1. - Eliminated in ROUND ONE

“You look like you’re ready to face an army.”
I shifted out of my dark thoughts. I’d been so fixated on Dimitri and his letter that I’d been walking across campus, oblivious to the world, and hadn’t noticed my best friend, Lissa, falling into step with me, a teasing smile on her face. Her catching me by surprise was a rarity because we shared a psychic bond, one that always kept me aware of her presence and feelings. I had to be pretty distracted to not notice her, and if ever there was a distraction, it was someone wanting to kill me.
I gave Lissa what I hoped was a convincing smile. She knew what had happened to Dimitri and how he was now waiting to kill me after I’d tried—and failed—to kill him. Nonetheless, the letters I got from him every week worried her, and she had enough to deal with in her life without my undead stalker to add to the list.
“I kind of am facing an army,” I pointed out. It was early evening, but late summer still found the sun up in the Montana sky, bathing us in golden light as we walked. I loved it, but as a Moroi—a peaceful, living vampire—Lissa would eventually grow weak and uncomfortable in it.
She laughed and tossed her platinum hair over one shoulder. The sun lit up the pale color into angelic brilliance. “I suppose. I didn’t think you’d really be all that worried.”
I could understand her reasoning. Even Dimitri had said these would be a waste of my time. After all, I’d gone to Russia to search for him and had faced real Strigoi—killing a number of them on my own. Maybe I shouldn’t have been afraid of the upcoming tests, but all the fanfare and expectation suddenly pressed in upon me. My heart rate increased. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I wasn’t as good as I thought I was? The guardians who would challenge me out here might not be true Strigoi, but they were skilled and had been fighting a lot longer than me. Arrogance could get me into a lot of trouble, and if I failed, I’d be doing it in front of all the people who cared about me. All the people who had such faith in me.
One other thing also concerned me.
“I’m worried about how these grades will affect my future,” I said. That was the truth. The trials were the final exam for a novice guardian like me. They ensured I could graduate from St. Vladimir’s Academy and take my place with true guardians who defended Moroi from the Strigoi. The trials pretty much decided which Moroi a guardian would be assigned to.
Through our bond, I felt Lissa’s compassion—and her worry. “Alberta thinks there’s a good chance we can stay together—that you’ll still be my guardian.”
I grimaced. “I think Alberta was saying that to keep me in school.”

2. - Eliminated in ROUND EIGHT

“I’m not giving up hope,” Lissa said. Through the bond, I knew she meant it. It was one of the wonderful things about her—a steadfast faith and optimism that weathered the most terrible ordeals. It was a sharp contrast to my recent cynicism. “And I’ve got something that might help you out today.”
She came to a stop and reached into her jeans pocket, producing a small silver ring scattered with tiny stones that looked like peridots. I didn’t need any bond to understand what she was offering.
“Oh, Liss . . . I don’t know. I don’t want any, um, unfair advantage.”
Lissa rolled her eyes. “That’s not the problem, and you know it. This one’s fine, I swear.”
The ring she offered me was a charm, infused with the rare type of magic she wielded. All Moroi had control of one of five elements: earth, air, water, fire, or spirit. Spirit was the rarest—so rare, it had been forgotten over the centuries. Then Lissa and a few others had recently surfaced with it. Unlike the other elements, which were more physical in nature, spirit was tied into the mind and all sorts of psychic phenomena. No one fully understood it.
Making charms with spirit was something Lissa had only recently begun to experiment with—and she wasn’t very good at it. Her best spirit ability was healing, so she kept trying to make healing charms. The last one had been a bracelet that singed my arm.
“This one works. Only a little, but it’ll help keep the darkness away during the trial.”
She spoke lightly, but we both knew the seriousness of her words. With all of spirit’s gifts came a cost: a darkness that showed itself now as anger and confusion, and eventually led to insanity. Darkness that sometimes bled over into me through our bond. Lissa and I had been told that with charms and her healing, we could fight it off. That was also something we had yet to master.
I gave her a faint smile, moved by her concern, and accepted the ring. It didn’t scald my hand, which I took as a promising sign. It was tiny and only fit on my pinky. I felt nothing whatsoever as it slid on. Sometimes that happened with healing charms. Or it could mean the ring was completely ineffectual. Either way, no harm done.
“Thanks,” I said. I felt delight sweep through her, and we continued walking.
I held my hand out before me, admiring the way the green stones glittered. Jewelry wasn’t a great idea in the kind of physical ordeals I’d be facing, but I would have gloves on to cover it.
“Hard to believe that after this, we’ll be done here and out in the real world,” I mused aloud, not really considering my words.
Beside me, Lissa stiffened, and I immediately regretted speaking. “Being out in the real world” meant Lissa and I were going to undertake a task she’d—unhappily—promised to help me with a couple months ago.

