The Indigo Spell (33 page)

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of him and thought he might be avoiding me. This is
his goodbye, huh?” I felt disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to see Adrian in person
one last time. Maybe a letter was better than nothing, but I wished I could have left
with those beautiful eyes fresh in my mind. “Is he . . . is he really upset?” I couldn’t
stand the thought of him hurting.

“Read the letter,” she said mysteriously. “And remember, Sydney. This isn’t about
me. This is about you guys. You can control everything else, but not this. Let go,
and accept how you feel.”

We left on that note, and I went outside to sit on the curb and wait for Marcus. I
stared at the envelope, looking at the way Adrian had written my name. Three times
I nearly opened it . . . but chickened out each time. Finally, I saw Marcus drive
in, and the envelope disappeared into my purse.

As soon as he picked me up, he began talking excitedly about the big plans ahead.
I barely heard. All I kept thinking about was Adrian and how empty my life was going
to seem without him. Marcus and I were meeting Wade and Amelia at the train station,
but I couldn’t picture any of them understanding me like Adrian—even if they were
human and shared the same background. None of them would have his dry wit or uncanny
insight. And simmering beneath all those emotions were the more heated memories . . .
the way we’d kissed, the way it had felt to be wrapped up in him. . . .

“Sydney? Are you even paying attention?”

I blinked and glanced over at Marcus. I think it was another of those moments where
he couldn’t believe someone wasn’t hanging on to his every word. “Sorry,” I said.
“My mind’s somewhere else.”

He grinned. “Well, shift it to beaches and margaritas because your life’s about to
change.”

It was always beaches and margaritas with him. “You left out the part about us sealing
the tattoo. Unless your tattooist is also a bartender.”

“There you go again, funny and beautiful.” He laughed. “We’re going to have a great
time.”

“How long will we be down there?”

“Well, we’ll take care of the tattoos first. That’s the most important thing.” I was
relieved to see him taking that seriously. “Then we’ll lie low, enjoy the sights for
a few weeks. After that, we’ll come back and follow some leads on other dissatisfied
Alchemists.”

“And then you’ll repeat the process?” I asked. In the rearview mirror, I could see
the Palm Springs skyline disappearing as we drove north. I felt a pang of longing
in my chest. “Get others to retrieve critical information and then free them?”

“Exactly.”

We drove in silence for another minute as I processed his words. “Marcus, what do
you do with that information you gather? I mean, what are you going to do about Master
Jameson?”

“Keep finding more evidence,” he said promptly. “This is the biggest lead we’ve ever
had. Now we can really push forward in finding out more.”

“It’s more than a lead. Why not leak it to the Moroi?”

“The Alchemists would deny it. Besides, we don’t want to be hasty.”

“So what if they do deny it?” I demanded. “At least the Moroi will have a heads-up.”

He glanced over at me with a look that reminded me of a parent trying to be patient
with a child. Ahead of us, I saw a sign for the train station. “Sydney, I know you’re
eager, but trust me. This is the way we’ve always done things.”

“I don’t know that it’s the right way, though.”

“You have a lot of ideas for someone who just joined up.” He chuckled. I wished he’d
stop doing that. “Just wait, and then you’ll understand.”

I didn’t like his condescending attitude. “I think I already understand. And you know
what? I don’t think you guys do anything. I mean, you’ve uncovered some amazing information . . .
but then what? You keep waiting. You run away and skulk around. How is this really
helping? Your intentions are good . . . but that’s all they are.” I could almost hear
Jill’s voice:
They talk. You act.

Ironically, Marcus was speechless.

“You could do so much,” I continued. “When I first found out about you, you seemed
to hold all the potential in the world. Technically, you still do. But it’s being
wasted.” He pulled into the train station’s parking lot, still looking utterly stunned.

“Where the hell is this coming from?” he asked at last.

“Me,” I said. “Because I’m not like you guys. I can’t do nothing. I can’t run away.
And . . . I can’t go with you.”

It felt good to say that . . . and it also felt right. All week, my brain had been
telling me the right thing to do was to walk away before things with Adrian and the
Alchemists blew up. And yes, that probably was the smart thing. My heart had never
entirely been on board, but I’d tried to ignore it. It wasn’t until I’d listened to
both Jill and Marcus that I realized just this once, my brain might have to opt for
the less logical solution.

I had to give Marcus credit. He actually looked concerned and wasn’t just put out
at not getting his way. “Sydney, I know how attached you are to this place and these
people, but it’s not safe for you here. It’s not safe for you anywhere, not as long
as the Alchemists are watching. Not as long as your tattoo is vulnerable.”

