Twenty-eight

THE NEXT TWELVE HOURS were the longest in my life.

Our group made it back to campus safely, though most of it was done at a run - which was hard with so many injured. The entire time I felt nauseous, presumably because Strigoi were near. If they were, they never caught up to us, and it's possible I was simply sick from everything that had happened in the caves.

Once back behind the wards, the other novices and I were forgotten. We were safe, and the adults now had a lot of other things to concern themselves with. All of the captives had been rescued - all the ones that were alive. As I'd feared, the Strigoi had decided to munch on one before we got there. That meant we had rescued twelve. Six guardians - including Dimitri - had been lost. Those weren't bad numbers considering how many Strigoi we'd faced, but when you took the difference, it really meant we'd only saved six lives. Had the loss of all those guardians' lives been worth it?

"You can't look at it that way," Eddie told me as we walked toward the clinic. Everyone, prisoners and raiders, had been ordered to get checked out. "You didn't just save those lives. You guys killed almost thirty Strigoi, plus the ones on campus. Think about all the people they would have killed. You essentially saved all those people's lives too."

A rational part of me knew he was right. But what did rationality have to do with anything when Dimitri might be dead? It was petty and selfish, but in that moment, I wanted to trade all those lives for his. He wouldn't have wanted that, though. I knew him.

And through the tiniest, smallest chance, it was possible he wasn't dead. Even though the bite had looked pretty serious, that Strigoi could have incapacitated him and then fled. He could be lying in the caves right now, dying and in need of medical care. It drove me crazy, thinking of him like that and us unable to help. There was no way we could go back, however. Not until daytime. Another party would go then to bring back our dead so that we could bury them. Until then, I had to wait.

Dr. Olendzki gave me a quick check, decided I didn't have a concussion, and then sent me on my way to bandage my own scrapes. She had too many others to worry about right now who were in far worse condition.

I knew the smart thing was to go to my dorm or to Lissa. I could have used the rest, and through the bond, I felt her calling to me. She was worried. She was afraid. I knew she'd find out the news soon, though. She didn't need me, and I didn't want to see her. I didn't want to see anyone. So rather than go to my dorm, I went to the chapel. I needed to do something until the caves could be checked out. Praying was as good an option as any.

The chapel was usually empty in the middle of the day, but not this time. I shouldn't have been surprised. Considering the death and tragedy of the last twenty-four hours, it was only natural that people would seek comfort. Some sat alone, some sat in groups. They cried. They knelt. They prayed. Some simply stared off into space, clearly unable to believe what had happened. Father Andrew moved around the sanctuary, speaking to many of them.

I found an empty pew in the very back corner and sat there. Drawing my knees up to me, I wrapped my arms around them and rested my head. On the walls, icons of saints and angels watched over all of us.

Dimitri couldn't be dead. There was no way he could be. Surely, if he was, I would know. No one could take a life like that from the world. No one who had held me in bed like he had yesterday could really be gone. We had been too warm, too alive. Death couldn't follow something like that.

Lissa's chotki was around my wrist, and I ran my fingers over the cross and the beads. I tried desperately to put my thoughts into the forms of prayers, but I didn't know how. If God was real, I figured He was powerful enough to know what I wanted without me actually saying the right words.

Hours passed. People came and went. I got tired of sitting and eventually stretched myself across the length of the pew. From the gold-painted ceiling, more saints and angels stared down at me. So much divine help, I thought, but what good were they really doing?

I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep until Lissa woke me up. She looked like an angel herself, the pale hair hanging long and loose around her face. Her eyes were as gentle and compassionate as those of the saints.

"Rose," she said. "We've been looking all over for you. Have you been here the entire time?"

I sat up, feeling tired and bleary-eyed. Considering I hadn't slept the night before and had then gone on a massive raid, my fatigue was understandable.

"Pretty much," I told her.

She shook her head. "That was hours ago. You should go eat something."

