I expected a joke or a brush-off until later, but instead, he said, "Okay."
"Okay?" Now I felt like my mom had earlier, when I"d quickly agreed with her.
"Yep. I"m going to go back to my room right now to start drafting my a.s.signment."
I stared incredulously as he reached for his coat. I had never seen Adrian move that fast when any kind of labor was involved. Oh no.
What had I gotten myself into?
He suddenly paused and reached into his coat pocket with an exasperated smile. "Actually, I already practically wrote you an essay.
Nearly forgot."
He produced a piece of folded paper and waved it in the air. "You have got to get your own phone. I"m not going to be your secretary anymore."
"What is that?"
"Some foreign guy called me earlier... said my number was in his phone"s memory." Again, Adrian eyed Lissa and my mom. They were still deep in conversation. "He said he had a message for you and didn"t want me to tell anyone else. He made me write it out and read it back to him. You"re the only person I"d do that for, you know. I think I"m going to mention it when I write up my dating proposal."
"Will you just hand it over?"
He gave me the note with a wink, sketched me a bow, and then said goodbye to Lissa and my mom. I kind of wondered if he really was going to go write up a dating proposal. Mostly, my attention was on the note. I had no doubt who had called him. I"d used Abe"s phone to dial Adrian in Novosibirsk and had later told Abe about Adrian"s financial involvement in my trip. Apparently, my father-ugh, that was still an unreal thought-had decided that made Adrian trustworthy, though I wondered why my mom couldn"t have been used as a messenger.
I unfolded the note, and it took me a few seconds to decipher Adrian"s writing. If he did write me a dating proposal, I really hoped he would type it. The note read: Sent a message to Robert"s brother. He told me there was nothing I could offer that would make him reveal Robert"s location-and believe me, I have much to offer. But he said as long as he had to spend the rest of his life in there, then the information would die with him.
Thought you"d like to know.
It was hardly the essay Adrian had made it out to be. It was also a bit cryptic, but then, Abe wouldn "t want its contents easily understandable to Adrian. To me, the meaning was clear. Robert"s brother was Victor Dashkov. Abe had somehow gotten a message to Victor in whatever horrible, remote prison he was locked away in. (Somehow, it didn"t surprise me that Abe could pull that off.) Abe had no doubt attempted one of his trades with Victor in order to find out where Robert was, but Victor had refused. No surprise there either.
Victor wasn"t the most helpful of people, and I couldn"t entirely blame him now. The guy was locked up for life "in there"-in prison. What could anyone offer a condemned man that would really make a difference in his life?
I sighed and put the note away, somehow touched that Abe had done this for me, as futile as it was. And again, the same argument came to mind.
Even if Victor had given up Robert"s location, what did it matter? The farther I got from the events in Russia, the more ridiculous it became to even consider turning a Strigoi back to his original form. Only true death could free them, only death...
My mom"s voice saved me before I could begin reliving the bridge scene once more in my head. She told me she had to leave but promised we"d talk later. As soon as she was gone, Lissa and I made sure everything was set in the lounge before heading off to my room.
She and I still had a lot of talking to do too. We went upstairs, and I wondered when they"d move me out of guest housing and back to the dorm. Probably whenever Alberta finished with the red tape. It still seemed impossible to accept that I was going to be able to return to my old life and move on from all that had happened in the last month or so.
"Did Adrian give you a love note?" Lissa asked me. Her voice was teasing, but through the bond, I knew she still worried about me grieving for Dimitri. "Not yet," I said. "I"ll explain later."
Outside my room, one of the building attendants was just about to knock on the door. When she saw me, she held out a thick padded envelope. "I was just bringing this to you. It arrived in today"s mail."
"Thanks," I said.
I took it from her and looked at it. My name and St. Vladimir"s address were printed in neat writing, which I found odd, since my arrival here had been sudden. There was no return address, but it bore Russian postmarks and delivery through global overnight mail.
"Do you know who it"s from?" Lissa asked once the woman was gone.
"I don"t know. I met a lot of people in Russia." It could have been from Olena, Mark, or Sydney. Yet... something I couldn"t quite explain set my senses on high alert.
I tore open one side and reached in. My hand closed around something cold and metallic. I knew before I even pulled it out what it was. It was a silver stake.
"Oh G.o.d," I said I rolled the stake around, running my finger over the engraved geometric pattern at its base. There was no question. One- of-a-kind. This was the stake I"d taken from the vault in Galina"s house. The one I"d "Why would someone send you a stake?" asked Lissa.