“Someone told me any life worth living has risks,” I said, unable to hide a smile.
I never thought I’d be quoting Jill.

Marcus slammed his fist against the dashboard. “That’s sentimental bullshit! It sounds
good in theory, but the reality is completely different.”

“What kind of reality could you have created if you’d stayed with the Alchemists?”
I asked. “How much could you have uncovered?”

“Nothing if I was caught,” he said flatly. “And no matter how useless you think we
are, I’ve freed dozens of Alchemists. I’ve helped Clarence and other Moroi.”

“You aren’t useless, Marcus. You do good work, but we’re just not on the same path,
that’s all. I’m staying and doing things my way. Isn’t that what you said when we
first met? Helping the Moroi on our own terms? These are mine.”

“You’re wasting your time!”

“It’s my time to waste,” I said. Adrian had said exactly the same thing to me on the
flight to the wedding, when I’d told him he couldn’t keep loving me. I felt bad for
Marcus. I really did, especially since he’d truly been counting on me to come with
him.

He caught hold of my hand. “Sydney, please don’t do this,” he begged. “No matter how
confident you feel, no matter how careful you think you are, things will spiral out
of control.”

“They already have,” I said, opening the passenger door. “And I’m going to stop fighting
them. Thank you for everything, Marcus. I mean it.”

“Wait, Sydney,” he called. “Just tell me one thing.”

I glanced back and waited.

“Where did this come from? When you called me to tell me you were coming, you said
you’d realized it was the smart thing to do. What made you change your mind?”

I gave him a smile that I hoped was as dazzling as one of his. “I realized I’m in
love.”

Marcus, startled, looked around as though he expected to see my
objet d’amour
in the car with us. “And you just realized that? Did you just have some sort of vision?”

“Didn’t need to,” I said, thinking of Wolfe’s ill-fated trip to the Orkneys. “It’s
always been right in front of me.”

ONCE MARCUS FINALLY ACCEPTED
that I wasn’t going, he wished me well, though he still wore that stunned expression.
He’d planned on abandoning the car at the station but handed the keys over to me as
a parting gift. I watched him walk away and wondered if I’d made a mistake. Then I
thought of green, green eyes and all the work Adrian and I had to do together. This
was the right choice . . . I just hoped I wasn’t too late.

He still wasn’t answering my calls. Did he hate me? Or was he holed up somewhere,
depressed and drinking away his sorrows? I fished his note out of my purse, wondering
what I’d find. Knowing Adrian, I’d expected some long, flowery expression of love.
Instead, all I found was a long series of numbers.

The numbers meant nothing to me. I studied them for a while in the car, applying a
few common codes I knew. No answer appeared, though I wasn’t entirely surprised. Codes
and complex mathematics weren’t exactly Adrian’s style. But then, why had he left
the note? Obviously, he assumed I could decipher it.

I held the note far away from me, hoping something visual would reveal itself. It
did. As I looked at the numbers again, I saw a natural break in the middle of them,
in a format that looked familiar. I entered the two sets of numbers into the latitude
and longitude screen of my GPS. A moment later, it turned up an address in Malibu.
Southern California. Was that a coincidence?

Without even thinking twice, I pulled out of the train station’s parking lot and headed
toward the coast. It was entirely possible I was about to waste two and a half hours
(five, if you counted the round trip), but I didn’t think so.
There are no coincidences.

It felt like the longest drive of my life. My hands tightly clenched the wheel the
entire time. I was eager yet terrified. When I was only a few miles from the address,
I began to see signs for the Getty Villa. For a few seconds, I was confused. The Getty
Center was a very famous museum, but it was closer to Los Angeles. I didn’t understand
the connection or why I had ended up in Malibu. Nonetheless, I dutifully followed
the directions and ended up in the Villa’s guest parking lot.

When I reached the entrance, I received my answers. The Villa was a sister museum
to the Getty Center, one that specialized in ancient Greek and Roman art. In fact,
a good part of the Getty Villa was set up like some ancient temple, complete with
pillars surrounding courtyards filled with gardens, fountains, and statues. Admission
was free but required a reservation. Things were slow today, and I quickly rectified
the problem by making an online reservation on my phone.

When I stepped inside, I nearly forgot why I was there—but only for a heartbeat. The
museum was a dream come true for a lover of classics like me. Room after room focusing
on the ancient world. Jewelry, statues, clothes . . . it was as if I’d entered a time
machine. The scholar in me longed to study and read about each exhibit in detail.
The rest of me, with a racing heart and barely contained excitement, only briefly
stopped in each room, just long enough to search and move on.

