The Fiery Heart

“Okay,” I continued, surprised to hear myself getting a little combative. “So the Warriors let you go all freelance. But what do you think they’re going to do when they find out you’re involved with a dhampir? You aren’t really keeping it secret.”

He shrugged. “No, but it’s not like they have spies here. Even if they find out, all I have to do is put up with the ranting. They won’t punish me or anything. Why are you so worked up about this? What’s with the twenty questions? Weren’t you helping us?”

“She’s an Alchemist,” said Angeline, looking uncharac-teristically wise. “It’s just how they are.” Even more surprisingly, she suddenly grew hesitant and withdrew her hand from Trey. “Sorry. This is probably like . . . really gross to you. We should’ve been more considerate.”

It was hard to say which was more ludicrous: Angeline actually being conscious of something like this or the fact that it was completely untrue.

Because honestly, the reason I was giving them such a hard time was that I was jealous. That wasn’t an emotion I experienced very often, but here it was, alive and well in me. I was so, so envious that they could do this, be together so openly. No sneaking around. No fears of retribution. Trey had been so casual about being caught by the Warriors. A month ago, their rebuke would’ve been awful for him. Now, having come to terms with his feelings, he saw their wrath as a small thing. After all, it seemed they’d mostly berate and condemn him. For all their savagery, the Warriors weren’t like the Alchemists, who felt a need to eliminate and sanitize their problems. I wanted to cry and scream to the world that this was unfair, but I knew I had no right. Life was unfair to a lot of people. I wasn’t special, and this was the fate I’d been given.

“No,” I said, trying to smile. “I’m happy for you guys. Really.”

After a few moments, they decided to believe me and smile back. My phone buzzed with a text, and I saw it was from Adrian: Everything still a go? I wrote back: As far as I know. After Trey and Angeline left, I tried to use the knowledge that I’d see Adrian tonight as a way to bolster myself. Things could be worse, I supposed. Even if it wasn’t unrestricted, we still got to see each other every day.

And yet . . . I was reaching a point where that wasn’t enough. I wanted to go to bed with him each night, not just for sex, but so that I could wake up with him in the morning. I wanted to have pancakes together. I wanted to go out on double dates with his friends. I wanted a life with him. I wanted a life for myself.

When I returned to my room later, I saw that Zoe was gone. Things were still a mess between us, but I was at least relieved that she’d dragged herself up. I’d seen too much of that depressed behavior with Adrian and didn’t want anyone else to go through it. Zoe and I will fix this. We had to.

About an hour before I was supposed to go to Ms. Terwilliger’s, another text came in from Adrian: Change of plan. We’re meeting at that restaurant that went out of business on Indian Canyon.

The news came as a shock. Marcus got in touch?

Adrian’s answer was slow in coming. Yes.

Well. It wasn’t that out of character. When I’d dealt with Marcus the last time he was in town, he’d constantly switched meeting spots on us, often deciding at the last minute. He believed it was safer. Maybe there was something to this.

That’s a scary place at night, I wrote.

That’s part of the reasoning. Don’t worry. We’ll all be there.

Okay. I need to stop and get the stuff first.

I’ll get it for you.

A realization hit me. We were using the Love Phones. I’d picked mine up without even thinking about it. You found the phone!

Yup.

Happiness and relief flooded me. I should’ve known by now not to doubt Adrian.

I love you, I wrote. See you soon.

I waited for an answer, but when none came, I started getting ready to go. The restaurant was about twenty minutes away, in a pretty remote place off the main road. As I packed up, I began to think more and more about how sketchy the location was. As I’d thought earlier, it was ideal for Marcus, but it wasn’t the kind of place I’d normally go alone. I didn’t fear him, but I did worry about other less noble people. One of Wolfe’s lessons had been to avoid walking into uncertain situations, and although Adrian’s comment about how they’d all be there reassured me, I decided to take an extra precaution for my own peace of mind.

I dialed Eddie.

“Hey,” I said. “You want to run an errand with me?”

“The last time you asked that, we went and met with a bunch of rebel Alchemists.”

“Well, I hope you had fun because that’s what I’m doing tonight.” I’d known him long enough to know exactly how to win him over. “I have to go to some remote place in the middle of nowhere. Neil and Angeline will be here for Jill.”

A few seconds passed. “Okay. When are we going?”

“I’ll be right over.”

Eddie was relaxed and upbeat when I picked him up, so I knew that he must have gotten in touch with the other dhampirs in the short time it had taken me to come over. Eddie wasn’t with Jill twenty-four hours a day, but he seemed to feel as though she were particularly vulnerable if he wasn’t on campus. Despite their differences, I knew he felt better having Neil as extra protection.

“Hard to believe everyone’s acting so laid-back after last night,” I remarked, noting his good mood.

“Neil’s not,” said Eddie. “He seems overwhelmed. I mean, not down or anything. He’s happy about the outcome. I think it’s just a big thing to accept you hold the solution to a huge mystery. He was trying to explain it last night when we were out.”

“Sorry I missed it,” I said. I really wasn’t, not when I looked back upon that heated, urgent night with Adrian.

“Sydney . . .” Eddie’s light mood vanished, and even with my eyes on the road, his tone tipped me off that something serious was about to happen. “About that. About you going to Adrian’s . . .”

I felt a tightening of my throat and couldn’t answer immediately. “Don’t talk about that,” I said. “Please.”

“No, we need to.”

