She loves him so much—the only thing she can do to prove that now is to keep that promise.
She’s been staking out a Moroi nightclub in St. Petersburg for information that could lead her to a dhampir commune. Her ultimate destination is Dimitri’s hometown—she thinks he might have returned there. But finding it is harder than she’d expected, especially since she doesn’t know the name of it; she’s mostly met with brick walls and the assumption that she’s looking for such a village because she’s an aspiring blood whore.
Outside the club, she senses she’s being followed. When she confronts her pursuer—
not
a Strigoi—she meets Sydney Sage, an eighteen-year-old Alchemist, who’s pretty mad at Rose for leaving a path of dead Strigoi bodies behind her since her arrival in Russia.
Speaking of Strigoi, one attacks them at that very moment. Fortunately, Rose manages to stake it. Sydney is shocked—she’s never seen a staking before—but she manages to compose herself enough to demonstrate one of her many responsibilities as an Alchemist. She sprinkles something on the body that makes it disintegrate, leaving only dust behind.
Sydney fills Rose in on the info she needs: Alchemists are a group of humans who help the Moroi hide their existence from the rest of the human world. Rose would have been told about them if she’d stuck around St. Vlad’s long enough to graduate.
Rose can’t help but notice the intricate design of flowers and leaves that Sydney has tattooed on her face. All Alchemists have this mark. It’s made from a mixture of gold, Moroi blood, and earth and water magic—which gives them long life and good health. It also prevents them from speaking of their jobs with other humans. Despite their job requirements, Alchemists consider all vampires—including half-Moroi dhampirs—to be evil creatures of the night.
“We’re not like Strigoi!” I snapped.
Her face stayed bland. “Moroi drink blood. Dhampirs are the unnatural offspring of them and humans.”
No one had ever called me unnatural before, except for the time I put ketchup on a taco. But seriously, we’d been out of salsa, so what else was I supposed to do? “Moroi and dhampirs are not evil,” I told Sydney. “Not like Strigoi.”
“That’s true,” she conceded. “Strigoi are
more
evil.”
—page 38
Okay, so maybe Rose hasn’t found a new BFF, but she’s definitely found someone who knows about local vampires. Rose asks about the village she’s looking for, but instead of offering up an answer, Sydney makes a phone call to get her orders. She’s told to take Rose to the village personally. Sydney obliges, but she doesn’t seem all that happy about spending more time with an evil creature of the night.
Their train for Moscow leaves late the next morning to take them on their first leg of the journey, and it gives Rose a lot of time to think. The real possibility that she’ll be facing Dimitri in a few short days weighs heavy on Rose. She gave up a lot to travel to Russia, forfeiting her education and bruising her friendship with Lissa in the process. But it’s the second issue that most troubles Rose, the fact that Lissa felt abandoned when Rose left school. Rose still has the bond, though, and checks in with her friend to see how everything is.
And Lissa’s frustrated. Ever since she agreed to move to Court after graduation and attend Lehigh University, it feels as if the queen’s trying to dictate her life. At Tatiana’s “request,” she has to go greet two newcomers to the school. Eugene Lazar, who’s from one of the royal families, is taking over as headmaster, and he’s bringing his daughter, Avery, with him. Also joining them are her brother, Reed, and her guardian, Simon. Rose thinks that putting a royal in the head-of-school position is likely a decision the queen made to ease parents’ minds after the recent Strigoi attacks. Good for the parents—but bad for Lissa.
Now she has to show Avery around campus—and Lissa doesn’t know why, but the whole thing feels suspicious to her. Was Avery sent here to keep an eye on Lissa and report back to the queen? Lissa decides to do the bare minimum of showing Avery around—and definitely won’t take the girl into her confidences. No way.
This apprehension is cool with Rose. At least Lissa isn’t jumping at the first chance to replace her as a friend.
After a short stop in Moscow, Rose and Sydney catch their next train, which will take them to Siberia. They’re sharing first-class accommodations on board, and the girls are able to get some sleep in their private room. As Rose dozes off, she has a spirit dream starring Adrian—a regular occurrence since she left. While she doesn’t appreciate the intrusion, she knows he means well.
“I suppose I should be grateful you only show up about once a week.”
He grinned and sat down backward in one of the slatted wooden chairs. He was tall, like most Moroi, with a leanly muscled build. Moroi guys never got too bulky. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Rose. Don’t want you to take me for granted.”
“We’re in no danger of that; don’t worry.”
—page 64
JOURNEY TO BAIA
Sydney seems uncomfortable traveling with Rose, but they manage to form a decent relationship—if not
quite
a friendship—over the next few days. After a long train ride on the Trans-Siberian, Sydney happily buys a car (she’s a car nut). They’ll have to drive the rest of the way on a remote road. And to add to the fun, the threat of Strigoi makes it dangerous on the roads at night. Harder to see what’s coming—and what’s coming could kill you.
In a way, Rose almost wishes she’ll never find Dimitri. Then she’ll never have to face what he’s become—or what she has to do. During the long stretches of travel time, memories of the man she fell in love with haunt her constantly.
How can she kill someone she loved so much?
But that’s exactly the point. That man is gone forever, replaced by a monster.
Back at St. Vlad’s, Adrian and Lissa are practicing spirit and discussing the very same issue: Rose and Dimitri. Rose listens in through the bond.
“Do you think she can kill Dimitri?”
Adrian took a long time in answering. “I think she can. The question will be if it kills her in the process.”
Lissa flinched, and I was a bit surprised. The answer was as blunt as one Christian might give. “God, I wish she hadn’t decided to go after him.”