"I'm not hungry." Hours ago. I clutched her arm. "What time is it? Has the sun come up?"

"No. It's still about, oh, five hours away."

Five hours. How could I wait that long?

Lissa touched my face. I felt magic burn through our bond, and then the warm and cold tingling coursed through my own skin. Bruises and cuts disappeared.

"You shouldn't do that," I said.

A faint smile crossed her lips. "I've been doing it all day. I've been helping Dr. Olendzki."

"I heard that, but wow. It just feels so strange. We've always kept it hidden, you know?"

"It doesn't matter if everyone knows now," she said with a shrug. "After everything that's happened, I had to help. So many people are hurt, and if it means my secret getting out...well, it had to happen sooner or later. Adrian's been helping too, though he can't do as much."

And then, it hit me. I straightened up.

"Oh my God, Liss. You can save him. You can help Dimitri."

Deep sorrow filled her face and the bond. "Rose," she said quietly. "They say Dimitri's dead."

"No," I said. "He can't be. You don't understand. ... I think he was just injured. Probably badly. But if you're there when they bring him back, you can heal him." Then, the craziest thought of all came to me. "And if... if he did die ..." The words hurt coming out. "You could bring him back! Just like with me. He'd be shadow-kissed too."

Her face grew even sadder. Sorrow - for me now - radiated out from her. "I can't do that. Bringing people back from the dead is a huge power drain...and besides, I don't think I could do it on someone who has been dead, um, that long. I think it has to be recent."

I could hear the crazy desperation in my own voice. "But you have to try."

"I can't..." She swallowed. "You heard what I said to the queen. I meant it. I can't go around bringing every dead person back to life. That gets into the kind of abuse Victor wanted. It's why we kept this secret."

"You'd let him die? You wouldn't do this? You wouldn't do this for me?" I wasn't shouting, but my voice was definitely too loud for a church. Most everyone was gone now, and with the level of grief around here, I doubted anyone thought too much of an outburst. "I would do anything for you. You know that. And you won't do this for me?" I was on the verge of sobbing.

Lissa studied me, a million thoughts swirling in her mind. She assessed my words, my face, my voice. And like that, she finally got it. She finally realized what I felt for Dimitri, that it was more than a teacher-student bond. I felt the knowledge light up in her mind. Countless connections suddenly came together for her: comments I'd made, ways that Dimitri and I acted around each other ... it all made sense to her now, things she'd been too blind to notice. Questions immediately sprang up too, but she didn't ask any of them or even mention what she'd realized. Instead, she just took my hand in hers and pulled me close.

"I'm so sorry, Rose. I'm so, so sorry. I can't."

I let her drag me away after that, presumably to get food. But when I sat at the cafeteria table and stared at the tray in front of me, the thought of eating anything made me sicker than being around the Strigoi had. She gave up after that, realizing nothing was going to happen until I knew what had happened to Dimitri. We went up to her room, and I lay down on the bed. She sat near me, but I didn't want to talk, and I soon fell asleep again.

The next time I woke up, it was my mother beside me.

"Rose, we're going to check the caves. You can't go into them, but you can come to the school's borders with us if you want."

It was the best I could get. If it meant I could find out what had happened to Dimitri a moment sooner than if I stayed here, I'd do it. Lissa came with me, and we trailed behind the assembled guardian party. I was still hurt by her refusal to heal Dimitri, but a part of me secretly thought she wouldn't be able to hold back once she saw him.

The guardians had assembled a large group to check the caves, just in case. We were pretty sure the Strigoi were gone, however. They'd lost their advantage and had to know that if we came back for the dead, it would be with renewed numbers. Any of them that had survived would be gone.

The guardians crossed over the wards, and the rest of us who had followed along waited by the border. Hardly anyone spoke. It would probably be three hours before they came back, counting travel time. Trying to ignore the dark, leaden feeling inside of me, I sat on the ground and rested my head against Lissa's shoulder, wishing the minutes would fly by. A Moroi fire user created a bonfire, and we all warmed ourselves by it.