Eddie knew. Eddie knew, and if the subject wasn’t so dire, I would’ve laughed. He was oblivious to his own social affairs, but guardians were trained to watch and observe. Eddie did that, and no doubt he’d picked up all sorts of little things between Adrian and me. We tried so hard to hide from the Alchemists, but hiding from our friends, who knew us and loved us, was impossible.

“Are you going to lecture me?” I asked stiffly. “Tell me I’m breaking taboos that have been in place for centuries to preserve the purity of our races?”

“What?” He was aghast. “No, of course not.”

I dared a look. “What do you mean ‘of course not’?”

“Sydney, I’m your friend. I’m his friend. I’d never judge you, and I’d certainly never condemn you.”

“A lot of people think what we’re doing is wrong.” It felt strange and oddly relieving to acknowledge my relationship with Adrian to another person.

“Well, I’m not one of them. If you guys want it . . . that’s your business.”

“Everyone’s suddenly very liberal about this,” I said with wonder. “I just heard a similar thing from Trey and Angeline—about their own relationship, that is. Not about . . . other people’s.”

“I think my ill-fated time with Angeline may be part of it,” he said, with more humor than I expected, considering she’d cheated on him. “She talked enough about her people that after a while, it didn’t seem that weird. And, well, my race exists because humans and Moroi got together and had kids way back when.”

I felt a smile start to grow on my lips. “Adrian says it wouldn’t be fair to the world if he and I had kids, what with the overwhelming power of our collective charm, brains, and good looks.”

Eddie laughed outright, not something I heard very often, and I found myself laughing too. “Yeah, I can see him saying something like that. And that’s the thing, I think . . . the real reason I’m not that weirded out by you two. It goes against all sound logic, but somehow, you two together . . . it just works.”

“‘Against all sound logic,’” I repeated. “Isn’t that the truth.”

A little of his amusement faded. “But that’s not what worries me. Or the morality of it. It’s your own people I’m worried about. How long are you going to be able to go on like this?”

I sighed as I took the exit for the meeting spot. “As long as the center holds.”

The dilapidated restaurant, uncreatively called Bob’s, was easily visible from the freeway in the daytime. Nighttime was a different matter. Large overhead lights had burned out long ago, and most of the gravel parking lot was buried in shadows. The only real light, once I turned off the car, came from a lightbulb near the back of the building. It was the kind of place serial killers, hobos, and Marcus Finch would hang around in, and those first two categories were the reason I had Eddie along.

Clarence’s Porsche wasn’t here yet, but there was a large gray van parked nearby. “Oh God,” I said. “I wonder how many recruits Marcus has with him.”

Eddie said nothing. All romantic musings were gone, and he’d snapped into guardian mode. This was the kind of place that triggered all his alarms, and I knew his training had seized hold and had him looking in every corner. He even walked ahead of me and tried the door first. The windows had been covered over for a while, but I thought I could see a hint of light within. The handle turned in Eddie’s hand, and he pushed the door open and stepped inside—

—into an ambush.

I couldn’t make out any identifying features. They were all in black and wore black ski masks. I think they were just expecting me because only one reached for Eddie, and the guy’s eyes went wide when Eddie not only eluded him but also grabbed and threw him across the room, into someone else.

“Sydney, run!” Eddie yelled.

My immediate instinct was that I couldn’t leave Eddie, but as he shoved me out the door, I realized he was coming with me. We tore out into the parking lot, only to see two more figures in black getting out of the van, cutting us off from my car. Eddie grabbed my hand and steered me in the opposite direction, behind the building and into a dark, sandy field that stretched as far as I could see.

I was a good runner, but I knew Eddie had to slow down for me. I also knew any attempts to tell him to go off without me would be foolish. The grass in the field was scraggly and scant, and there was only a handful of trees. For long moments, there was no sound except the thud of our feet and our heavy breathing. Then, from behind us, I heard shouts . . . and a gunshot.

Eddie managed to glance over his shoulder without breaking stride. “They’re coming,” he said. “About seven of them. With flashlights. And apparently guns.”

“Look,” I gasped out. In front of us, I could see two more flashlights approaching from the direction we were headed.

He said nothing and then suddenly jerked me to our right and down to the ground, into a ditch his superior eyes had seen. He threw me to my stomach and hovered protectively over me. The way the ditch was carved out offered partial coverage, and a thin, sad tree clinging to the side offered a little more. My heart was pounding, and I tried to calm down, lest my breathing give us away. Above me, Eddie was perfectly still, every muscle tense and ready to pounce if needed.

The shouts grew closer, mostly our attackers calling directions to one another and speculating over where Eddie and I were. As I lay there, hoping they’d walk by us, I wondered frantically who they were. Not Marcus and his Merry Men, obviously. But it was someone who cared enough about seizing us—or, well, me—to have set up a very organized trap, and there was only one group of people I could think of that fit that description.

The Alchemists.

It was what I’d lived in fear of so long; I just hadn’t expected it to go down like this. A million questions raced through my head. How long had the Alchemists been here? Had they caught Adrian and Marcus too?

“Sydney!”

The familiar voice made my breath catch. My dad.

“Sydney, I know you’re here somewhere. If you have any common sense or decency left, come out and surrender.”

A skilled negotiator might have delivered that speech in a kind, beseeching way. Not my dad. He was as harsh and unfeeling as usual, managing to make every word sound like an insult.

“It’ll be a lot easier on you if you do,” my dad continued. “And as for that that . . . boy. We don’t need him. He can just go if you come with us.” In a lower voice, I heard him ask, “Is that him?”