Lissa and Rose enjoy an extremely close friendship, one in which they risk their lives and reputations for one another. While they also share a direct psychic bond, their friendship is the catalyst for the bond, not its effect. Over the course of the novel, Rose learns that Lissa brought her back to life in the aftermath of a car crash that killed Lissa’s entire family. This occurrence indicates that the girls’ friendship was already so strong that Lissa channeled her powers to save her best friend instead of her family. While much of the girls’ friendship shows Lissa and Rose sacrificing for one another, such as when they spend two years on the run to escape potential persecution over Lissa’s spirit power, they also derive great comfort in being one another’s primary form of social attachment. However, this dynamic is threatened when they return to St. Vladimir’s Academy, as Headmistress Kirova actively works to keep them separated and as their own social lives become more complicated.

While Lissa and Rose’s relationship is not sexual in nature, there remains a certain romance to their attachment, insofar as they each wish to be the other’s primary attachment.