And I saw a lot of him in the next couple days. It turned out guardians had a system in place to deal with those who were disobedient.

"What you did was so irresponsible that you might as well be back in school. Hell, elementary school, even."

We were in one of the offices in the guardians' headquarters, being yelled at by Hans Croft, the guy in charge of all the guardians at Court and someone who was instrumental in guardian assignments. He was a dhampir in his early fifties, with a bushy gray-and-white mustache. He was also an asshole. The scent of cigar smoke always encircled him. Eddie and I were sitting meekly before him while he paced with his hands behind his back.

"You could have gotten the last Dragomir killed–not to mention the Ivashkov boy. How do you think the queen would have reacted to the death of her great-nephew? And talk about timing! You go off party-hopping right when the guy who tried to kidnap the princess is running loose. Not that you would know that, seeing as you were probably too busy playing slot machines and using your fake IDs."

I winced at the reference to Victor, though I suppose I should have been relieved that we were above suspicion for his escape. Hans read my grimace as an admission of guilt.

"You might have graduated," he declared, "but that does not mean you are invincible."

This whole encounter reminded me of when Lissa and I had returned to St. Vladimir's, when we'd been chastised for the same thing: recklessly running off and endangering her. Only this time, there was no Dimitri to defend me. That memory made a lump form in my throat as I remembered his face, serious and gorgeous, those brown eyes intense and passionate as he spoke up for me and convinced the others of my value.

But no. No Dimitri here. It was just Eddie and me alone, facing the consequences of the real world.

"You." Hans pointed a stubby finger at Eddie. "You might be lucky enough to slide out of this without too many repercussions. Sure, you'll have a black mark on your record forever. And you've totally screwed up your chances of ever having an elite royal position with other guardians to support you. You'll get some assignment though. Working alone with some minor nobility, probably."

High-ranking royals had more than one guardian, which always made protection easier. Hans's point was that Eddie's assignment would be lowly-creating more work and danger for him. Casting him a sidelong glance, I saw that hard, determined look on his face again. It seemed to say he didn't care if he had to guard a family by himself. Or even ten families. In fact, he gave off the vibe that they could drop him alone into a nest of Strigoi and he'd take them all on.

"And you." Hans's sharp voice jerked my gaze back to him. "You will be lucky to ever have a job."

Like always, I spoke without thinking. I should have taken this silently like Eddie. "Of course I'll have one. Tasha Ozera wants me. And you're too short on guardians to keep me sitting around."

Hans's eyes gleamed with bitter amusement. "Yes, we are short on guardians, but there's all sorts of work we need done–not just personal protection. Someone has to staff our offices. Someone has to sit and guard the front gates."

I froze. A desk job. Hans was threatening me with a desk job. All of my horrible imaginings had involved me guarding some random Moroi, someone I didn't know and would possibly hate. But in any of those scenarios, I would be out in the world. I would be in motion. I would be fighting and defending.

But this? Hans was right. Guardians were needed for the Court's administrative jobs. True, they only kept a handful–we were too valuable-but someone had to do it. One of those someones being me was too awful to comprehend. Sitting around all day for hours and hours . . . like the guards in Tarasov. Guardian life had all sorts of unglamorous–but necessary–tasks.

It truly, truly hit me then that I was in the real world. Fear slammed into me. I'd taken on the title of guardian when I graduated, but had I really understood what it meant? Had I been playing make-believe–enjoying the perks and ignoring the consequences? I was out of school. There would be no detention for this. This was real. This was life and death.

My face must have given away my feelings. Hans gave a small, cruel smile. "That's right. We've got all sorts of ways to tame troublemakers. Lucky for you, your ultimate fate's still being decided. And in the meantime, there's a lot of work that needs to be done around here that you two are going to be helping with."

That "work" over the next few days turned out to be menial manual labor. Honestly, it wasn't too different from detention, and I was pretty sure it had just been created to give wrongdoers like us something awful to do. We worked twelve hours a day, much of it outdoors hauling rocks and dirt to build some new, pretty courtyard for a set of royal town houses. Sometimes we were put on cleaning duty, scrubbing floors. I knew they had Moroi workers for these kinds of things, and probably they were being given a vacation right now.

Still, it was better than the other work Hans would give us: sorting and filing mountains and mountains of paper. That gave me a new appreciation for information going digital . . . and again made me worry about the future. Over and over, I kept thinking about that initial conversation with Hans. The threat that this could be my life. That I would never be a guardian–in the true sense–to Lissa or any other Moroi. Throughout my training, we'd always had a mantra: They come first. If I had really and truly screwed up my future, I'd have a new mantra: A comes first. Then B, C, D . . .

Those work days kept me away from Lissa, and the front-desk staff within our respective buildings went out of their way to keep us apart too. It was frustrating. I could keep track of her through the link, but I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to talk to anyone. Adrian stayed away too and didn't bother with dreams, making me wonder how he felt. We'd never had our "talk" after Las Vegas. Eddie and I often worked side by side, but he wasn't speaking to me, which left me with hours of being trapped with my own thoughts and guilt.

And believe me, I had plenty of things to intensify my guilt. Around Court, people didn't really notice workers. So whether I was inside or outside, people were always talking like I wasn't there. The biggest topic was Victor. Dangerous Victor Dashkov on the loose. How could it have happened? Did he have powers no one knew about? People were afraid, some even convinced he'd show up at Court and try to kill everyone in their sleep. The "inside job" theory was running rampant, which continued to keep us above suspicion. Unfortunately, it meant a lot of people now worried about traitors within our midst. Who knew who might be working for Victor Dashkov? Spies and rebels could be lurking at Court, planning all sorts of atrocities. I knew all the stories were exaggerated, but it didn't matter. They all came from one kernel of truth: Victor Dashkov was walking the world a free man. And only I–and my accomplices–knew it was all because of me.

Being seen in Las Vegas had continued to provide an alibi for the prison break and had made what we'd done seem even more rash. People were aghast that we'd let the Dragomir princess run off while there was a dangerous man on the loose–the man who'd assaulted her! Thank God, everyone said, that the queen had pulled us out of there before Victor found us. The Las Vegas trip had also opened up a whole new line of speculation-one that involved me personally.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me about Vasilisa," I overheard a woman say while I was working outdoors one day. She and some friends were strolling along toward the feeders' building and didn't even see me. "She's run away before, right? Those Dragomirs can be wild ones. She'll probably go straight back to the first party she can find, once they catch Victor Dashkov."