3. - Eliminated in ROUND SIX

“Are you going to tell me yet what this other part of your plan is?” asked Lissa.
Ever since Abe had explained about Victor’s prison, I’d been making another mental list of the problems we’d have breaking into it. Mainly, there were two, which was one less than I’d initially had since talking to Abe. Not that things were really much easier. First, we had no clue where in Alaska this place was. Second, we didn’t know what the prison’s defenses and layout were like. We had no idea what we had to bust through.
Yet, something told me all of these answers could be found in one source, which meant I really only had one immediate problem: how to reach that source. Fortunately, I knew someone who might be able to help get us there.
“We’re going to see Mia,” I told her.
Mia Rinaldi was a former Moroi classmate of ours—a former enemy, actually. She was also the poster child for total personality makeovers. She’d gone from a scheming bitch who was willing to crush—and sleep with—anyone in her quest for popularity to a down-to-earth, confident girl eager to learn to defend herself and others from Strigoi. She lived here at Court with her father.
“You think Mia knows how to break into a prison?”
“Mia’s good, but I don’t think she’s that good. She can probably help us get intel, though.”
Lissa groaned. “I can’t believe you just used the word intel. This really is turning into a spy movie.” She spoke flippantly, but I could feel the worry within her. The light tone was masking her fear, the unease she still felt about freeing Victor, despite her promise to me.

4. - Eliminated in ROUND SEVEN

I immediately sought out Lissa, who was hanging out in her own room. She was staring intently at a silver spoon, and through our bond, I could sense her intent. She was attempting to infuse it with spirit’s compulsion, so that whoever held it would cheer up. I wondered if she intended it for herself or was just randomly experimenting. I didn’t probe her mind to find out.
“A spoon?” I asked with amusement.
She shrugged and set it down. “Hey, it’s not easy to keep getting a hold of silver. I have to take what I can get.”
“Well, it’d make for happy dinner parties.”
She smiled and put her feet upon the ebony coffee table that sat in the middle of her little suite’s living room. Each time I saw it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the glossy black furniture that had been in my own prison suite back in Russia. I had fought Dimitri with a stake made from a chair’s leg of similar style.
“Speaking of which . . . how was your dinner party?”
“Not as bad as I thought,” I admitted. “I never realized what an ******* Adrian’s dad was, though. His mom was actually pretty cool. She didn’t have a problem with us dating.”
“Yeah, I’ve met her. She is nice . . . though I never thought she was nice enough to be okay with scandalous dating. I don’t suppose Her Royal Majesty showed up?” Lissa was joking, so my response floored her.
“She did, and . . . it wasn’t awful.”
“What? Did you say ‘wasn’t’?”
“I know, I know. It was so crazy. It was this really quick visit to see Adrian, and she acted like me being there was no big deal.” I didn’t bother delving into the politics of Tatiana’s views on Moroi training for battle. “Of course, who knows what would have happened if she stayed? Maybe she would have turned into her old self. I would have needed a whole set of magic silverware then—to stop me from pulling a knife on her.”
Lissa groaned. “Rose, you cannot make those kinds of jokes.”
I grinned. “I say the things you’re too afraid to.”
This made her smile in return. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that,” she said softly. My trip to Russia had fractured our friendship—which had ended up showing me just how much it really meant to me.
We spent the rest of the time hanging out, talking about Adrian and other gossip. I was relieved to see she’d gotten over her earlier mood about Christian, but as the day progressed, her anxiety grew about our pending mission with Mia.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told her when the time came. We were heading back across the Court grounds, dressed in comfortable jeans and T-shirts. It was nice to be free of school curfew, but again, being out in the bright sunlight didn’t make me feel very covert. “This’ll be easy.”
Lissa cut me a look but said nothing. The guardians were the security force in our world, and this was their headquarters. Breaking in was going to be anything but easy.

5.

