Adrian stepped outside the dining room and searched his pockets for a lighter. He had not had a cigarette since that morning and the need for the sweet smoke was almost unbearable. Sighing contently he lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Cursing to himself he dug through his jacket pocket for his phone glad that he had the foresight to set it to vibrate. He laughed imagining Lissa's reaction if it had ringed during her dinner with the royals. "Ivashkov", he answered, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "I can be there in an hour; I'm in the middle of something right now." Adrian hung up the phone, dropped his cigarette butt onto the patio. He turned around and looked into the dining room at Lissa. She was laughing and talking to a few royals, she almost looked like her normal self. If it wasn't for his ability to see auras he would never know that she was still going through a rough time losing her best friend.

He opened the french doors and stepped into the dining room. Putting an arm over Lissa's shoulder he winked at Mia Rinaldi. She rolled her eyes and continued her conversation with Tasha Ozera, who was busy ranting about how difficult it was implementing offensive magic classes into the Moroi curriculum. "Well cousin I am cutting this night short. I got a date with a feisty dhampir who doesn't like to be kept waiting." Lissa laughed and hugged Adrian goodnight, before returning to the few guests that had not left yet

Lissa looked around for her husband and saw him standing by Dimitri and Eddie, her two guardians and she felt her pain in her heart. She was happy to have a guardian like Eddie, but she knew that it should have been Rose with her. She blinked back the tears quickly, plastered a fake smile on her face and made her way across the room to Christian.

"What are you guys doing over here by yourselves", she asked the three. "I'm sorry Queen Vasilissa", apologized Dimitri. Lissa glared at him and opened her mouth to correct him once again, but just shook her head. She hated being referred to as Queen Lissa or your highness, but Dimitri insisted on protocol, especially when there were others present. Once again her mind wondered to Rose and how different they were. Rose would have snapped his head off for referring to her as Rosemarie. She wondered what Rose was doing, where she was, and if she missed her?

"…. Lissa" interrupted her thoughts. She glanced up at Christian as he asked her if she was alright. She mumbled, "Just tired…. I think I am going to head on up for bed. We have a big day tomorrow." Christian and Lissa both said goodnight and left the room hand in hand.

... meanwhile

Adrian pulled his car into one of the many parking spaces that lined the road this time of night. It wasn't unusual for this side of town to be deserted this time of night. Adrian glanced at his watch, he was right on time. He knew better than to get his hopes up this time. Like many times before he had received a phone call to meet this man. You see this man was a private investigator that Adrian had hired about two years ago. For two years he had been getting reports of people fitting Rose's description or people with the same name. He had met many Rose Hathaway's: a 95 year old Rose Hathaway, a 12 year old Rose Hathaway, and his favorite a 47 year old man named Rose Hathaway. He shuddered remembering that incident.

He walked into the office and sat down, pulling out another cigarette. He took a long drag, blew out a thick cloud of smoke and said, "What have you got for me?"