flowers and more flowers. The air was heavy with their scent, and I realized that someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to find night-blooming ones. The only type I immediately recognized was jasmine, its long, white-flowered vines climbing up trellises and statues in the maze.
We walked in silence for a bit, and I found myself lost in the romance of it all. The whole time Dimitri and I had been together at school, I'd been consumed with the fears of how we would juggle our relationship and our duty. A moment like this, walking in a garden on a spring night lit with stars, had seemed like a fantasy too crazy to even start to consider.
Even without the difficulty of stairs, too much walking grew exhausting in my state. I came to a halt and sighed. "I'm tired," I said.
Dimitri stopped too and helped me sit down. The grass was dry and tickly against my skin. I lay back against it, and a moment later, he joined me.
I had an eerie moment of deja vu, recalling the afternoon we'd made snow angels.
"This is amazing," I said, staring up at the sky. It was clear, no clouds in sight. "What's it like for you?"
"Hmm?"
"There's enough light that I can see pretty clearly, but it's still dim compared to day. Your eyes are better than mine. What do you see?"
"For me, it's as bright as day." When I didn't respond, he added, "It could be like that for you, too."
I tried to picture that. Would the shadows seem as mysterious? Would the moon and stars shine so brightly? "I don't know. I kind of like the darkness."
"Only because you don't know any better."
I sighed. "So you keep telling me."
He turned toward me and pushed the hair away from my face. "Rose, this is driving me crazy. I'm tired of this waiting. I want us to be together.
Don't you like this? What we have? It could be even better." His words sounded romantic, but not the tone.
I did like this. I loved the haze I lived in, the haze in which all worries disappeared. I loved being close to him, loved the way he kissed me and told me he wanted me...
"Why?" I asked.
"Why what?" He sounded puzzled, something I hadn't heard yet in a Strigoi.
"Why do you want me?" I had no idea why I even asked that. He apparently didn't know either.
"Why wouldn't I want you?"
He spoke in such an obvious way, like it was the stupidest question in the world. It probably was, I realized, and yet... I'd somehow been expecting another answer.
Just then, my stomach twisted. With all the time I'd spent with Dimitri, I really had managed to push the Strigoi nausea off my radar. The presence of other Strigoi increased it, though. I'd felt it around Nathan, and I felt it now. I sat up, and Dimitri did too, almost at the same time. He'd likely been alerted by his superior hearing.
A dark shape loomed over us, blotting out the stars. It was a woman, and Dimitri shot up. I stayed where I was, on the ground.
She was strikingly beautiful, in a hard and terrible way. Her build was similar to mine, indicating she hadn't been a Moroi when turned. Isaiah, the Strigoi who'd captured me, had been very old, and power had radiated from him. This woman hadn't been around nearly so long, but I could sense that she was older than Dimitri and much stronger.
She said something in Russian to him, and her voice was as cold as her beauty. Dimitri answered back, his tone confident yet polite. I heard Nathan's name mentioned a couple of times as they spoke. Dimitri reached down and helped me up, and I felt embarrassed at how often I needed his assistance, when I used to almost be a match for him.
"Rose," he said, "this is Galina. She's the one who has been kind enough to let you stay."
Galina's face didn't look so kind. It was devoid of all emotion, and I felt like my entire soul was exposed to her. While I was uncertain of a lot of things around here, I'd picked up enough to realize that my continual residence here was a rare and fragile thing. I swallowed.
"Spasibo," I said. I didn't know how to tell her it was nice to meet her-and honestly, I wasn't sure if it was-but I figured a simple thank-you was good enough. If she'd been his former