“Nothing to be done now,” I sighed. “Rose—” “Forget it, Liss. It’s done, okay?” She studied me quietly for a few seconds. “I haven’t seen you cry in a long time.”
“I wasn’t crying.” A feeling of heartache and sympathy beat through to me from the bond. “She can’t do this to you,” she argued. I laughed bitterly, half surprised at my own hopeless-ness. “She already did. She said she’d get back at me, that I wouldn’t be able to protect you. She did it.
When I go back to classes . . .” A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. I thought about the friends and respect I’d managed to eke out, despite our low profile. That would be gone. You couldn’t come back from something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood w***e, always a blood w***e. What made it worse was that some dark, secret