After looking in almost all the interior areas, I stepped into the outer peristyle.
My breath caught. It was a huge outdoor garden built around a pool that had to be
at least two hundred feet long. Statues and fountains dotted the pool’s surface, and
the whole space was surrounded in gorgeously manicured trees and other plants. The
sun, warm despite the December day, shone down on everything, and the air hummed with
birdsong, splashing water, and soft conversation. Tourists milled around, stopping
to admire the sights or take pictures. None of them mattered, though—not when I finally
found the person I was looking for.

He sat at the opposite end of the garden from where I’d entered, on the pool’s far
edge. His back was to me, but I would have known him anywhere. I approached with trepidation,
still churning with that odd mix of fear and eagerness. The closer I got, the more
detailed his features became. The tall, lean body. The chestnut glints that the sun
brought out in his dark hair. When I finally reached the pool’s end, I came to a stop
just behind him, not daring to go farther.

“Sage,” he said, without looking up. “Figured you’d be south of the border by now.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said. “You never would’ve given me the note or come all the way
out here. You knew I wouldn’t leave.”

He looked up at me at last, squinting in the bright sun. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t
leave. I
hoped
you wouldn’t leave. Jill and I debated it forever. What’d you think of my sweet use
of latitude and longitude? Pretty brilliant, huh?”

“Genius,” I said, trying to hold back my smile. Some of my fear faded. We were back
in familiar, easy territory again. Just Adrian and me. “You took a risk I’d know what
those numbers meant. You could’ve been sitting out here all day.”

“Nah.” Adrian stood up and took a step toward me. “You’re a smart girl. I knew you’d
figure it out.”

“Not that smart.” The closer he came, the more my heart began to race again. “It took
me a long time to figure some things out.” I gestured around us. “And how is it possible
that you knew this place existed, but I didn’t?”

His fingertips traced the edge of my cheek, and suddenly, the warmth of the sunshine
felt like nothing compared to the heat of that touch. “It was easy,” he said, holding
me in his gaze. “I had to start my search somewhere, so I typed ‘ancient Rome’ and
‘California’ into my phone. This was like the first hit.”

“What search?” I asked.

He smiled. “The search for some place more romantic than Pies and Stuff.”

Adrian tipped my face up toward his and kissed me. Like always, the world around me
stopped moving. No, the world became Adrian, only Adrian. Kissing him was as mind-blowing
as ever, full of that same passion and need I had never believed I’d feel. But today,
there was even more to it. I no longer had any doubt about whether this was wrong
or right. It was a culmination of a long journey . . . or maybe the beginning of one.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. I didn’t care that we were
out in public. I didn’t care that he was Moroi. All that mattered was that he was
Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed
on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right
that I’d also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn’t care. In that moment, it
seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great
for us.

I don’t know how long we stood there kissing. Like I said, the world around me was
gone. Time had stopped. I was awash in the feel of Adrian’s body against mine, in
his scent, and in the taste of his lips. That was all that mattered right now, and
I found myself thinking of our unfinished business in the dream.

When we finally broke the kiss—much too soon, as far as I was concerned—we still stayed
locked in an embrace. The sound of giggling caused me to glance to the side, where
two small children were laughing and pointing at us. Seeing me watching them, they
scurried away. I turned back to Adrian, wanting to melt away with happiness as I looked
up into his eyes.

“This is a lot better than loving from afar,” I told him.

He brushed some hair from my face and gazed into my eyes. “What changed your mind?
I mean, I knew you’d never be able to stay away from me, but I won’t lie . . . you
had me scared there for a little while.”

I leaned against his chest. “It was a combination of things, really. Some surprisingly
good advice from Jill. One of Wolfe’s charming anecdotes—I have to tell you about
his kitchen, by the way. Plus, I kept thinking about when we were on the table.”

Adrian shifted just enough so that we could look at each other again. It was one of
those rare moments where he was completely floored. “Let me get this straight. The
future of our relationship hinged on advice from a fifteen-year-old girl, a probably
untrue story from a one-eyed Chihuahua trainer, and me unromantically—yet skillfully—kissing
you on top of silverware and china?”

“Yup,” I said after a few moments of thought.

“That’s all it took, huh? And here I thought winning you over was going to be hard.”
He grew serious again and pressed a light kiss to my forehead. “What happens now?”

“Now we check out this awesome museum you’ve lured me to. You’re going to
love
Etruscan art.”

That roguish smile I adored returned. “I’m sure I will. But what about the future?
What are we going to do about us—about this?”