“How good are you feeling about your charm-making skills?” I asked Lissa.
Although she hadn’t been able to put as much spirit healing into my ring as a woman I knew named Oksana could, I had noticed my darkness-induced temper soothed a little. Lissa’d made a ring for Adrian too, though I couldn’t say for sure if it was what was helping him control his vices lately—vices he usually indulged in to control spirit.
She shrugged and rolled over onto her back. Exhaustion filled her, but she was trying to stay awake for my sake. “Getting better. Wish I could meet Oksana.”
“Maybe someday,” I said vaguely. I didn’t think Oksana would ever leave Siberia. She’d run off with her guardian and wanted to keep a low profile. Besides, I didn’t want Lissa over there anytime soon after my ordeals. “Have you been able to put in anything besides healing?” A moment later, I answered my own question. “Oh, right. The spoon.”
Lissa grimaced, but it turned into a yawn. “I don’t think it worked so well.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?”
I glanced back at the blueprints. “I’m thinking if you could make a few more compulsion charms, it would go a long way to help with this. We need to make people see what we want them to see.” Surely if Victor—whose powers of compulsion were nowhere near hers—had managed a lust charm, she could do what I needed. She just needed more practice. She understood the basic principles but had trouble making her desired effects last. The only problem was that in asking her to do this, I was making her use more spirit. Even if the side effects didn’t show up right away, they would likely come back to haunt her in the future.
She glanced at me curiously, but when I saw her yawn again, I told her not to worry about it. I’d explain tomorrow. She offered no argument, and after a quick hug, we each retired to our own beds. We weren’t going to get much sleep, but we had to get what we could. Tomorrow was a big day.

6.

I was grateful for the food’s arrival because my brain was still moving sluggishly. The egg rolls provided a welcome opportunity to think.
“Is it really that easy?” I asked at last.
Robert scoffed. “It’s not easy at all.”
“But you just said . . . you just said we need a spirit-charmed stake. And then I kill a Strigoi with it.” Or well, not kill. The technicalities were irrelevant.
His smile returned. “Not you. You can’t do it.”
“Then who . . .” I stopped, the rest of my words dying on my lips. “No. No.”
“The shadow-kissed don’t have the gift of life. Only the spirit-blessed,” he explained. “The question is: Who’s capable of doing it? Gentle Girl or Drunken Sod?” His eyes flicked between Lissa and Adrian. “My wager would be on Gentle Girl.”
Those words were what snapped me out of my stunned state. In fact, they were what shattered this whole thing, this far-fetched dream of saving Dimitri.
“No,” I repeated. “Even if it was possible—and I’m not sure if I believe you—she can’t do it. I won’t let her.”
And in a turn of events almost as astonishing as Robert’s revelation, Lissa spun toward me, anger flooding our bond. “And since when can you tell me what I can or can’t do?”
“Since I don’t recall you ever taking guardian training and learning to stake a Strigoi,” I returned evenly, trying to keep my voice calm. “You only punched Reed, and that was hard enough.” When Avery Lazar had tried to take over Lissa’s mind, she’d sent her shadow-kissed brother to do some dirty work. With my help, Lissa had punched him and kept him away. It had been beautifully executed, but she’d hated it.
“I did it, didn’t I?” she exclaimed.
“Liss, throwing a punch is nothing like staking a Strigoi. And that’s not even counting the fact that you have to get near one in the first place. You think you could get in range before one bit you or snapped your neck? No.”
“I’ll learn.” The determination in her voice and mind was admirable, but it took guardians decades to learn what we did—and plenty still got killed.

7.

“Can you tell where Lissa’s at?”
My bond had kept me connected to her during our escape, but I hadn’t allowed myself any deeper probing than confirming she was alive and okay. I expanded the link a little further now. “Across the street. At MGM.” I’d seen the ginormous hotel when we ran into this one but hadn’t realized Lissa was there. Now I could feel her, hiding out in a crowd like us, scared but not injured. I would have rather she and the others opted to hang out in the sun, but instinct had driven her to the shelter of walls.
Eddie and I spoke no more about Dimitri as we headed out and crossed the busy road. The sky was turning peach, but I still felt secure out there. Far more secure than in the Luxor’s hallway. With the bond, I could always find Lissa, and without any hesitation, I led Eddie through MGM’s twists and turns—honestly, the layout of these places just got more and more confusing—until we saw Lissa and Adrian standing near a row of slot machines. He was smoking. She spotted me, sprinted over, and threw her arms around me.
“Oh my God. I was so scared. I didn’t know what had happened to you guys. I hate that one-way bond.”
I forced a smile for her. “We’re fine.”

