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"She doesn't blame you for that. Not entirely. I convinced her you needed a break…and that<br />
you could use this as a training exercise.”<br />
"Training exercise?”<br />
He gave me a brief explanation as we walked out to meet the others going with us. Victor<br />
Dashkov, as sickly as ever, was there with his guardians, and Natalie practically barreled into<br />
him. He smiled and gave her a careful hug, one that ended when a coughing fit took over.<br />
Natalie's eyes went wide with concern as she waited for it to pass.<br />
He claimed he was fine to accompany us, and while I admired his resolve, I thought he'd be<br />
putting himself through a lot just to shop with a bunch of teenage girls.<br />
We rode out the two-hour trip to Missoula in a large school van, leaving just after sunrise.<br />
Many Moroi lived separately from humans, but many also lived among them, and when<br />
shopping at their malls, you had to go during their hours. The back windows of the van had<br />
tinted glass to filter the light and keep the worst of it away from the vampires.<br />
We had nine people in our group: Lissa, Victor, Natalie, Camille, Dimitri, me, and three other<br />
guardians. Two of the guardians, Ben and Spiridon, always traveled with Victor. The third was<br />
one of the school's guardians: Stan, the jerk who'd humiliated me on my first day back.<br />
"Camille and Natalie don't have personal guardians yet," Dimitri explained to me. "They're both<br />
under the protection of their families' guardians. Since they are Academy students leaving<br />
campus, a school guardian accompanies them—Stan. I go because I'm Lissa's assigned<br />
guardian. Most girls her age wouldn't have a personal guardian yet, but circumstances make her<br />
unusual.”<br />
I sat in the back of the van with him and Spiridon, so they could dispense guardian wisdom to<br />
me as part of the "training exercise." Ben and Stan sat up front, while the others sat in the<br />
middle. Lissa and Victor talked to each other a lot, catching up on news. Camille, raised to be<br />
polite among older royals, smiled and nodded along. Natalie, on the other hand, looked left out<br />
and kept trying to shift her father's attention from Lissa. It didn't work. He'd apparently learned<br />
to tune out her chatter.
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