He turned from the flowers, a smile on his face. I could tell he was about to make a joke, but then he looked at me more closely. The smile faded, and he turned unusually serious.

"Do you think you're crazy?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said, looking down at the ground. I was barefoot, and sharp blades of grass tickled my feet. "I've been … seeing things."

"People who are crazy rarely question whether they're crazy," he said wisely.

I sighed and looked back up at him. "That doesn't really help me."

He walked back over to me and rested a hand on my shoulder. "I don't think you're crazy, Rose. I think you've been through a lot, though."

I frowned. "What's that mean?"

"It means I don't think you're crazy."

"Thanks. That clears things up. You know, these dreams are really starting to bug me."

"Lissa doesn't mind them," he said.

"You visit hers too? Do you seriously have no boundaries?"

"Nah, hers are instructional. She wants to learn how to do this."

"Great. So I'm just the lucky one who gets to put up with your sexual harassment."

He actually looked hurt. "I really wish you wouldn't act like I'm evil incarnate."

"Sorry. I just haven't had much reason to believe you can do anything useful."

"Right. As opposed to your cradle-robbing mentor. I don't really see you making much progress with him."

I took a step back and narrowed my eyes. "Leave Dimitri out of this."

"I will when you stop acting like he's perfect. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's one of the people who hid the trial from you, right?"

I looked away. "That's not important right now. Besides, he had his reasons."

"Yeah, which apparently didn't involve being open with you or fighting to get you there. Whereas me…" He shrugged. "I could get you into the trial."

"You?" I asked with a harsh laugh. "How are you going to pull that off? Have a smoke break with the judge? Use compulsion on the queen and half the royals at court?"

"You shouldn't be so quick to slam people who can help you. Just wait." He placed a light kiss on my forehead that I tried to wiggle away from. "But for now, go get some rest."

The garden faded, and I fell back into the normal blackness of sleep.

CHAPTER 8

For the next few days, I followed Christian around without incident. And as I did, I found myself growing more and more impatient.

For one thing, I was discovering that a lot of being a guardian was waiting around. I'd always known that, but the reality was harder than I'd realized. Guardians were absolutely essential for when Strigoi decided to attack. But those Strigoi attacks? They were generally rare. Time could pass—years could pass—without a guardian ever having to engage in any sort of conflict. While my instructors certainly wouldn't make us wait that long during this exercise, they nonetheless wanted to teach us patience and how important it was not to slack just because there'd been no danger in a while.

We were also being held to the strictest conditions a guardian could be in: always standing and always being formal. More often than not, guardians who lived with Moroi families behaved casually in their homes and did ordinary things like reading or watching TV—while still staying perfectly aware of any threats. We couldn't always expect that, though, so we had to practice the hard way while in school.

My patience level didn't do so well with all this waiting, but my frustration was more than just restlessness. I was desperate to prove myself, to make amends for not having reacted when Stan attacked. I'd had no further Mason sightings and had decided that what I'd seen really had been fatigue- and stress-induced. That made me happy, because those were much better reasons than being crazy or inept.

But certain things were not making me happy. When Christian and I met up with Lissa after class one day, I could feel worry and fear and anger radiating off of her. It was only the bond that clued me in, though. To all outside appearances, she looked fine. Eddie and Christian, who were talking about something with each other, didn't notice a thing.

I moved close and put an arm around her as we walked. "It's okay. Everything's going to be okay." I knew what was bothering her. Victor.

We'd decided that Christian—despite his willingness to "take care of things" — probably wasn't the best choice to go see about us getting into Victor's trial. So Lissa had played diplomat the other day and very politely spoken to Alberta about the possibility of us testifying. Alberta had told her, equally politely, that it was out of the question.

"I figured if we just explained things—why it was so important—they'd let us go," she murmured to me. "Rose, I can't sleep. … I just keep thinking about it. What if he gets loose? What if they really set him free?"

Her voice trembled, and there was an old vulnerability there that I hadn't seen in a long time. That sort of thing usually set off my warning bells, but this time, it triggered a weird rush of memories, of times past when Lissa had depended on me so much. I was happy to see how strong she'd become and wanted to make sure she stayed that way. I tightened my arm, hard to do while still walking.

"He won't get loose," I said fiercely. "We'll get to court. I'll make sure of it. You know I'd never let anything happen to you."

She leaned her head against my shoulder, a small smile on her face. "That's what I love about you. You have no idea how you'll get us to court, but you still push forward anyway to make me feel better."

"Is it working?"

"Yes."

The worry still lurked in her, but her amusement dampened its effects a little. Plus, despite her teasing me about my bold promise, my words really had reassured her.

Unfortunately, we soon found out that Lissa had other reasons to be frustrated. She was waiting for the medication to fade from her system and allow her full access to her magic. It was there—we could both sense it—but she was having trouble touching it. Three days had passed, and nothing had changed for her. I felt for her, but my biggest concern was her mental state—which thus far had stayed clear.

"I don't know what's going on," she complained. We had almost reached the commons. Lissa and Christian had plans to watch a movie. I half-wondered how difficult it would be for me to watch the movie and be on alert. "It seems like I should be able to do something, but I still can't. I'm stuck."

"That might not be a bad thing," I pointed out, moving away from Lissa so I could scan the path ahead.

She shot me a rueful look. "You're such a worrier. I thought that was my job."

"Hey, it's my job to look out for you."

"Actually, it's my job," said Eddie, in a rare show of joking.

"Neither of you should be worrying," she argued. "Not about this."

Christian slipped his arm around her waist. "You're more impatient than Rose here. All you need to do is—"

It was déjà vu.

Stan leapt out from a copse of trees and reached for Lissa, wrapping his arm around her torso and jerking her toward him. My body responded instantly, no hesitation whatsoever as I moved to «save» her. The only problem was that Eddie had responded instantly too, and he was closer, which put him there ahead of me. I circled, trying to get in on the action, but the way the two were squaring off blocked me from being effective.