8. ELIMINATED ROUND FIVE.

“Rose—”
“No,” I said eagerly. “It’s perfect. I’ll go with you. I was just over there, and they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Rose—” Lissa looked very uncomfortable now.
“They gave me some bull**** about how he’d asked for you and not me and that that’s why they couldn’t let me in. But if you’re going, they’ll have to let me.”
“Rose,” she said firmly, finally breaking through my chatter. “You can’t go.”
“I—what?” I replayed her words, just in case I’d misheard them. “Of course I can. I need to see him. You know I do. And he needs to see me.”
She slowly shook her head, still looking nervous—but also sympathetic. “That guardian was right,” she said. “Dimitri hasn’t been asking for you. Only me.”
All my eagerness, all that fire, froze up. I was dumbstruck, confused more than anything. “Well . . .” I recalled how he’d clung to her last night, that desperate look on his face. I hated to admit it, but it kind of made sense why he would have asked for her first. “Of course he’d want to see you. Everything’s so new and strange, and you’re the one who saved him. Once he comes around more, he’ll want to see me too.”
“Rose, you can’t go.” This time the sadness in Lissa’s voice was mirrored through the bond, flooding into me. “It’s not just that Dimitri didn’t ask to see you. He asked specifically not to see you.”

9.

“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She gave me a pointed look. She too knew that I could feel the truth in her words.
“But that . . . it can’t . . . ” I wasn’t at a loss for words very often—and certainly not with Lissa. So frequently in our relationship, I’d been the one being assertive and explaining to her why things had to be the way they were. Somewhere along the way, with me not realizing it, Lissa had lost that fragility.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice still kind but also firm. The bond betrayed how much she hated telling me unpleasant things. “He asked me . . . told me specifically not to let you come. That he doesn’t want to see you.”
I stared at her pleadingly, my voice almost childlike. “But why? Why would he say that? Of course he wants to see me. He must be confused. . . .”
“I don’t know, Rose. All I know is what he told me. I’m so sorry.” She reached for me like she might hug me, but I stepped away. My head was still reeling.
“I’ll go with you anyway. I’ll wait upstairs with the other guardians. Then, when you tell Dimitri I’m there, he’ll change his mind.”
“I don’t think you should,” she said. “He seemed really serious about you not coming—almost frantic. I think knowing you’re there would upset him.”
“Upset him? Upset him? Liss, it’s me! He loves me. He needs me.”
She winced, and I realized I’d been shouting at her. “I’m just going on what he said. It’s all so confusing . . . please. Don’t put me in this position. Just . . . wait and see what happens. And if you want to know what’s going on, you can always . . .”
Lissa didn’t finish, but I knew what she was suggesting. She was offering to let me see her meeting with Dimitri through the bond. It was a big gesture on her part—not that she could have stopped me if I wanted to do it. Still, she didn’t usually like the idea of being “spied” on. This was the best thing she could think of to make me feel better.
Not that it really did. All of this was still crazy. Me being denied access to Dimitri. Dimitri allegedly not wanting to see me! What the hell? My gut reaction was to ignore everything she’d just said and go along with her, demanding access when she arrived. The feelings in the bond were begging me not to, though. She didn’t want to create trouble. She might not understand Dimitri’s wishes either, but she felt they should be honored until the situation could be better assessed.
“Please,” she said. The plaintive word finally cracked me.
“Okay.” It killed me to say it. It was like admitting defeat. Think of it as a tactical retreat.
“Thank you.” This time she did hug me. “I swear I’ll get more information and figure out what’s going on, okay?”
I nodded, still dejected, and we walked out of the building together. With grim reluctance, I parted with her when the time came, letting her go off to the guardians’ building while I headed toward my room. As soon as she was out of my sight, I immediately slipped into her head, watching through her eyes as she walked through the perfectly manicured grass. The bond was still a little hazy but growing clearer by the minute.
Her feelings were a jumble. She felt bad for me, guilty that she’d had to refuse me. At the same time, she was anxious to visit Dimitri. She needed to see him too—but not in the same way I did. She still had that feeling of responsibility for him, that burning urge to protect him.

10.

