The Fiery Heart

CHAPTER 16 SYDNEY

“SORT OF?” I DEMANDED. “How can you sort of do . . . something like that?”

I couldn’t bring myself to go into detail. What Rose had just described was horrible. It was the kind of thing Alchemists had nightmares about, the kind of thing that confirmed every allegation of dark, twisted creatures.

Adrian glanced around, but everyone else was preoccupied with their own conversations. “It wasn’t like that. I never drugged anyone. It was a long time ago, just one time, when I was a lot younger and a lot stupider. We were out at a club, and we ended up hanging out with some human girls. They were all drinking a lot—we all were—and there was one who liked me. She got pretty wasted, one thing led to another . . .”

“And you drank from her,” I finished. “When she really didn’t know what was going on.”

“I didn’t drink very much.” I could tell from his expression that even he knew it was a lame excuse. “And technically, she drugged herself.”

I swallowed and tried to address it in an objective Alchemist way. “That was beyond careless. You could’ve exposed the vampire world! Our whole job is covering you guys up, and then you just show everyone.”

“I don’t think she remembered.”

“That almost makes it worse.” My objectivity crumbled. “What you did . . . how could you? It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t a drug! No, it was. Alcohol’s as bad as anything you could’ve slipped her. You took advantage of someone who wasn’t in control of herself. It was a violation.”

Pain crossed his features. “Hell, Sydney. I wasn’t in control of myself.”

“You think that justifies it?” I hissed. “And even if it was ‘just one time,’ how many other times did you look the other way while those friends of yours did a lot worse things?”

“They aren’t my friends anymore. And do you think I could’ve really stopped them?”

“Did you even try?” I demanded.

“I was a different person then!” Realizing how loud he’d gotten, Adrian stepped forward and lowered his voice. “You of all people should understand that. Not even a year ago, you were making the sign against evil around us and wouldn’t shake hands because you thought we were the spawn of Satan.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was right. And don’t even try to compare superstition to . . . to . . . blood rape.”

He winced. “I’m not saying it’s in the same class. I’m saying people change. We grow up, we learn. You know the kind of person I am. You know I wouldn’t even dream of something like that now.”

“Do I?” I tried to summon up as much outrage as I could because if I didn’t, I might start crying. No way would I crack in a room full of Moroi. “Are you saying you wouldn’t drink my blood if you had the chance? That you don’t think about it?”

“No.” He spoke with such certainty that I almost believed him. “The only thing I want from your body is—well, it’s not that. And you should know that.”

I didn’t know that I did. I turned away, trying to come to terms with something that had just knocked my world off-kilter. I had long ago accepted that he had an extensive romantic past. Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me so much anymore. It was before my time. Those girls were gone. He didn’t love them. He’d been free, and if he’d wanted to fool around with girls who wanted to as well, then that was his right.

And yet . . . here he was, admitting to fooling around with a girl who hadn’t wanted to. “Fooling around” was being kind, considering what he’d done. Drinking blood was probably the biggest sin Moroi committed, in Alchemist eyes. I’d made my peace with it, that it was their way of life, but it still made me squeamish. It was nothing I could watch, and I was always relieved when Jill and Adrian finished at Clarence’s. Now, I couldn’t shake the image of him doing that terrible thing. He embodied every fear Alchemists had about monsters stalking unwitting victims.

“Sydney . . .”

The pain in his voice made my heart ache, but I had no words of comfort to offer. I couldn’t even comfort myself. He said he’d changed, but was that enough? Could that make up for something so horrific?

“Sorry I’m late.” Abe strolled in with a dhampir man I didn’t know, giving me something to look at besides Adrian’s grief-stricken face. Abe was carrying a crate and wore a bright teal silk scarf. He probably loved that it was winter. “Some of these things aren’t so easy to get a hold of.”

“But you got everything?” asked Lissa eagerly.

“Of course.” Abe gestured grandly to the dhampir beside him. “Including our tattooist, Horace. We’re ready to start when you are.”

It wasn’t until all eyes in the room swiveled in my direction that I realized he was talking to me. For a moment, my mind was blank. Why on earth were they staring at me? What was I supposed to do? The only thing I could think about was Adrian and that dark confession. Then, slowly, the scientist in me stirred. Right. The ink. Measurements, chemicals. I could do that. There was no moral ambiguity there.