I didn"t answer and instead pulled out the envelope"s next item: a small note card. There, in handwriting I knew all too well, was: You forgot another lesson: Never turn your back until you know your enemy is dead. Looks like we"ll have to go over the lesson again the next time I see you-which will be soon.
Love, D.
"Oh," I said, nearly dropping the card. "This is not good."
The world spun for a moment, and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. For the hundredth time, I ran through the events of the night I"d escaped from Dimitri. Every other time, my emotions and attention were always on the look on his face when I stabbed him, the sight of his body falling into that black water. Now my mind summoned up the details of the struggle. I recalled how his last -minute dodge had interfered with my shot at his heart. For a moment out there, I hadn"t thought I"d gotten the stake in hard enough-until I"d seen his face go slack and watched him fall.
But I really hadn"t gotten the stake in hard enough. My first instinct had been right, but things had happened too fast. He"d fallen... and then what? Had the stake been loose enough to fall out on its own? Had he been able to pull it out? Had the river"s impact knocked it out? "All those practice dummies, all for nothing," I muttered, recalling how Dimitri had drilled me over and over to plunge a stake into the chest so it would get past the ribs and into the heart.
"Rose," exclaimed Lissa. I had a feeling this wasn"t the first time she"d said my name. "What"s going on?"
The most important staking of my life... and I had messed it up. What would happen now? Looks like we"ll have to go over the lesson again the next time I see you-which will be soon.
I didn"t know what to feel. Despair that I hadn"t released Dimitri"s soul and fulfilled the promise I"d secretly made to him? Relief that I hadn"t killed the man I loved? And always, always that question: Would he have said he loved me if we"d had a few moments more?
I still had no answers. My emotions were running crazy, and I needed to put them on hold and a.n.a.lyze what I knew here.
First: two and a half months. I"d promised my mom two and a half months. No action until then.
Meanwhile, Dimitri was still out there, still a Strigoi. As long as he was loose in the world, there would be no peace for me. No closure.
Looking at that card again, I realized I would have no peace even if I tried to ignore him. I understood the card"s message.
Dimitri was coming for me this time. And something told me that I had blown my chance at being turned Strigoi. He was coming to kill me.
What had he said when I escaped the manor? That there was no way we could both be alive in the world?
And yet, maybe we could...
When I didn"t answer her right away, Lissa"s worry grew. "Your face is freaking me out a little. What are you thinking?"
"Do you believe in fairy tales?" I asked, looking up into her eyes. Even as I said the words, I could imagine Mark"s disapproval.
"What... what kind of fairy tales?"
"The kind you aren"t supposed to waste your life on."
"I don"t understand," she said. "I"m totally lost. Tell me what"s going on. What can I do?"
Two and a half months. I had to stay here for two and a half months-it seemed like forever. But I"d promised my mom that I would, and I refused to be rash again-particularly with the stakes so high now. Promises. I was drowning in promises. I "d even promised Lissa something.
"Did you mean it before? You want to go with me on my next crazy quest? No matter what?"
"Yes." There was no uncertainty or hesitation in the word, no wavering in her steady green eyes. Of course, I wondered if she "d feel the same way later when she found out what it was we were going to do.
What could anyone offer a condemned man that would really make a difference in his life?
I"d pondered that earlier, trying to figure out what could get Victor Dashkov to talk. Victor had told Abe there was nothing anyone could offer that would make him give up the information about his brother"s alleged ability to restore Strigoi. Victor was serving a life sentence; no bribe could matter to him anymore. But one thing could, I realized. Freedom. And there was only one way to achieve that.
We were going to have to break Victor Dashkov out of prison.
But I decided not to mention that to Lissa quite yet.
All I knew for now was that I had a fleeting shot at saving Dimitri. Mark had said it was a fairy tale, but I had to take the chance. The question was: how long did I have until Dimitri came to kill me? How long did I have to figure out if the impossible was actually possible? That was the real issue. Because if Dimitri showed up before I had a chance to find the dragon in this story-Victor-things were going to get ugly. Maybe this whole Robert thing was one big lie, but even if it wasn "t... well, the clock was ticking. If Dimitri came for me before I could get to Victor and Robert, I"d have to fight him again. No question. I couldn"t wait for this magical cure. I"d have to kill Dimitri for real this time and lose any chance I might have to bring back my prince. d.a.m.n.
It"s a good thing I work well under pressure.