Last Sacrifice

that she wouldn't disappoint that lineage, that she would see her family's pride restored. And now it was all falling apart.

Even Ariana, whom Lissa had considered a supporter, looked disappointed. The audience began to jeer, echoing the call of removing this tongue-tied child from the Council. They yelled for her to leave. Then, worse still: 'The dragon is dead! The dragon is dead!'

Lissa almost tried again to make her speech, but then something made her look behind her. There, the twelve family seals hung on the wall. A man had appeared out of nowhere and was taking down the Dragomir's crest, with its dragon and Romanian inscription. Lissa's heart sank as the shouts in the room became louder and her humiliation grew. She rose, wanting to run out of there and hide from the disgrace. Instead, her feet took her to the wall with its seals. With more strength than she thought herself capable of possessing, she jerked the dragon seal away from the man.

'No!' she yelled. She turned her gaze to the audience and held up the seal, challenging any of them to come take it from her or deny her her rightful place on the Council. 'This. Is. Mine. Do you hear me? This is mine!'

She would never know if they heard because they disappeared, just like the graveyard. Silence fell. She now sat in one of the medical examining rooms back at St. Vladimir's. The familiar details were oddly comforting: the sink with its orange hand soap, the neatly labeled cupboards and drawers, and even the informative health posters on the walls. STUDENTS: PRACTICE SAFE SEX!

Equally welcome was the school's resident physician: Dr. Olendzki. The doctor wasn't alone. Standing around Lissa—who sat on top of an examination bed—were a therapist named Deirdre and . . . me. Seeing myself there was pretty wacky, but after the funeral, I was just starting to roll with all of this.

A surprising mix of feelings raced through Lissa, feelings out of her control. Happiness to see us. Despair at life. Confusion. Suspicion. She couldn't seem to get a hold of one emotion or thought. It was a very different feeling from the Council, when she just hadn't been able to explain herself. Her mind had been orderly—she'd just lost track of her point. Here, there was nothing to keep track of. She was a mental mess.

'Do you understand?' asked Dr. Olendzki. Lissa suspected the doctor had already asked this question. 'It's beyond what we can control. Medication no longer works.'

'Believe me, we don't want you hurting yourself. But now that others are at risk . . . well, you understand why we have to take action.' This was Deirdre. I'd always thought of her as smug, particularly since her therapeutic method involved answering questions with questions. There was no sly humor now. Deirdre was deadly earnest.

None of their words made sense to Lissa, but the hurting yourself part triggered something in her. She looked down at her arms. They were bare . . . and marred with cuts. The cuts she used to make when the pressure of spirit grew too great. They'd been her only outlet, a horrible type of release. Studying them now, Lissa saw the cuts were bigger and deeper than before. The kinds of cuts that danced with suicide. She looked back up.

'Who . . . who did I hurt?'

'You don't remember?' asked Dr. Olendzki.

Lissa shook her head, looking desperately from face to face, seeking answers. Her gaze fell on me, and my face was as dark and somber as Deirdre's. 'It's okay, Liss,' I said. 'It's all going to be okay.'

I wasn't surprised at that. Naturally, it was what I would say. I would always reassure Lissa. I would always take care of her.

'It's not important,' said Deirdre, voice soft and soothing. 'What's important is no one else ever gets hurt. You don't want to hurt anyone, do you?'

Of course Lissa didn't, but her troubled mind shifted elsewhere. 'Don't talk to me like a child!' The loudness of her voice filled the room.

'I didn't mean to,' said Deirdre, the paragon of patience. 'We just want to help you. We want you to be safe.'

Paranoia rose to the forefront of Lissa's emotions. Nowhere was safe. She was certain about that . . . but nothing else. Except maybe something about a dream. A dream, a dream . . .

'They'll be able to take care of you in Tarasov,' explained Dr. Olendzki. 'They'll make sure you're comfortable.'

'Tarasov?' Lissa and I spoke in unison. This other Rose clenched her fists and glared. Again, a typical reaction for me.

'She is not going to that place,' growled Rose.

'Do you think we want to do this?' asked Deirdre. It was the first time I'd really seen her cool façade crumble. 'We don't. But the spirit . . . what it's doing . . . we have no choice . . .'

Images of our trip to Tarasov flashed through Lissa's mind. The cold, cold corridors. The moans. The tiny cells. She remembered seeing the psychiatric ward, the section other spirit users were locked up in. Locked up indefinitely.

'No!' she cried, jumping up from the table. 'Don't send me to Tarasov!' She looked around for escape. The women stood between her and the door. Lissa couldn't run. What magic could she use? Surely there was something. Her mind touched spirit, as she rifled for a spell.

Other-Rose grabbed a hold of her hand, likely because she'd felt the stirrings of spirit and wanted to stop Lissa. 'There's another way,' my alter ego told Deirdre and Dr. Olendzki. 'I can pull it from her. I can pull it all from her, like Anna did for St. Vladimir. I can take away the darkness and instability. Lissa will be sane again.'

Everyone stared at me. Well, the other me.

'But then it'll be in you, right?' asked Dr. Olendzki. 'It won't disappear.'

'I don't care,' I told them stubbornly. 'I'll go to Tarasov. Don't send her. I can do it as long as she needs me to.'

Lissa watched me, scarcely believing what she heard. Her chaotic thoughts turned joyous. Yes! Escape. She wouldn't go crazy. She wouldn't go to Tarasov. Then, somewhere in the jumble of her memories . . .

'Anna committed suicide,' murmured Lissa. Her grasp on reality was still tenuous, but that sobering thought was enough to momentarily calm her racing mind. 'She went crazy from helping St. Vladimir.'

My other self refused to look at Lissa. 'It's just a story. I'll take the darkness. Send me.'

Lissa didn't know what to do or think. She didn't want to go to Tarasov. That prison gave her nightmares. And here I was, offering her escape, offering to save her like I always did. Lissa wanted that. She wanted to be saved. She didn't want to go insane like all the other spirit users. If she accepted my offer, she would be free.

Yet . . . on the edge or not, she cared about me too much. I had made too many sacrifices for her. How could she let me do this? What kind of friend would she be, to condemn me to that life? Tarasov scared Lissa. A life in a cage scared Lissa. But me facing that scared her even more.

There was no good outcome here. She wished it would all just go away. Maybe if she just closed her eyes . . . wait. She remembered again. The dream. She was in a spirit dream. All she had to do was wake up.

Say 'stop.'

It was easier this time. Saying that word was the simple way out, the perfect solution. No Tarasov for either of us, right? Then, she felt a lightening of the pressure on her mind, a stilling of those chaotic feelings. Her eyes widened as she realized I had already started pulling away the darkness. 'Stop' was forgotten.

'No!' Spirit burned through her, and she threw up a wall in the bond, blocking me from her.

'What are you doing?' my other self asked.

'Saving you,' said Lissa. 'Saving myself.' She turned to Dr. Olendzki and Deirdre. 'I understand what you have to do. It's okay. Take me to Tarasov. Take me where I won't hurt anyone else.' Tarasov. A place where real nightmares walked the halls. She braced herself as the office faded away, ready for the next part of the dream: a cold stone cell, with chains on the walls and people wailing down the halls....

But when the world put itself back together, there was no Tarasov. There was an empty room with an old woman and a silver chalice. Lissa looked around. Her heart was racing, and her sense of time was off. The things she'd seen had lasted an eternity. Yet, simultaneously, it felt like only a couple seconds had passed since she and