Throwing my shoulders back, I strode up to Abe and spoke in a cold voice I hadn’t used in a very long time. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He set out the supplies on a wide table. I examined each one critically and then nodded in satisfaction. “It’s all here.”

“What do you need us to do?” he asked.

“Stay out of my way.”

I pulled up a wooden stool and then took out my cell phone, which contained the exact formula and directions for making the Alchemist ink. A heavy silence fell on us, and I tried to ignore the fact that I had an audience. It had been a long time since I worked with Alchemist substances, though the concentration and diligence weren’t that different from creating spell components. I was simply facilitating chemical reactions instead of magical ones.

It was straightforward Alchemist work, but my hands trembled as I measured and mixed. I had to keep forcing my mind back to the task, away from my broken heart. When they realized the procedure wasn’t going to take five minutes, the group dispersed and talked quietly among themselves, finally giving me some privacy. Rose and Dimitri, thinking I was upset about helping Moroi, stopped by once to tell me what a great thing I was doing. I took their praise with a curt nod.

Sonya came up as I was finishing and offered similar sentiments. “This could be so useful to us, Sydney.”

I glanced up briefly. “I know. I’m glad to help.”

Whatever she saw in my face took her aback. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I looked back down. “Just being at Court and on a weird schedule.”

“It’s more than that. Don’t you think I can tell?”

Yes, of course she could, I thought bitterly. She could probably read the distress in my aura because that’s what she did: peer into others whether they wanted it or not. Boundaries, I was learning, were a negotiable thing among Moroi.

“I saw you talking to Adrian,” she continued. “What did he say to you?” Her voice faltered. “Sydney, I’ve seen things with you two . . .”

I looked back up, and my earlier anger returned. “If you want to help, let me work and forget whatever it is you think you’ve seen.”

She flinched, and I experienced a small pang of regret. Sonya was my friend and probably did have good intentions. I just didn’t want them right now, and after a few more seconds, she backed off.

I completed the suspension and sat back to admire the vial I’d created. It was as perfect as it could get. The others returned, making me feel oppressed and trapped.

“That’s it?” asked Neil. “You can tattoo me now?”

“No.” I pointed to the untouched vial of blood, still in its silver-bound box. “My suspension needs to sit for a while before we can mix them together.”

Clearly, they hadn’t expected that. “How long?” asked Abe.

“A couple hours should do it.”

Sonya sighed in dismay. “Each hour, the spirit weakens.” She turned to Adrian. “Do you think there’s still enough in it to be useful?”

“There has to be,” he said enigmatically.

“There’s nothing I can do to speed it up,” I explained. “Unless you want to deviate from what we’ve done for hundreds of years.” I was being snippy but couldn’t help it. “I’m going to go back to my room and rest. I’ll come back when it’s time for the next step.”

“Do you want me to walk you?” asked Dimitri. My bad mood was coming through to all of them.

I stood up and carefully placed the duplicate ingredients back in the crate. “Thanks, but I know the way.” I preferred to take my chances walking through Court at night than deal with more good-intentioned counseling. “Although . . . Abe, if you’ve got a minute, I have a question . . .”

My soliciting Abe caught a few people by surprise, especially Abe. He hid it quickly, though, and his natural sense of curiosity immediately took over. “But of course. Here, let me carry that for you. Or, actually, if you just want to leave it, I’ll take care of them since you didn’t need the duplicate set.”

I held my chin up in an imperious Alchemist way. “These are ingredients used for one of our most important purposes. I can’t leave these behind.”

We walked out, passing Adrian and Nina near the doorway. His heart was in his eyes as he watched me, and he barely seemed to hear Nina worriedly telling him about how Olive and Neil had stayed out late together. I quickly averted my eyes from him, afraid of what I might betray.

The night was crisp and cold and dotted with stars as Abe and I walked out toward guest housing. “So,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“The ingredients you got me. One of them was Moroi blood.”

“It was on your list, though it seemed strange,” he replied. “I mean, I understand that’s normally in Alchemist tattooing ink, but in our case tonight, we already had a specific blood sample to use. In fact, that was kind of the point.”

Clever Abe. Nothing slipped past him.

“Is it charmed?” I asked.

“No. You didn’t leave any other directions, so I simply obtained a plain sample. Again, since we weren’t making standard ink, I didn’t think it was necessary. I wouldn’t have known what kind of compulsion you wanted anyway.”

“Have you ever done it?” Here it was. No way would Abe think this was a hypothetical. “Done a compulsion charm for the Alchemists?”