I caught hold of his hands, still keeping him close. “Since when are you worried about
consequences or the future?”

“Me? Never.” He considered. “Well, that is, as long as you’re with me, I’m not worried.
But I know
you
like to worry about those kinds of things.”

“I wouldn’t say I ‘like’ to,” I corrected. A soft breeze ruffled his hair, and I resisted
the urge to brush it back into place. If I did, I was pretty sure we’d start kissing
again, and I supposed I should first be responsible and answer his questions.

“Are we going to run off to the Keepers?” he suggested.

“Of course not,” I scoffed. “That’d be cowardly and immature. And you’d never survive
without hair gel—though you might like their moonshine.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to keep all of this secret.”

He chuckled. “That’s not cowardly?”

“It’s exciting and daring,” I said. “Manly and brave, even. I figured you’d be into
that.”

“Sage.” He laughed. “I’m into anything, so long as you’re with me. But is it going
to be enough? I’m not completely oblivious to consequences, you know. I get how dangerous
this is for you, especially if you keep questioning the Alchemists. And I also know
you’re still worried about Jill watching us.”

Right. Jill. Jill, who was probably witnessing all of this right now, whether she
wanted to or not. Was she happy for his happiness? Was she filled with the joy of
our love? Or was this excruciatingly uncomfortable for her?

“The three of us will find a way to cope,” I said at last. I couldn’t think much more
about it right now or I probably would start freaking out. “And as for the Alchemists . . .
we’ll just have to be careful. They don’t follow me everywhere, and like you said,
I’m with you half the time anyway.” I just hoped that was enough. It
had
to be.

And then the kissing started again. There was no avoiding it, not when we were together
like this, far away from the real world of our normal lives. The setting was too perfect.
He was too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people I knew. And honestly,
we’d wasted far too much time with doubts and games. The one thing you learn from
constantly having your life in danger is that you’d better not waste it. Even Marcus
had admitted that in the arcade.

Adrian and I spent the rest of the day at the Villa, most of it kissing in the gardens,
though I did convince him to check out some of the artifacts inside. Maybe I was in
love, but I was still me, after all. When things finally closed down for the evening,
we had dinner at a beachside fondue restaurant and lingered there for a long time
afterward, keeping close to each other and watching the waxing moon shine on the ocean.

I was caught up in watching the crashing waves when I felt Adrian’s lips brush my
cheek. “Whatever happened to the dragon?”

I mustered my primmest tone. “He has a name, you know.”

Adrian pulled back and gave me a curious look. “I didn’t know, actually. What’d you
decide on?”

“Hopper.” When Adrian laughed, I added, “Best rabbit ever. He’d be proud to know his
name is being passed on.”

“Yes, I’m sure he would. Did you name the Mustang too?”

“I think you mean the Ivashkinator.”

He stared at me in wonder. “I told you I loved you, right?”

“Yes,” I assured him. “Many times.”

“Good.” Adrian pulled me closer. “Just making sure, Miss ‘I’m a Quick Study.’”

I groaned. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Live it down? Hell, I’m going to hold you to it.”

I suspected Marcus’s car was stolen, so we left it in Malibu. Adrian drove me back
to the dorm and kissed me goodbye, promising to call me first thing in the morning.
It was hard to let him go, even though I knew I was being silly to think I couldn’t
go without him for twelve hours. I walked into my dorm like I was dancing on air,
my lips still burning from his kisses.

It was crazy, I knew, attempting to have a relationship with him. Scratch that. It
was going to be perilous—enough so that some of my euphoria dimmed as that realization
hit me. I’d talked a good game with him, trying to ease his fears, but I knew the
truth. Trying to figure out secrets within the Alchemists was going to be difficult
enough, and my tattoo still wasn’t secure. What I had going on with Adrian had raised
the stakes exponentially, but that was one of those risks I gladly accepted.

“Miss Melrose.”

Mrs. Weathers’s cool voice snapped me back to reality with a jolt. I came to a halt
in the middle of the dorm’s lobby and looked over at her. She stood up from her desk
and strolled over.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“It’s midnight.”

I looked at a clock, surprised to see she was right. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Even though winter break is here, you’re still registered in the dorm until tomorrow,
which means you’re still subject to the rules. It’s after curfew.”

The only thing I could manage was stating the obvious. “Yes, it is, ma’am.”

Mrs. Weathers waited, as though she were hoping I’d say more. “Were you . . . doing
another assignment for Ms. Terwilliger?” There was an almost comically desperate look
on her face. “I didn’t receive notification, but surely she can retroactively fix
things.”