"I suppose you want to offer to burn it, huh? " I asked,refusing to let her know how much that insult bugged me. I knew perfectly well my fashion sense had slipped over the last two years. "Oh, wait-fire isn't your element, is it? You work with water. What a coincidence that a bunch just fell on us."
Mia looked as if she'd been insulted, but the gleam in her eyes showed that she was enjoying this way too much to be an innocent bystander. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing to me.But Ms. Kirova will probably have something to say when she finds out you used magic against another student."
"That wasn't an attack, " she scoffed. "And it wasn't me. It was an act of God."
A few others laughed, much to her delight. In my imagination, I responded with,Sois this, and then slammed her into the side of the church. In real life, Lisa simply nudged me and said, "Let's go."
She and I walked off toward our respective dorms, leaving behind laughter and jokes about our wet states and how Lisa wouldn't know anything about specialization. Inside, I seethed. I had to do something about Mia, I realized. In addition to the general irritation of Mia's bitchiness, I didn't want Lisa to have to deal with any more stress than she had to. We'd been okay this first week, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"You know, " I said, "I'm thinking more and more that you stealing Aaron backis a good thing. It'll teach
Bitch Doll a lesson. I bet it'd be easy, too. He's still crazy about you."
"I don't want to teach anyone a lesson, " said Lisa. "AndI'm not crazy about him."
"Come on, she picks fights and talks about us behind our backs. She accused me of getting jeans from the Salvation Army yesterday."
"Your jeansare from the Salvation Army."
"Well, yeah, " I snorted, "but she has no right making fun of them when she's wearing stuff from Target."
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Target. I like Target."
"So doI. That's not the point. She's trying to pass her stuff off likeit's freaking Stella McCartney."
"And that's a crime?"
I affected a solemn face. "Absolutely. You've gotta take revenge."
"I told you, I'm not interested in revenge. " Lisa cut me a sidelong look. "And you shouldn't be either."
I smiled as innocently as I could, and when we parted ways, I felt relieved again that she couldn't read my thoughts.
"So when's the big catfight going to happen?"
Mason was waiting for me outside our dorm after I'd parted ways with Lisa. He looked lazy and cute, leaning against the wall with crossed arms as he watched me.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
He unfolded himself and walked with me into the building, handing me his coat, since I'd let Lisa go off with my dry one. "I saw you guys sparring outside the chapel. Have you no respect for the house of God?"
I snorted. "You've got about as much respect for it as I do, you heathen. You didn't even go. Besides, as you said, we wereoutside."
"And you still didn't answer the question."
I just grinned and slipped on his coat.
We stood in the common area of our dorm, a well-supervised lounge and study area where male and female students could mingle, along with Moroi guests. Being Sunday, it was pretty crowded with those cramming for last-minute assignments due tomorrow. Spying a small, empty table, I grabbed Mason's arm and pulled him toward it.
"Aren't you supposed to go straight to your room?"
I hunkered down in my seat, glancing around warily. "There are so many people heretoday, it'll take them a while to notice me. God, I'm so sick of being locked away. And it's only been a week."
"I'm sick of it too. We missed you last night. A bunch of us went and shot pool in the rec room. Eddie was on fire."
I groaned. "Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear about your glamorous social life."
"All right. "He propped his elbow up on the table and rested his chin in his hand. "Then tell me about Mia. You're just going to turn around and punch her one day, aren't you? I think I remember you doing that at least ten times with people that pissed you off."
"I'm a new, reformed Rose, " I said, doing my best impression of demure.Which wasn't very good. He emitted a choking sort of laugh. "Besides, if I do that, I'll have broken my probation with Kirova.Gotta walk the straight and narrow."
"In other words, find some way to get back at Mia that you won't get in trouble for."
I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. "You know what I like about you, Mase? You think just like I do."
"Frightening concept, " he replied drily. "So tell me what you think of this: I might know something about her, but I probably shouldn't tell you…"
I leaned forward. "Oh, you already tipped me off. You'vegot to tell me now."
"It'd be wrong, " he teased. "How do I know you'd use this knowledge for good instead of evil?"
I batted my eyelashes. "Can you resist this face?"
He took a moment to study me. "No. I can't, actually. Okay, here you go: Mia isn'troyal."
I slouched back in my chair. "No kidding. I already knew that. I've known who's royal since I was two."
"Yeah, but there's more than just that.Her parents work for one of the Drozdov lords. " I waved my hand impatiently. A lot of Moroi worked out in the human world, but Moroi society had plenty of jobs for its own kind too. Someone had to fill them. "Cleaning stuff.Practically servants. Her dad cuts grass, and her
mom's a maid." I actually had a healthy respect for anyone who pulled a full day's work, regardless of the job. People everywhere had to do crappy stuff to make a living.But, much like with Target, it became another matter altogether when someone was trying to pass herself off as something else. And in the week that I'd been here, I'd picked up on how desperately Mia wanted to fit in with the school elite.
"No one knows, " I said thoughtfully.
"And she doesn't want them to. You know how the royals are. " He paused. "Well, except for Lisa, of course. They'd give Mia a hard time over it."
"How do you know all this?"
"My uncle's a guardian for the Drozdovs."
"And you've just been sitting on this secret, huh?"
"Until you broke me.So which path will you choose: good or evil?"
"I think I'll give her a grace-"
"Miss Hathaway, you know you aren't supposed to be here."
One of the dorm matrons stood over us, disapproval all over her face.
I hadn't been joking when I said Mason thought like me. He could bullshit as well as I could. "We have a group project to do for our humanities class. How are we supposed to do it if Rose is in isolation?"
The matron narrowed her eyes. "You don't look like you're doing work."
I slid over the priest's book and opened it at random. I'd placed it on the table when we sat down.
"We're, um, working on this."
She still looked suspicious. "One hour. I'll give you one more hour down here, and I'd better actually see you working."
"Yes, ma'am, " said Mason straight-faced. "Absolutely."
She wandered off, still eyeing us. "My hero, " I declared.
He pointed at the book. "What is this?"
"Something the priest gave me. I had a question about the service."
He stared at me, astonished.
"Oh, stop it and look interested. " I skimmed the index. "I'm trying to find some woman named Anna."
Mason slid his chair over so that he was sitting right beside me. "All right. Let's 'study. "
I found a page number, and it took me to the section on St. Vladimir, not surprisingly. We read through the chapter, scanning for Anna's name. When we found it, the author didn't have much to say about her.