Silence. Yes, he knew something was up, but he hadn’t put it together. “No, I haven’t. I understand the principles, though. A fairly straightforward compulsion spell encouraging discretion and group loyalty.”

“Fairly straightforward,” I repeated. That was an under-statement.

He chuckled. “For an earth user, yes.”

“So you could do it, even though you haven’t? You could do it to these samples?”

“I could . . .” My building was in sight, and he came to a halt. “Miss Sage, let me make sure I’m following correctly. You’re asking me to put a compulsion spell on the blood samples you have. And what you aren’t explicitly asking—but are wishing—is that I not tell the other Alchemists.”

I kicked at a tree branch with my boot. A recent storm must have knocked a number of them down because they were strewn about the quads and walkways. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“So are you. Which is what makes this completely and utterly fascinating. And let me guess. You aren’t carting off the extra ingredients simply to make sure they return to righteous Alchemist hands.” His eyes were dark and foreboding in the dim lighting. “Who are you trying to compel? Some boy? Love compulsions almost never work.”

“No! It’s nothing like that. I just need an all-purpose, off-the-rack compulsion charm on it like you’d do for standard ink. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“You’ll take care of ‘the rest,’” he said, clearly amused. “The rest being where you activate the magic as it’s injected and are able to imprint your command on someone.”

“Can you do it or not?” I asked. The wind stirred, lightly scattering snowflakes down upon us from a nearby tree.

“Oh, I can do it right now,” he said cheerfully. “The question is, what do I get in return?”

I sighed. “I knew it’d come to this. Does there always have to be something? Can’t you do things just to be nice?”

“My dear, I do plenty of things to be nice. What I don’t do is let an advantage slip through my fingers. Do you think I’ve gotten where I am today by heedlessly giving away things that can result in power and knowledge?”

“Power and knowledge?” I shook my head. “You might be asking for more than I’m capable of giving you.”

“Explain to me why you’re interested in an off-the-record tattoo, and that’ll be knowledge. More than enough payment.”

I hesitated. Abe wasn’t going to sell me out to the Alchemists, but no way was I going to get into the backstory of Marcus’s rebel movement. This was a tightly guarded secret. “I’m not trying to control anyone. This is part of an experiment—purely scientific. That’s the truth. Beyond that, though, I can’t tell you. That’s the extent of the knowledge you can have. But if you want to haggle for some other payment, be my guest. Let’s just do it somewhere warmer.”

I shivered and tugged my coat around me as Abe deliberated. At last, he said quietly, “I’ve already gotten more knowledge than you might think. I know that Sydney Sage, do-gooder and darling of the Alchemists, is working on clandestine affairs that go against her order’s directives. That’s more than payment enough. Give me your blood. The samples, I mean.”

I knelt down on the ground and opened the crate. “What are you going to do with that knowledge?”

“I’m not going to announce it to the world, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He paused and laughed to himself. “But of course you aren’t. You never would’ve asked for this charm if you thought I’d give you away.”

I found the two capped vials of Moroi blood and handed them over. I needed only one but didn’t want the other to go to waste.

“No,” I agreed. “I didn’t think you’d tell on me. I didn’t even think you’d be shocked.”

“I’m not. Surprised, but not shocked.” He held up one of the vials, and I could see lines of concentration deepening on his face as he focused on it. I sensed nothing with my human skills, and this type of earth magic spoke directly to the substance of the blood, meaning there was no flashy burst of fire or water like you’d get with one of the other elements. “There.” He handed it back to me and focused on the other.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded him.

“Because I don’t know,” he said several moments later. I accepted the second vial from him. “Ultimately, I imagine it’ll go toward serving the same thing it always does.”

“Yourself?”

“My loved ones.”

I fell speechless. That certainly wasn’t the answer I’d expected from Abe “Zmey” Mazur. He took a step closer so that he could look me more squarely in the eye.

“You think I’m so manipulative and scheming, Miss Sage? It’s all for them. For my loved ones first. My people second. And yes, I suppose I’m in the mix there too, but don’t think for an instant I wouldn’t sacrifice myself if it could save someone I love. And don’t think for an instant that I wouldn’t do terrible, unspeakable things if it could save someone I love.” When he backed up, I noticed I’d been holding my breath. “Good luck with your experiment. Let me know if I can be of any more assistance.”

