“I know you would have,” I said. “There was nothing you could do.”
He shook his head and stared off with a haunted look. “I was an idiot. I never should’ve bought into that spell stuff. After what I’d seen her do with fire, it just seemed so . . . well, real. I believed her. It made sense.”
I smiled without humor. “Because that’s what she does. She’s trained to make people believe things. And outsmart them. You didn’t have a chance.” She also was willing to trade her own life to save her friend’s, but no one had trained her to do that. It was just something within her.
Eddie wasn’t going to be swayed so easily, and I left him to his grief as I huddled with mine. Einstein had said even with the mood stabilizer, sad things would make me sad and happy things would make me happy. He’d been right because as I sat there, with my world completely falling apart around me, I felt as though I’d never taken any of those pills. The dark, smothering despair that I thought I’d banished crashed down around me, seeping into every part of my being. I hated myself. I hated my life because Sydney wasn’t in it.
My misery swirled around me, and it was just like the old days of spirit—except that I didn’t have spirit. If I’d had it, I wouldn’t have been so goddamned worthless. I had nothing to offer Sydney. I never had.
But Jackie does. If I couldn’t pull myself out of that choking despair, I would at least look for light in someone else. Jackie would pull this off. She would find Sydney, and somehow, maybe with Marcus’s voodoo and Eddie’s fists, we would get Sydney back. I clung to that spark of hope, nurturing it into a small flame that chased some of the shadows in my heart away. The blame and self-hatred eased up, and I told myself to be strong. I had to for Sydney. She had believed in me.
But when Jackie returned, I could tell by her face that the spell hadn’t worked.
“I tried,” she said, her eyes red. “I thought I connected to her, but I couldn’t grasp at anything substantial. No images. Just darkness.”
“Is she alive?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.
“Yes,” said Jackie and Marcus together. I glanced between them questioningly.
“If she were dead, I’d be able to tell in the spell.” Jackie didn’t elaborate.
“They won’t kill her. It’s not their style,” said Marcus. “They prize their people too much. They’ll just try to change her, make her think differently.”
“Re-educate her,” I said dully.
He spread his hands out in a helpless gesture. “Well, that is where the name comes from.”
“How much can they really change her, though?” asked Eddie. “I mean . . . she’s Sydney. She’ll be the same . . . right? She can fight them.”
Marcus took a long time in answering. “Sure.” He wasn’t nearly as good a liar as Sydney. To me, he asked, “She never gave herself the salt tattoo, did she?” I shook my head but could tell from his face he’d already known the answer. I didn’t say anything about the possible but unproven protection Sydney could have from her magic use. We’d had nothing more to go on than Inez’s word, but Sydney had remained optimistic about conducting some experiments on herself when she had time. Which we were now apparently out of. “Once everything’s settled down,” she had told me. “Then we’ll have some time.”
I stayed up all night, unable to find rest. The next day, our entourage was summoned to a meeting at Clarence’s with an Alchemist named Maura. She was about Sydney’s age, with her brown hair cut in a blunt style. She wore an Amberwood uniform. “I’m the new Alchemist assigned to Palm Springs,” she said, her voice prim. “I will be your liaison to handle any Moroi friction that might rise. Since I understand you’ve mostly adjusted, Princess, I doubt there’ll be any reason for us to have excessive interaction.”
The rest of us stared morosely. Everyone else knew by now that Sydney had been taken, though all the reasons weren’t widely known. Those who didn’t know about Sydney and me believed they’d snatched her for getting too close to us—which, really, wasn’t that far from the truth.
Maura handed us all business cards. “Here’s my e-mail and phone number if you need to get in touch. Do you have any questions?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Where are Sydney and Zoe Sage?”
Maura’s smile was as polite as a politician’s, but I could see that Alchemist ice in her eyes. I doubted she’d be able to stay in the same room as me if she knew Sydney’s backstory, but it was obvious Maura still had the usual disdain and distrust for my kind.
“I’m sorry,” she said coolly. “I just go where my orders send me. They don’t share classified information with me. You’d have to check with my superiors to get any details about where the Sage sisters’ new assignment is.” From the tone of her voice, she didn’t think anyone would tell me, and that, at least, we could agree on.
I hadn’t taken the mood stabilizer that morning and had felt little change throughout the day. Jackie had told me she’d be able to try some other location spells during the dark moon in two weeks, and that and the hope I might recover spirit were all that kept me from a case of vodka. The biggest feat of all was going to class. I wanted to stay home and curl up in a ball. Or keep nagging Marcus for updates. It was only the thought of Sydney that got me to Carlton each day. She would want me to keep up with it, not just because of her educational convictions but because she’d hate to see me plunging into despair. I trudged around campus like a robot, and my palettes strayed to gray and black.
Three days after I’d stopped the pills, I was pretty sure the dark moods were here to stay. It was just like before.
Five days in, I woke up in the morning and felt the first glimmers of spirit.
I nearly cried. It had been so long, and as I extended my senses, brushing them against those glittering, brilliant strands of magic, I felt as though I’d been unable to breathe until now. It was an essential part of me that had been missing. How could I have given it up? I couldn’t fully grasp or wield it yet, but the sweetness of that power was heady and restorative. It gave me my first surge of hope since Sydney’s disappearance, as well as the initiative to call Lissa. I flipped the switch on my malaise and suddenly had enough energy to take on the world.
“You need to get in touch with the Alchemists and find out where Sydney is,” I told Lissa when she answered.
“What . . . are you talking about?” she asked, understandably bewildered.
Apparently, no one had bothered to tell her about the regime change in Palm Springs. As long as Jill was safe, the Alchemists hadn’t felt Lissa needed to know the logistics. I kept our relationship out of it and explained how the Alchemists had freaked out and carried Sydney away for getting too friendly with us. Again, it wasn’t that far off from the truth.
“That’s awful,” she said. I could hear the compassion in her voice. “But there’s not much I can do. That’s their business, no matter how terrible it is. I can’t go make demands of them, any more than one of them could come ask about one of my subjects. Alchemists and Moroi work together, but we don’t have control over each other.”
“Can you please just ask? Please?” I tried to keep my voice level and was glad this wasn’t a video call. I couldn’t even imagine what my face would reveal.
“I’ll ask,” she said reluctantly. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“I know. Thank you.” A flash of inspiration hit. “You met her . . . could you go to her in a spirit dream? I’ve been trying, but with the pills . . .”
“Ah.” She paused. “I’d like to . . . I can try, but I’m not as good as you. I have to know someone really well to visit them. Maybe you can ask Sonya.”