I came to my senses then, knowing I needed to stop this. Lissa was going to burn herself up if she kept trying to stake him. She lacked the skill. Either I needed to stake him or we just needed to let the fire finish him off. I moved forward. Lissa caught sight of me in her periphery and sent out a blast of compulsion at me.
No! Let me do this!
The command hit me hard, an invisible wall that made me come to a halt. I stood there dazed, both from the compulsion itself and the realization that she’d used it on me. It only took a moment for me to shake it off. She was too distracted to put her full power into the order, and I was pretty compulsion-resistant anyway.
Yet, that slight delay had stopped me from reaching her. Lissa seized her last chance, knowing she’d get no other.
One more time, fighting through the fire’s searing pain, she threw everything she had into shoving the stake all the way into Dimitri’s heart. Her strike was still awkward, still requiring a little more wiggling and pushing than the clean hit a trained guardian would make. Clumsy or not, the stake finally made it. It pierced his heart. And as it did, I felt magic flood our bond, the familiar magic I’d felt so many times when she performed a healing.
Except . . . this was a hundred times more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before. It froze me up as neatly as her compulsion had. I felt as though all of my nerves were exploding, like I’d just been struck by lightning.
White light suddenly burst out around her, a light that dwarfed the fire’s brightness. It was like someone had dropped the sun into the middle of that room. I cried out, my hand rising instinctively to shield my eyes as I stepped backward. From the sounds in the room, everyone else was having a similar reaction.
For a moment, it was as if there was no bond anymore. I felt nothing from Lissa—no pain, no magic. The bond was as colorless and empty as the white light filling the room. The power she’d used had over-flooded and overwhelmed our bond, numbing it.
Then the light simply disappeared. No fade-out. Just . . . gone in an eye blink. Like a switch had been flipped. There was silence in the room, save for a few murmurings of discomfort and confusion. That light must have been toxic to sensitive Strigoi eyes. It was hard enough for me. Starbursts danced in my sight. I couldn’t focus on anything as the afterimage of that brilliance burned across my vision.

11. - Eliminated in ROUND FOUR

Lissa was at dinner when I tuned back into her later. It might have technically been in honor of her birthday, but really, it was all royal conversation with Priscilla. That was no way to spend a birthday, I decided. I’d have to make this up to her whenever I earned freedom. We’d have a real party, and I’d be able to give her my birthday present: gorgeous leather boots that Adrian had helped me acquire back at school.

12.

I had Lissa’s number memorized and sent her the following note:
I know what you’re going to do, and it is a BAD idea. I’m going to kick both your asses when I find you.
I handed the phone back to its owner. “Thanks. If anyone texts back, can you let me know?”
She told me she would, but I didn’t expect any return texts. I got my message another way. When I returned to the room and Lissa’s mind, I got to be there when her phone chimed. Christian had left, and she read my text with a rueful smile. My answer came through the link. She knew I was watching.
Sorry, Rose. It’s a risk I’ll have to take. I’m doing this.

13. - Eliminated in ROUND THREE

“Lissa!” I yelled. “Get the hell out of here! Get them all out of here.”
She should have known better. They all should have known better. That door led to the upper floors—and outdoors. The sun was still out. It didn’t matter if the alarm brought hotel security down on us. Hell, that might scare the Strigoi off. What mattered was that the Moroi fled to safety.
But a quick check of my bond told me the problem. Lissa was frozen. Stunned. She’d suddenly seen who I was fighting, and the shock of it was too much. Knowing Dimitri was a Strigoi was one thing. Seeing it—really, really seeing it—well, that was different. I knew from personal experience. Even after being prepared, his appearance still unnerved me. She was blindsided, unable to think or move.
It only took me a heartbeat to assess her feelings, but in a fight with a Strigoi, a single second could be the difference between life and death. Dimitri’s chatter had worked, and although I watched him and thought I had my guard up, he got through and shoved me against the wall, hands pinning my arms so painfully that I lost my grip on the stake.

14. - Eliminated in ROUND TWO

“Stop!”
Lissa interrupted him and came to an abrupt halt before the door. The rest of us nearly walked into her. She jerked away, taking several steps back.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She turned to Giovanni. “Find another way to the office.”
“This is the fastest way,” he argued.
Lissa slowly shook her head. “I don’t care. Find another, one where we won’t run into others.”
He frowned, but her compulsion held. He abruptly turned, and we scurried to keep up. “What’s wrong?” I repeated. Lissa’s mind was too tangled for me to pull out her reasoning. She grimaced.
“I felt spirit auras behind there.”
“What? How many?”
“At least two. I don’t know if they sensed me or not.”
If not for Giovanni’s clip and the urgency pressing on us, I would have come to a stop. “Spirit users . . .”
Lissa had looked so long and hard for others like her. Who’d have thought we’d find them here? Actually . . . maybe we should have expected this. We knew spirit users danced with insanity. Why wouldn’t they end up in a place like this? And considering the trouble we’d gone through to learn about the prison, it was no wonder these spirit users had remained hidden. I doubted anyone working here even knew what they were.
Lissa and I exchanged brief glances. I knew how badly she wanted to investigate this, but now wasn’t the time. Victor already looked too interested in what we’d said, so Lissa’s next words were in my head: I’m pretty sure any spirit users would see through my charms. We can’t risk our real descriptions being discovered—even if they came from people who are allegedly crazy.
I nodded my understanding, pushing aside curiosity and even regret. We’d have to check into this another time—say, like, the next time we decided to break into a maximum-security prison.