I watched him walk off into the night, his words replaying in my mind. When he’d disappeared into the darkness, I returned to my room with the crate. And there, the ominous meeting with Abe vanished from my mind because I amazingly had bigger problems that came crashing back down on me.

Adrian.

Adrian, who’d withheld the knowledge that he’d taken advantage of a human girl.

Adrian, whom I’d trusted.

I threw myself on my bed and waited for the tears to come. They didn’t. The storm of emotions I’d felt earlier had simply gone numb. I was left with a cold, empty hole inside my heart and the gears of reason turning in my brain. Was Adrian right? Was it wrong to hold him responsible for something he’d done so long ago? We both were different people, and who was I to judge others when I’d orchestrated an act of revenge that had cost Keith his eye? I was no saint.

But Keith had committed a terrible crime, and the girl Adrian had drank from had done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why did it have to be that? Why the blood? The thing that played the most upon my fears?

He texted me three times on the Love Phone, asking me if he could come over and talk. I didn’t answer. At least he had the sense not to barge on in. I spent my entire break lying on the bed like that, with Hopper curled to my chest in statue form.

When I returned to the palace later, I felt more in control, mostly because I’d shut down almost all my feelings. The scene I walked into was similar, though a few people had left for the break. Adrian and Nina were sitting and talking together. She looked radiant, and although he was smiling, I knew him well enough to recognize when he was faking it. Our eyes locked for a few brief moments and then I marched back up to my table.

The rest of the procedure was simple: adding the blood to the suspension I’d created. The liquid turned silver, earning a surprised grunt from Abe.

“Shouldn’t it be gold?”

I hesitated. “That’s the one part I changed. Silver’s more in tune with Moroi magic. I thought it’d be better.”

Sonya’s eyes widened in alarm. “The spirit’s leaking out now that it’s out of the case! Help me!”

Nina and Lissa hurried beside her, looks of concentration on their faces. They were using their magic to try to protect the vial, I realized. I didn’t know how successful they were, but I knew enough to realize we couldn’t waste time. “Hurry up,” I told Horace the tattooist.

He had a machine similar to Wolfe’s and loaded the ink into his needle. Neil sat down beside it, and Olive hovered near him. “Does it have to be the face?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. We just do that to identify ourselves.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Neil pulled off his T-shirt, revealing a well-muscled physique. He pointed to his upper left arm. “Here.”

Horace brought the needle down and then turned, puzzled. “What am I drawing?”

There were a few moments of comical silence. “Whatever’s fastest,” I said.

“I kind of wanted a cross,” said Neil wistfully. His stoic mask fell into place. “But do whatever you need to.”

“Do a cross with simple lines,” Adrian said unexpectedly. “I’ll design more art to go around it later, and you can just get regular ink to embellish it.”

Even I was surprised at the offer, considering how much Neil usually irritated Adrian. Horace was already at work. Even with a simple design, tattooing wasn’t something that could be done in a hurry. He was obviously moving as fast as he could, but I could tell by the spirit users’ strained faces that they were still losing ground. I grew so caught up in the drama that I actually forgot about Adrian. My world narrowed down to each drop of ink that went into Neil’s skin.

When Horace finished, everyone looked ready to faint from the exhaustion of stress. Lissa rested her head on Christian’s shoulder, and a paler-than-usual Sonya sank into a chair. “There was still magic in the ink when you finished,” she said. “But I don’t sense it anymore. I have no way of knowing if it worked—aside from the obvious.”

I was struck by the parallels between Neil and Trey. Both were now marked with experimental ink to protect them from insidious powers . . . but nobody truly knew if the procedures had been effective. The potential to solve Trey’s mystery was in a crate back in my room. The answer to Neil’s, unfortunately, was in the teeth of a Strigoi.

Sonya closed her eyes and rested her hand on her forehead. I could only imagine what she was feeling. Protecting Moroi from Strigoi had become an obsession for her, a project with very personal implications. This had to be monumental for her, the potential conclusion to her work. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and fixed them on Adrian as a revelation seemed to hit her.

“Why didn’t you help us? We might have saved more magic. You did nothing.”

“She’s right,” Lissa said, clearly surprised. “I didn’t realize it until now. It was just the three of us.”

We all looked at Adrian, and even I was astonished. This had become a personal mission for him too, especially considering his monumental role in saving Olive’s blood. Why would he shirk helping now? Indecision warred on his face. At last, he sighed with resignation.

“I didn’t help . . . because I can’t.”