The minutes didn't fly, but they did eventually pass. Someone shouted that the guardians were coming back. I leapt up and ran to look. What I saw drove me to a halt.

Stretchers. Stretchers carrying the bodies of those who had been killed. Dead guardians, their faces pale and eyes unseeing. One of the watching Moroi went and threw up in a bush. Lissa started crying. One by one, the dead filed past us. I stared, feeling cold and empty, wondering if I'd see their ghosts the next time I went outside the wards.

Finally, the whole group had gone by. Five bodies, but it had felt like five hundred. And there was one body I hadn't seen. One I'd been dreading. I ran up to my mother. She was helping carry a stretcher. She wouldn't look at me and undoubtedly knew what I'd come to ask.

"Where's Dimitri?" I demanded. "Is he..." It was too much to hope for, too much to ask. "Is he alive?" Oh God. What if my prayers had been answered? What if he was back there injured, waiting for them to send a doctor?

My mother didn't answer right away. I barely recognized her voice when she did.

"He wasn't there, Rose."

I stumbled over the uneven ground and had to hurry up to catch her again. "Wait, what's that mean? Maybe he's injured and left to get help...."

She still wouldn't look at me. "Molly wasn't there either."

Molly was the Moroi who had been snacked on. She was my age, tall and beautiful. I'd seen her body in the cave, drained of blood. She had definitely been dead. There was no way she'd been injured and staggered out. Molly and Dimitri. Both their bodies gone.

"No," I gasped out. "You don't think..."

A tear leaked out of my mother's eye. I'd never seen anything like that from her. "I don't know what to think, Rose. If he survived, it's possible...it's possible they took him for later."

The thought of Dimitri as a "snack" was too horrible for words - but it wasn't as horrible as the alternative. We both knew it.

"But they wouldn't have taken Molly for later. She'd been dead a while."

My mother nodded. "I'm sorry, Rose. We can't know for sure. It's likely they're both just dead, and the Strigoi dragged their bodies off."

She was lying. It was the first time in my entire life that my mother had ever told me a lie to protect me. She wasn't the comforting kind, wasn't the kind who would make up pretty stories in order to make someone feel better. She always told the harsh truth.

Not this time.

I stopped walking, and the group continued filing past me. Lissa caught up, worried and confused.

"What's happening?" she asked.

I didn't answer. Instead, I turned and ran backwards, back toward the wards. She ran after me, calling my name. No one else noticed us because honestly, who in the world was stupid enough to cross the wards after everything that had happened?

I was, although in daylight, I had nothing to fear. I ran past the place Jesse's group had attacked her, stepping across the invisible lines that marked the boundaries of the Academy's grounds. Lissa hesitated a moment and then joined me. She was breathless from running after me.

"Rose, what are you - "

"Mason!" I cried. "Mason, I need you."

It took him a little while to materialize. This time, he not only seemed ultra-pale, he also appeared to be flickering, like a light about to go out. He stood there, watching me, and although his expression was the same as always, I had the weirdest feeling that he knew what I was going to ask. Lissa, beside me, kept glancing back and forth between me and the spot I was speaking to.

"Mason, is Dimitri dead?"

Mason shook his head.

"Is he alive?"

Mason shook his head.

Neither alive nor dead. The world swam around me, sparkles of color dancing before my eyes. The lack of food had made me dizzy, and I was on the verge of fainting. I had to stay in control here. I had to ask the next question. Out of all the victims...out of all the victims they could have chosen, surely they wouldn't have picked him.

The next words stuck in my throat, and I sank to my knees as I spoke them.

"Is he ... is Dimitri a Strigoi?"

Mason hesitated only a moment, like he was afraid to answer me, and then - he nodded.

My heart shattered. My world shattered.

You will lose what you value most....

It hadn't been me that Rhonda was talking about. It hadn't even been Dimitri's life.

What you value most.

It had been his soul.