How It All Goes Down
- Jesse and Ralf did it all right, and Rose is a social outcast from their little rumor about her. Lissa isn't giving hope though, and she starts winning over the royals one by one. Rose thinks maybe, just maybe, Lissa is just really good at convincing people, but then she thinks again.
- Lissa starts with Camille, one of the popular girls—she's got to do compulsion one-on-one for it to work—and once she convinces Camille that Jesse and Ralf's pants are on fire, she moves on. Christian catches her using her magical powers one day and points it out to her. He's sure these royals aren't her real friends, and he doesn't want to see her hurt.
- Rose continues training (and crushing) on Dimitri, and he lets her use some weapons and attack mode now, which is the best part of her day.
- Her hands are all busted from punching and fighting all day, so he gives her some salve for them. She tells him she won't cut her hair like the other female guardians—her mom used to be pretty, but now she's not because she's more tough than anything else.
- Dimitri points out that Rose is hypocritical when it comes to her mom. Doesn't she get what it's like to want to protect a Moroi more than anything else in the world? Why doesn't she let her mom off the hook sometimes?
- True, when Rose thinks about it. If she had to choose between guarding Lissa and anything else, she would choose her duty to Lissa. Wow, this guy's good.
- Then he lets her in on a little of his own family history: his mom was a blood whore and his dad came around looking for a good time quite a bit. Most of the time it wasn't so bad, until his dad started using his mom as a punching bag.
- When Dimitri was thirteen years old, he beat his dad up; he wanted to show him you can't treat someone that way just because you're a Moroi. Rose is impressed.
- Dimitri tells her she'll make a great guardian, but she's not so sure she'll be able to do everything she has to.