Lissa straightened up from where she was resting against Christian. “What does that mean exactly?”

He gave her a rueful smile. “It means, cousin, that I’m going on my third week of mood stabilizers and no longer have access to spirit.”

My heart stopped.

“Why . . . why would you do that?” Lissa asked.

“You tell me,” he replied. “You did it once. Or something like it. I wanted my life back. I didn’t want spirit to control me anymore. You know what it can do.” He looked at Lissa, Sonya, and Nina in turn. “You all know.”

From their chagrined expressions, they did know. But it was clear they were also confused.

“Why would you do it now of all times?” exclaimed Sonya. “When you knew we still needed you?”

He focused back on her, holding his ground. “Did I know that? I did my part—a big part. I had no idea it’d come to this. Besides, what time should I have waited for? When I was about to jump off a bridge?”

The words hit Sonya like a slap in the face. “Of course not. But . . . there are other ways to cope . . .”

Adrian laughed. “Yeah? Alcohol poisoning? Cutting? Turn-ing Strigoi?”

It was a cruel thing to say to Lissa and Sonya, but neither of them could muster an argument. Nina was the one who spoke up, confusion in her gray eyes. “But how can you stand to be away from the magic? The rush? Don’t you miss it?”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “But other things in my life are more important.”

My legs grew weak, and I backed up, settling down into a plush armchair. I clasped my hands together to stop them from shaking.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help this time, but none of you have the right to judge me,” Adrian added. There was a strength and conviction in his voice that I doubt any of them had seen before. “This is my life, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind—unless Her Majesty wants to give a royal command for me to stop.”

Lissa blanched. “Of course not.”

Everything was kind of weird after that.

I kept my distance from the others, and this time, no one seemed to notice or care. Adrian became the new attraction. Sonya and Lissa apologized, and Nina tried to engage him about what it was like. He shot me another pained look from across the room, and I had to glance away because my confusion was too great.

And as the night progressed, it became clear to me they weren’t going to give him up anytime soon. The spirit users wanted to know more about Adrian and the pills. Everyone else wanted to know what the next step with Neil was. My role was done, and when exhaustion began weighing me down, I quietly slipped out of the room to go get some sleep. I knew travel arrangements were being made for later tomorrow, so no one would need me right away. The nice thing about being forced onto this schedule was that I was so legitimately tired that my body wasn’t going to let my mind keep me awake with questions. And believe me, I had plenty. I needed to understand the Adrian of long ago. I needed to understand the Adrian I loved. And I needed to understand why he hadn’t told me he was facing one of his greatest fears by taking a prescription.

Tears sprang to the corner of my eyes and then began to freeze. I stopped in the middle of a walkway leading through some ornamental trees and tried to wipe my face as best as I could.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I jerked my head up at the unfamiliar voice. Well, not entirely unfamiliar. A young man materialized from the trees, and a moment later, a second joined him. Tired and emotionally frayed, I didn’t recognize them at first. Then, I realized they were Adrian’s friends—or, well, ex-friends—from the café. I stiffened, suddenly wide awake and alert.

And terrified.

“Sydney, right?” It was the guy who’d first spoken. “I’m—”

“Wesley,” I said. “I remember.”

“You do? That’s great. Then you must remember Lars too.”

The faint light of a lamppost a little ways away filtered through the branches of a tree above us, lighting up his face as he grinned in what he probably thought was a friendly manner. I didn’t need him to get any closer to know he was drunk—just like he had been yesterday. Was that what Adrian used to be like? Waking up and going from one state of intoxication to another? It was a pathetic, dismal life.

“Where are you headed?” asked Lars. “You need directions?”

“I’m just going back to my room to get some sleep.” I pointed at the building, which suddenly seemed very far away. “Right over there.”

“Sleep?” Lars laughed. “That’s right. You’re on a flipped schedule. Look, why don’t you come out with us? Live it up while you’re here. We’ll get you some caffeine and hit some parties.”

“Or if you want something quieter, we could just go back to my place and talk.” That was Wesley, and he seemed to be having a difficult time sounding serious and responsible.

“No, thank you,” I said, shifting a little. It put me two steps closer to my building. Unfortunately, I probably had about two hundred more to go. “I’m really tired.”

Lars nudged Wesley. “See, this is what happens when you get stuck with Adrian as a tour guide. It makes you feel satisfied with boredom.”

