I was dying to go eat breakfast. I could smell French toast and hot maple syrup. Carbs wrapped in more carbs. Yum. But Christian wanted blood before we ate solid food, and his needs trumped mine. They come first. He'd apparently skipped his daily blood dose yesterday - probably to maximize his romantic time.
The feeder room wasn't crowded, but we still had to wait.
"Hey," I said. "Do you know Brett Ozera? You're related, right?" After my encounter with Jill, I'd finally put some pieces together. Brett Ozera and Dane Zeklos had reminded me of how Brandon had looked the day of Stan's first attack. The disaster of that attack had made me completely forget about Brandon, but the coincidences here suddenly stirred my curiosity. All three had been beaten up. All three had been in denial.
Christian nodded. "Yeah, in the way we're all kind of related. I don't know him that well - he's like a third or fourth cousin or something. His branch of the family hasn't had much to do with mine since ... well, you know."
"I heard something weird about him." I then related what Jill had told me about Dane and Brett.
"That's weird," agreed Christian. "But people get in fights."
"Yeah, but there are some weird connections here. And royals aren't usually on the losing ends of fights - all three of these guys were."
"Well, maybe that's it. You know how it's been. A lot of royals are getting pissed off that non-royals want to change how guardians are assigned and learn to start fighting. That's the whole point of Jesse and Ralf's stupid little club. They want to make sure royals stay on top. Non-royals are probably getting just as pissed off and fighting back."
"So, what, some kind of vigilante is out making royals pay?"
"Wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened around here," he pointed out.
"That's for damn sure," I muttered.
Christian's name was called, and he peered ahead. "Look at that," he said happily. "Alice again."
"I don't get your fascination with her," I observed as we approached the old feeder. "Lissa's always kind of excited to see her too. But Alice is nuts."
"I know," he said. "That's what's so great."
Alice greeted us as Christian sat down beside her. I leaned against the wall, arms crossed over my chest. Feeling uppity, I said, "Alice, the scenery hasn't changed. It's exactly the same as last time."
She turned her dazed eyes on me. "Patience, Rose. You must be patient. And prepared. Are you prepared?"
The switch in subject threw me a little. It was like talking to Jill, except less sane. "Um, prepared how? For the scenery?"
In what had to be a prime moment of irony, she looked at me as though I were the one who was crazy. "Armed. Are you armed? You're going to protect us, aren't you?"
I reached inside my coat and pulled out the practice stake I'd been given for the field experience. "Got you covered," I said.
She looked immensely relieved and apparently couldn't tell the difference between a real stake and a fake one. "Good," she said. "Now we'll be safe."
"That's right," said Christian. "With Rose armed, we have nothing to worry about. The Moroi world can rest easy."
Alice was oblivious to his sarcasm. "Yes. Well, nowhere is ever safe."
I concealed the stake again. "We're safe. We've got the best guardians in the world protecting us, not to mention the wards. Strigoi aren't getting in here."
I didn't add what I'd recently learned: that Strigoi could get humans to break the wards. Wards were invisible lines of power that were composed of all four elements. They were created when four Moroi, each one strong in a different element, walked around an area and laid the magic in a circle upon the ground, creating a protective border. Moroi magic was imbued with life, and a strong field of it kept out Strigoi, since they were devoid of life. So wards were frequently laid around Moroi dwellings. Tons of them were laid around this school. Since stakes were also imbued with all four elements, driving a stake through a ward line in the ground pierced the ward and canceled out the protective effect. This had never been much of a concern because Strigoi couldn't touch stakes. However, in some recent attacks, humans - who could touch stakes - had served Strigoi and broken some wards. We believed the Strigoi I'd killed had been the ringleaders in that group, but we still didn't know for sure.
Alice studied me closely with her cloudy eyes, almost as though she knew what I was thinking. "Nowhere is safe. Wards fade. Guardians die."
I glanced over at Christian, who shrugged in a sort of what did you expect from her? kind of way.
"If you guys are done with your girl talk, can I eat now?" he asked.
Alice was more than happy to comply; he was her first hit of the day. She soon forgot about wards or anything else and simply lost herself to the ecstasy of his bite. I forgot about wards too. I had a one-track mind, really: I still wanted to know if Mason had been real or not. The priest's frightening explanation aside, I had to admit Mason's visits hadn't been threatening, just scary. If he was out to get me, he was kind of doing a half-assed job of it. Once again, I started putting more stock in the stress-and-fatigue theory.
"Now it's time for me to eat," I said when Christian finished. I was pretty sure I could smell bacon now. That'd probably make Christian happy. He could wrap it around his French toast.
We'd barely stepped out of the room when Lissa came running up to us, Eddie trailing behind. Excitement lit her face, though the feelings in the bond weren't exactly happy.
"Did you hear?" she asked, a little breathless.
"Hear what?" I asked.
"You have to hurry - go pack your things. We're going to Victor's trial. Right now."
There'd been no warning at all about when Victor's trial would even occur, let alone that someone had apparently decided we could go. Christian and I exchanged brief, startled looks and then hurried off to his room to gather our things.
Packing was a breeze. My bag was ready to go already, and Christian only took a minute to throw his together. In less than a half hour, we were out on the Academy's landing strip. Two private jets sat in attendance, one of which was fired up and waiting to go. A couple of Moroi hurried about, doing last-minute things with the plane and the runway.
No one seemed to know what was going on. Lissa had simply been told that she, Christian, and I were going to testify and that Eddie could come along to continue his field experience. There'd been no explanation as to why things had changed, and a weird mix of eagerness and apprehension crackled around us. We all wanted to see Victor locked away for good, but now that we were actually faced with the reality of the trial and of seeing him - well, it was kind of scary.