“Wishing’s useless now. Rose has got to do this. It’s the only way we can get her back.” He paused. “It’s the only way she’ll be able to move on.”
—page 82
He’s right about that. Rose is surprised by how well Adrian seems to understand her.
When Lissa leaves Adrian, she overhears an argument between Avery and her father. Avery is obviously drunk, and her father is ashamed of her behavior. Despite herself, Lissa finds that she feels sorry for the girl, who obviously isn’t happy about being stuck at the Academy. The next day, Lissa decides to invite her to lunch. Why not be friendly? It’s not going to kill her—and maybe they
will
become friends after all . . .
SPIRITS VS. STRIGOI
Sydney and Rose reach a house owned by people connected with the Alchemists where they’ll be spending the night and get some rest.
But suddenly Rose feels nauseous . . . and she knows what that means.
There are Strigoi nearby.
She slips out of the house to investigate, stake in hand. A pair of Strigoi ambush her, and she’s hurt badly. Injured and at an extreme disadvantage, she’s about to be killed by Strigoi—when suddenly ghosts appear from everywhere. Since Rose is shadow-kissed, she can see ghosts, which is how she saw Mason back at St. Vladimir’s. She’s worked hard to build up barriers to block her from the spirit world, and her out-of-control emotions must have messed with that. But it turns out, she’s not the ghosts’ target. Instead, they swarm the Strigoi.
It gives her enough of an advantage to stake the two vampires before she puts her barriers back up and the ghosts fade away.
Sydney runs toward her just as Rose succumbs to her injuries and passes out cold.
She has a good dream—one about taking care of one of Dimitri’s injuries back when they were fighting their desire for each other.
My fingertips touching his skin had sent shock waves through me, and he’d felt them too. He caught hold of my hand and pulled it away.
“Enough,” he said, voice husky. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. He hadn’t released my hand. We were so, so close. The small bathroom seemed ready to burst with the electricity building between us. I knew this couldn’t last but hated to let go of him. God, it was hard being responsible sometimes.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was soft, and I knew he wasn’t mad at me. He was afraid, afraid of how little it would take to ignite a fire between us.
—page 96
Later, she’ll learn she said Dimitri’s last name aloud in her sleep and that Sydney used it as a clue to get them where they needed to go. She’ll also learn that a mysterious Moroi named Abe Mazur helped too.
When she wakes up, it takes her some time to realize that she’s exactly where she wanted to be. Dimitri’s hometown. In fact, she’s in Dimitri’s family’s house—and his mother, Olena, is helping to nurse her back to health!
A surprised Rose meets the rest of Dimitri’s family, including Dimitri’s sisters Karolina and Viktoria and his grandmother, Yeva. Later, she’ll also meet the third sister, Sonja, who’s currently pregnant. The Belikovs don’t yet know who Rose is or that she’s connected to Dimitri, only that she’s a dhampir traveling with an Alchemist who needed help. The wise and witchy Yeva believes that Rose has ulterior motives for being in town—and she’s right. But Rose isn’t ready to break the news about Dimitri to his warm and generous family yet—a family who have generously welcomed her into their home without even knowing who she is.
Viktoria takes Rose on a tour of the small town, and she’s surprised to discover that it’s way more normal than she ever would have guessed. It even has a large human population. Rose and Viktoria meet up with a friend of Viktoria’s, a cute dhampir guy who obviously has a big crush on Dimitri’s youngest sister. Too bad it doesn’t seem to be mutual.
The subject of the
unpromised
comes up—dhampirs who never completed their training but who kill Strigoi. That’s what Rose is now since she’s a St. Vlad’s drop-out.
When Viktoria speaks glowingly of her brother, Rose feels horribly guilty for keeping the truth from his family—the truth about who she really is and what has happened to Dimitri. It’s not fair to anyone. Back at the house, Rose gathers everyone together and breaks the horrible news to them: Dimitri is now a Strigoi.
His family is stunned by the news, but despite their overwhelming grief, it doesn’t take long before they begin to plan his memorial service. Sydney helps Rose understand why this is.
“But he’s not dead—”
“Shh.” She cut me off with a sharp gesture and glanced warily at the others as they hustled around. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true,” I hissed back.
She shook her head. “Not to them. Out here . . . out in these villages . . . there’s no in-between state. You’re alive or you’re dead. They aren’t going to acknowledge him being one of... those.” She couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice. “For all intents and purposes, he is dead to them. They’ll mourn him and move on. So should you.”
—page 117
But Rose is far from ready to move on.
Sydney wonders if Rose has had the chance to meet Abe Mazur yet, a guy who helped get her here to Baia in the first place. He’s a Moroi with a lot of influence and power but not a royal. His nickname is
Zmey
, which is Russian for “serpent.” He sounds like trouble to Rose, especially when she learns that he’s been specifically searching for her on behalf of someone. Who’s he working for? A friend or a foe?
IN MEMORIAM
Dimitri’s memorial service comes together quickly. The service is held at the Belikovs’ house, and from the turnout, it’s clear that Dimitri was well loved by all in the village. The emotion is overwhelming for Rose, and she needs to get some fresh air. Outside, she finally meets Abe. He’s flamboyant and dangerous . . . the kind of guy who might break kneecaps for a living. She assumes whoever hired him wants her to go back home.
“Did you think you could just come here and drag me back to the U.S.?”
That secretive smile of Abe’s returned. “Do you think I could just drag you back?”
“Well,” I scoffed, again without thinking, “you couldn’t. Your guys here could. Well, maybe. I might be able to take them.”
Abe laughed out loud for the first time, a rich, deep sound filled with sincere amusement. “You live up to your brash reputation. Delightful.”
—page 132