“Adrian’s not boring,” I said. “Especially—from what I hear—the way he used to be.”

Wesley scoffed. “Even then, he never let loose like the rest of us.”

“We can tell you everything about him if you want,” exclaimed Lars, apparently feeling inspired. He glanced past me briefly and then fixed his eyes back on mine. “We’ll tell you all you need to know. Let’s go back to Wesley’s.”

“No, thank you,” I said. I already knew all I needed to know about Adrian, primarily that he was nothing like these losers. “I have to go.” I made no attempts at subtlety and began hurrying toward the building.

“Hey, wait,” offered Lars. He moved with remarkable speed for someone so intoxicated. He caught hold of my arm, just as two startling thoughts came to me. Why do they keep looking behind me? And weren’t there three of them before?

I started to turn around, just as that third person came up behind me and clamped a hand over my mouth. That split second of anticipation was enough to trigger some instinctual Wolfe training. I kicked backward into Brent and had the satisfaction of hearing, “Oof!” His hand slipped on my mouth, giving me a chance at another Wolfe tactic: screaming for help.

Old Alchemist fears, bred into me since birth, reared up. Here it was, the evil we’d always been warned about: vampires coming after me in the night. Creatures of hell, intent on drinking my blood when I was alone and vulnerable. For a moment, fear and panic crippled me. Then, a strong voice inside me spoke up: You are not vulnerable. You are not out of options. Now, RUN! But when I tried to run away, I discovered that Lars had a surprisingly strong grip on me. Wesley appeared on my other side and attempted to help his friend in restraining me. “We have to get out of here,” gasped Brent.

“No,” said Wesley. “It’s not too late. We can get her back to my place and make sure she doesn’t remem—”

You are not vulnerable.

Magic stirred within me, surging out and upward to the tree above us. A limb, already heavy with snow, gave way easily to my power and came crashing down on Lars. It was enough to grant my freedom, and I broke away. Wesley stood between me and my building, so I ran the opposite direction, knowing I only had to stay away long enough for some patrolling guardian to come. Surely someone had heard me.

As it turned out, someone had heard me. Adrian emerged near the path I was running on, wielding a limb similar to the one I’d just summoned. I came to a halt as he put himself between me and the other three, who also slowed their pursuit.

“What are you doing?” demanded Wesley.

“Practicing my treejitsu skills. You’ve probably never heard of it, but believe me, it’s enough to knock you on your ass and wipe that smug look off your face.”

A typical Adrian remark, even in a dire situation. Yet, despite his flippant tone, there was a hard look on his face that I rarely saw, a look that said even if there was an army standing in front of us, he would still defy them with a tree branch if they tried to lay a hand on me. Tension filled the air around us as our adversaries contemplated their next move. Even drunk and uncoordinated, they might still have an advantage if they decided to rush us with brute force. Adrian and I probably had enough collective Wolfe training—and his “treejitsu”—to fend them off, but it might still be an ugly altercation. I pulled more magic into me but restrained myself from using it yet. The falling limb might be written off as a natural phenomenon. A fireball wouldn’t.

“I’m out of here,” said Lars, staggering to his feet. Without further delay, he turned and ran, leaving Wesley and Brent behind.

“Are you seriously threatening me with a branch?” exclaimed Brent. “Aren’t you supposed to be some big, bad spirit user? Shouldn’t you be making my head spin? God, I knew you’d changed, but I never expected this.”

“He hasn’t changed,” said Wesley, getting his courage back. “Adrian Ivashkov doesn’t get dirty. This is a bluff. Grab her.”

“Don’t touch her,” said Adrian, as Brent took a step toward me. Some terrified part of me was screaming at me to use this chance to run, but there was no way I’d abandon Adrian.

“Come on, Adrian,” Wesley coaxed. “Put down your tree and come back with us. We’ll let you have her first.”

Brent shot him a startled look. “We will?”

“He can use some hard-core spirit compulsion to make her forget everything later.” From the pleased tone in Wesley’s voice, you’d think he’d just made some space-age discovery. “We won’t need any drugs.”

“Oh, yeah.” Wonder filled Brent, and he moved toward me again. “Tastes so much better that way. Of course, she’ll probably scream more, but after a while—ah!”

Adrian slammed the limb into Brent’s head so quickly, I almost could’ve believed I’d imagined it. Brent keeling over and collapsing to the ground proved it was all very real.

“Looks like I made your head spin after all,” observed Adrian, standing menacingly over Brent.

