I gasped. The file was thick, filled with all sorts of documents. There were pages on the prison's history and its migration patterns, as well as floor plans for each of its locations. I could hardly believe it. So much information . . . but what did I need? What would be useful? The answer came quickly: all of it. I shut the drawer and tucked the folder under my arm. Okay. Time to get out of here.
I turned around and began heading for the exit at a light jog. Now that I had what I needed, the urgency of escape was pressing on me. I was almost there when I heard a soft click, and the door opened. I froze as a dhampir I didn't recognize stepped through. He froze as well, clearly astonished, and I took it as a small blessing that he didn't immediately pin me against the wall and start interrogating me.
"You're Rose Hathaway," he said. Good lord. Was there anyone who didn't know who I was?
I tensed, unsure what to expect now, but spoke as though us meeting here made perfect sense. "So it would seem. Who are you?"
"Mikhail Tanner," he said, still puzzled. "What are you doing here?"
"Running an errand," I said breezily. I indicated the file. "The guardian on duty down here needed something."
"You're lying," he said. "I'm the guardian on archive duty. If someone needed something, they would have sent me."
Oh, shit. Talk about best-laid plans failing. Yet as I stood there, a strange thought came to me. His appearance wasn't familiar at alclass="underline" curly brown hair, average height, late twenties. Pretty good-looking, really. But his name . . . something about his name . . .
"Ms. Karp," I gasped. "You're the one . . . you were involved with Ms. Karp."
He stiffened, blue eyes narrowing warily. "What do you know about that?"
I swallowed. What I'd done–or tried to do for Dimitri–wasn't without precedent. "You loved her. You went out to kill her after she . . . after she turned."
Ms. Karp had been a teacher of ours a few years ago. She'd been a spirit user, and as the effects of it began to drive her insane, she'd done the only thing she could to save her mind: become a Strigoi. Mikhail, her lover, had done the only thing he'd known to end that evil state: search for and kill her. It occurred to me that I was standing face-to-face with the hero of a love story nearly as dramatic as my own.
"But you never found her," I said softly. "Did you?"
He took a long time in answering, his eyes weighing me heavily. I wondered what he was thinking about. Her? His own pain? Or was he analyzing me?
"No," he said finally. "I had to stop. The guardians needed me more."
He spoke in that calm, controlled way that guardians excelled at, but in his eyes, I saw grief–a grief I more than understood. I hesitated before taking a shot at the only chance I had to not get busted and end up in a jail cell.
"I know . . . I know you have every reason to drag me out of here and turn me in. You should. It's what you're supposed to do–what I'd do too. But the thing is, this . . ." I again nodded at the folder. "Well, I'm kind of trying to do what you did. I'm trying to save someone."
He remained quiet. He could probably guess who I meant and assumed "save" meant "kill." If he knew who I was, he'd know who my mentor had been. Few knew about my romantic relationship with Dimitri, but me caring about him would have been a foregone conclusion.
"It's futile, you know," Mikhail said at last. This time, his voice cracked a little. "I tried . . . I tried so hard to find her. But when they disappear . . . when they don't want to be found . . ." He shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. I understand why you want to do it. Believe me, I do. But it's impossible. You'll never find him if he doesn't want you to."
I wondered how much I could tell Mikhail–how much I should. It occurred to me then that if there was anyone else in this world who understood what I was going through, it would be this man. Besides, I didn't have a lot of options here.
"The thing is, I think I can find him," I said slowly. "He's looking for me."
"What?" Mikhail's eyebrows rose. "How do you know?"
"Because he, um, sends me letters about it."
That fierce warrior look immediately returned. "If you know this, if you can find him . . . you should get backup to kill him."
I flinched at those last words and again feared what I had to say next. "Would you believe me if I said there was a way to save him?"
"You mean by destroying him."
I shook my head. "No . . . I mean really save. A way to restore him to his original state."
"No," Mikhail said swiftly. "That's impossible."
"It might not be. I know someone who did it–who turned a Strigoi back." Okay, that was a small lie. I didn't actually know the person, but I wasn't going to get into the string of knowing-someone-who-knewsomeone . . .
"That's impossible," Mikhail repeated. "Strigoi are dead. Undead. Same difference."
"What if there was a chance?" I said. "What if it could be done? What if Ms. Karp–if Sonya–could become Moroi again? What if you could be together again?" It'd also mean she'd be crazy again, but that was a technicality for later.
It felt like an eternity before he answered, and my anxiety grew. Lissa couldn't compel forever, and I'd told Mia I would be fast. This plan would fall apart if I didn't get out soon. Yet, watching him deliberate, I could see his mask falter. After all this time, he still loved his Sonya.
"If what you're saying is true–and I don't believe it–then I'm coming with you."
Whoa, no. Not in the plan. "You can't," I said swiftly. "I've already got people in place." Another small lie. "Adding more might ruin things. I'm not doing it alone," I said, cutting off what I figured would be his next argument. "If you really want to help me–really want to take a chance on bringing her back–you need to let me go."
"There's no way it can be true," he repeated. But there was doubt in his voice, and I played on it.
"Can you take that chance?"
More silence. I was starting to sweat now. Mikhail closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he stepped aside and gestured to the door. "Go."
I nearly sagged in relief and immediately grabbed the door handle. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"I could get in a lot of trouble for this," he said wearily. "And I still don't believe it's possible."
"But you hope it is." I didn't need a response from him to know I was right. I opened the door, but before going through, I paused and glanced at him. This time, he no longer hid the grief and pain in his face. "If you mean it . . . if you want to help . . . there might be a way you can."
Another piece of the puzzle had unraveled itself for me, another way we might pull this off. I explained what I needed from him and was surprised at how quickly he agreed. He really was like me, I realized. We both knew the idea of bringing back Strigoi was impossible . . . and yet we so, so wanted to believe it could be done
I slipped back upstairs alone after that. Don wasn't at his desk, and I wondered what Mia had done with him. I didn't wait to find out and instead headed outside, off to a small courtyard that we'd established as our rendezvous point. Mia and Lissa were both waiting there, pacing. No longer distracted with anxiety, I opened myself to the bond and felt Lissa's agitation.
"Thank God," she said when she saw me. "We thought you'd been caught."
"Well . . . it's a long story." One I didn't bother with. "I got what I needed. And . . . I actually got a whole lot more. I think we can do this."
Mia gave me a look that was both wry and wistful. "I sure do wish I knew what you guys were doing."