She leapt from the chair. Ben immediately stepped forward and pushed her back into it. "And then what? Are you going to just make me a prisoner here?Your own private nurse?"
He made that annoying open-palmed gesture again. "I'm sorry. I have no choice."
White-hot anger blasted away the fear inside of her. She spoke in a low voice. "Yes.You don't have the choice, because this isme we're talking about."
"It's better for you this way. You know how the others turned out. HowVladimir spent the last of his days stark, raving mad. How Sonya Karp had to be taken away. The trauma you've experienced since the accident comes from more than just your family's loss. It's from using spirit. The accident woke the spirit in you; your fear over seeing Rose dead made it burst out, allowing you to heal her. It forged your bond. And once it's out, you can't put it back. It's a powerful element-but it's also dangerous. Earth users get their power from the earth, air users from the air. But spirit? Where do you think that comes from?"
She glared.
"It comes from you, from your own essence. To heal another, you must give part of yourself. The more you do that, the more it will destroy you over time. You must be noticing that already. I've seen how much certain things upset you, how fragile you are."
"I'm not fragile, " snapped Lisa. "And I'm not going to go crazy. I'm going to stop using spirit before things get worse."
He smiled. "Stop using it? You might as well stop breathing. Spirit has its own agenda…You'll always have the urge to help and heal. It's part of you. You resisted the animals, but you didn't think twice about helping Rose. You can't even help compulsion-which spirit also gives you special strength in. And that's how it will always be. You can't avoid spirit. Better to stay here, in isolation, away from further sources of stress. You'd either have become increasingly unstable at the Academy, or they would have put you on some pill that would have made you feel better but stunted your power."
A calm core of confidence settled inside her, one very different from what I'd observed over the last couple of years. "I love you, Uncle Victor, butI'm the one who has to deal with that and decide what to do. Not you. You're making me give up my life for yours. That's not fair."
"It's a matter of which life means more. I love you too.Very much. But the Moroi are falling apart. Our numbers are dropping as we let the Strigoi prey upon us. We used to actively seek them out. Now Tatiana and the other leaders hide away. They keep you and your peers isolated. In the old days, you were trained to fight alongside your guardians! You were taught to use magic as a weapon. Not any longer. We wait. We arevictims. " As he stared off, both Lisa and I could see how caught up in his passion he was. "I would have changed that if I were king. I would have brought about a revolution the likes of which neither Moroi nor Strigoi have ever seen.I should have been Tatiana's heir. She was ready to name me before they discovered the disease, and then she would not. If I were cured…if I were cured, I could take my rightful place…"
His words triggered something inside of Lisa, a sudden consideration for the state of the Moroi. She'd never contemplated what he'd said, about how different it might be if Moroi and their guardians fought side by side to rid the world of the Strigoi and their evil. It reminded her of Christian and what he'd said about using magic as a weapon too. But even if she did appreciate Victor's convictions, neither of us thought it was worth what he wanted her to do.
"I'm sorry, " she whispered. "I'm sorry for you. But please don't make me do this."
"I have to."
She looked him straight in the eye. "I won't do it."
He inclined his head, and someone stepped forward from the corner.Another Moroi. No one I knew. Walking around behind Lisa, he untied her hands.
"This is Kenneth. " Victor held his hands out toward her free ones. "Please, Vasilisa. Take my hands. Send the magic through me just as you did with Rose."
She shook her head. "No."
His voice was less kindly when he spoke again. "Please. One way or another, you will heal me. I'd rather it be on your terms, not ours."
She shook her head again. He made a slight gesture toward Kenneth.
And that's when the pain started.
Lisa screamed. I screamed.
In the SUV, Dimitri's grip on the wheel jerked in surprise, making us veer. Casting me an alarmed look, he started to pull over.
"No, no! Keep going! " I pressed my palms to my temples. "We have to get there!"
From behind my seat,Alberta reached forward and rested a hand on my shoulder. "Rose, what's happening?"
I blinked back tears. "They're torturing her…with air. This guy…Kenneth…he's making it press against her…into her head. The pressure's insane. It feels like my-her- skull's gonna explode. " I started sobbing.
Dimitri looked at me out of the corner of his eye and pressed the gas pedal down harder.
Kenneth didn't stop with just the physical force of air. He also used it to affect her breathing. Sometimes he'd smother her with it; other times he'd take it all away and leave her gasping. After enduring all that firsthand-and it was bad enough secondhand-I felt pretty confident I would have done anything they wanted.
And finally, she did.
Hurting and bleary-eyed, Lisa took Victor's hands. I'd never been in her head when she worked magic and didn't know what to expect. At first, I felt nothing.Just a sense of concentration. Then…it was like…I don't even know how to describe it. Color and light and music and life and joy and love…so many wonderful things, all the lovely things that make up the world and make it worth living in.
Lisa summoned up all of those things, as many as she could, and sent them into Victor. The magic flowed through both of us, brilliant and sweet. It was alive. It was her life. And as wonderful as it all felt, she was growing weaker and weaker. But as all of those elements-bound by the mysterious spirit element-flowed into Victor, he grew stronger and stronger.
The change was startling. His skin smoothed, no longer wrinkled and pocked. The gray thinning hair filled out, turning dark and lustrous once more.The green eyes-still jadelike-sparkled again, turning alert and lively.
He'd become the Victor she remembered from her childhood.
Exhausted, Lisa passed out.
In the SUV, I tried to relate what was happening. Dimitri's face grew darker and darker, and he spat out a string of Russian swear words hestill hadn't taught me the meanings of.
When we were a quarter mile from the cabin,Alberta made a call on her cell phone, and our whole convoy pulled over. All of the guardians-more than a dozen-got out and stood huddled, planning strategy. Someone went ahead to scout and returned with a report on the number of people inside and outside of the cabin. When the group seemed ready to disperse, I started to get out of the car. Dimitri stopped me.
"No, Roza. You stay here."
"The hell with that.I have to go help her."
He cupped my chin with his hands, fixing me with his eyes. "You have helped her. Your job is done. You did it well. But this isn't any place for you. She and I both need you to stay safe."
Only the realization that arguing would delay the rescue kept me quiet. Swallowing back any protests, I nodded. He nodded back and joined the others. All of them slipped off into the woods, blending with the trees.
Sighing, I kicked the passenger seat back and lay down. I was so tired. Even though the sun poured through the windshield, it was night for me. I'd been up for most of it, and a lot had happened in that time. Between the adrenaline of my own role and sharing Lisa's pain, I could have passed out just like she had.