Wesley looked like he might go join Lars but never got the chance. Shouts sounded nearby, and two guardians suddenly raced up to us. I recognized one of them: Mikhail Tanner, Sonya’s husband. He looked back and forth between us all, a comic expression of shock on his face. “What’s going on?” he exclaimed.

The guardians were efficient in their work, taking all of us (including Lars) to their headquarters and ferretting out the night’s events. In the end, it was obvious that the threesome had made a drunken advance on me but had succeeded in nothing more. They were branded with the Moroi equivalent of disorderly conduct, which Mikhail—apologetically—explained would only result in jail time tonight and fines. A cold lump formed in my stomach each time I thought about what they’d wanted to do, and I thought they were getting off easy.

I was practically asleep on my feet when Adrian walked me out to the guardians’ building’s main entrance. We hovered near the door, clinging to the warmth before we headed outside.

“I’m sorry,” he told me. “I’m sorry for everything tonight.”

The encounter had barely lasted a minute, but that surge of panic and adrenaline had torn me open, spilling out the emotions I’d been so carefully trying to keep in check. The full force of my love for Adrian consumed me, and I nearly reached for him until I remembered there was a desk clerk across the room. He couldn’t hear us, but he’d certainly be able to see us if I threw Adrian up against a wall and started kissing him.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” I said, looking straight into his eyes.

“I should’ve told you what I did to that girl.” A small frown crossed his face. “I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

“It’s not even in the same league as what those other guys do. And you weren’t really yourself.”

He shook his head. “I was myself—getting that wasted. Maybe I wasn’t in a rational frame of mind, but I chose to get that way. I’m responsible for that.”

“It’s done. You’re not the same person now as you were then. It could’ve been bad, yes, but you got lucky and had minimal consequences. Most importantly: You learned from it. That’s more than can be said for those other guys.”

There was a tension crackling through Adrian’s body, and I had a feeling he too was fighting the urge to grab hold of me. “I’m not a violent person, Sydney. Not at all. I’ll make love over war any day. But I swear, if they’d hurt you—”

“They didn’t,” I said firmly. I refused to let him know how scared I’d been because I was afraid he might go after them. “I’m fine. You came to the rescue.”

A smile played at his lips. “Something tells me you would’ve rescued yourself.” And like that, the smile vanished. “But spirit would’ve been a lot more effective than a branch.”

“Your treejitsu was very effective.” The clerk was typing away on a computer, and I dared to give Adrian’s hand a small squeeze. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me about the mood stabilizers?”

He took a moment to answer. “Because I couldn’t have faced you if I failed. If I was too weak to stay on them. Even now, I don’t know. After those guys and then what happened back at the palace—”

“Stop,” I interrupted. “You’re doing the right thing. And what’s crazy is that you have no idea how strong and how brave you are. I’m so proud of you, and I’m going to help you through this. I love you so much.”

Loving him wasn’t a surprise. What was, however, was the realization that ultimately, that was all that mattered between us. I’d been trying to figure out what it was that was holding me back from sex. It wasn’t Jill. It wasn’t some physical threshold I was afraid to cross. There was nothing, nothing except an anxiety my love had banished to the winds. And standing there, in that improbable location, the full force of how much I wanted him nearly knocked me over. A desire that was as much spiritual as physical burned through me, and I suddenly felt as though there was no way I could go a moment longer without having all of him.

“Come on,” I said in a low voice. “Come back to my room.”

A fire in his eyes told me there was no need to spell things out. “You’re exhausted.”

“Says who?”

A voice shattered the spell weaving itself around us. “Ah, you’re still here,” exclaimed Mikhail, hurrying into the room. “Good. I hate to detain you further, but this stuff spreads, and the queen heard about what happened. She wants to talk to you, Adrian.” He gave me a kind look. “But you’re off the hook. I’ll walk you back so you can get some rest.”

I swallowed, momentarily unable to focus on anything except the electricity flaring between Adrian and me. I wanted to tell Mikhail to leave us alone because I needed to taste Adrian’s lips and run my hands over his skin. Instead, I said, “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

Adrian gave me a rueful smile. “We’ll continue this conversation another time. When you’re wide awake.”

“I’ll be awake when you finish talking to the queen,” I told him. I didn’t trust myself to add anymore, but as Mikhail led me away, I gave Adrian a parting look that told him all the things I wanted to “talk” about.