Bloodlines

Eddie glanced at me in surprise. “You did?”

“No! I never said that.” Adrian’s smile was infuriating. “Stop telling people that.”

Since I was in charge of the scorecard, his play was logged as four, despite his many further protests. I started to move forward, but Eddie held out a hand to stop me, his hazel eyes gazing over my shoulder.

“Hold up,” he said. “We need to wait for Jill and Lee.”

I followed his gaze. The two of them had been in deep conversation since we arrived, so much so that they’d slowed and lagged behind the rest of us. Even during his bantering with Adrian and me, Eddie had continually checked on her—and our surroundings. It was kind of amazing the way he could multitask. Thus far, Jill and Lee had only been one hole behind us. Now it was nearly two, and that was too far for Eddie to keep her in his sight. So, we waited while the oblivious couple meandered their way toward the Dragon’s Lair.

Adrian took another drink from his flask and shook his head in awe. “You had nothing to worry about, Sage. She went right for him.”

“No thanks to you,” I snapped. “I can’t believe you told her every detail of my visit that night. She was so mad at me for interfering behind her back with you, Lee, and Micah.”

“I hardly told her anything,” argued Adrian. “I just told her to stay away from that human guy.”

Eddie glanced between our faces. “Micah?”

I shifted uncomfortably. Eddie didn’t know about how I’d gone proactive. “Remember when I wanted you to say something to him? And you wouldn’t?” I proceeded to tell him how I’d then sought out Adrian’s help and found out about Lee’s interest in Jill. Eddie was aghast.

“How could you not tell me any of this?” he demanded.

“Well,” I said, wondering if everything I did was going to result in the wrath of a Moroi or dhampir, “it didn’t involve you.”

“Jill’s safety does! If some guy likes her, I need to know.”

Adrian chuckled. “Should Sage have passed you a note in class?”

“Lee’s fine,” I said. “He obviously adores her, and it’s not like she’ll ever be alone with him.”

“We don’t know for sure that he’s fine,” said Eddie.

“Whereas Micah’s a hundred percent okay? Did you do a background check or something?” I asked.

“No,” said Eddie, looking embarrassed. “I just know. It’s a feeling I get about him. There’s no problem with him spending time with Jill.”

“Except that he’s human.”

“They wouldn’t have gotten serious.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Enough, you two,” interrupted Adrian. Jill and Lee had finally reached the start of the Dragon’s Lair, meaning we could move on. Adrian lowered his voice. “Your argument’s useless. I mean, look at them. That human boy doesn’t enter into it.”

I looked. Adrian was right. Jill and Lee were clearly enthralled with each other. Some guilty part of me wondered if I should be a doing a better job of looking out for Jill. I was so relieved that she was interested in a Moroi that I hadn’t stopped to wonder if she should even be dating anyone. Was fifteen old enough? I hadn’t dated at fifteen. I’d actually, well, never dated.

“There is an age difference between them,” I admitted, more to myself.

Adrian scoffed. “Believe me, I’ve seen age differences. Theirs is nothing.”

He walked off, and a few moments later, Eddie and I went to join him. Eddie maintained his simultaneous vigil of Jill, but this time, I got the impression the danger he was watching out for was right beside her. Adrian’s laughter rang out ahead of us.

“Sage!” he called. “You have got to see this.”

Eddie and I reached the next green and stared in astonishment. Then I burst out laughing.

We had reached Dracula’s Castle.

A huge, multi-towered black castle guarded the hole some distance away. A tunnel was cut out through the center of it with a narrow bridge meant for the ball to go over. If the ball fell off the sides before getting through the castle, it was returned back to the starting point. An animatronic Count Dracula stood off to the castle’s side. He was pure white, with red eyes, pointed ears, and slicked-back hair. He jerkily kept raising his arms to show off a batlike cape. Nearby, a speaker blasted eerie organ music.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Adrian and Eddie looked at me as though they’d never seen me before.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh,” Eddie told him.

“Certainly not the reaction I was expecting,” mused Adrian. “I’d been counting on abject terror, judging from past Alchemist behavior. I didn’t think you liked vampires.”

Still grinning, I watched Dracula raise his cape up and down. “This isn’t a vampire. Not a real one. And that’s what makes it so funny. It’s pure Hollywood camp. Real vampires are terrifying and unnatural. This? This is hilarious.”

It was clear from their expressions that neither really understood why this would appeal to my sense of humor so much. Adrian did, however, offer to take a picture with my cell phone when I asked him. I posed by Dracula and put on a big smile. Adrian managed to snap the shot just as Dracula was raising his cape. When I viewed the picture, I was pleased to see it had come out perfectly. Even my hair looked good.

Adrian gave the picture a nod of approval before handing me the phone. “Okay, even I can admit that’s pretty cute.”

I found myself overanalyzing the comment. What had he meant in saying even he could admit it? That I was cute for a human? Or that I had just met some kind of Adrian hot-girl criteria? Moments later, I had to forcibly stop thinking about it. Let it go, Sydney. It’s a compliment. Accept it.

We played through the rest of the course, finally finishing off with the waterfall itself. That was a particularly challenging hole, and I took my time lining up the shot—not that I needed to. I was beating everyone pretty handily. Eddie was the only one who came close. It was clear Jill and Lee didn’t even have their attention on the game, and as for Adrian and his natural talent . . . well, they were very solidly in last place.

Eddie, Adrian, and I were still ahead of the other two, so we waited for them by the waterfall. Jill practically ran to it when she had the chance, gazing up at it with enchanted eyes. “Oh,” she breathed. “This is wonderful. I haven’t seen this much water in days.”

“Remember what I said about the toxicity,” teased Lee. But it was clear he found her reaction endearing. As I glanced at the other two guys, I saw that they shared the same feelings. Well, not exactly the same. Adrian’s affection was clearly brotherly. Eddie’s? It was hard to read, kind of a mix of the other two. Maybe it was a kind of guardian fondness.

Jill made a gesture to the waterfall, and suddenly, part of it broke off from the tumbling cascade. The chunk of water shaped itself into a braid, then twisted high into the air, making spirals before shattering into a million drops that misted over us all. I had been staring wide-eyed and frozen, but those drops hitting me shocked me awake.

“Jill,” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own. “Don’t do that again.”

Jill, eyes bright, barely spared me a glance as she made another piece of water dance in the air. “No one’s around to see, Sydney.”

That wasn’t what had me so upset. That wasn’t what filled me with so much panic that I could barely breathe. The world was doing that thing where it started to spin, and I worried I was going to faint. Stark, cold fear ran through me, fear at the unknown. The unnatural. The laws of my world had just been broken. This was vampire magic, something foreign and inaccessible to humans—inaccessible because it was forbidden, something no mortal was meant to delve into. I had only once seen magic used, when two spirit users had turned on each other, and I never wanted to see it again. One had forced the plants of the earth to do her bidding while the other telekinetically hurled objects meant to kill. It had been terrifying, and even though I hadn’t been the target, I’d felt trapped and overwhelmed in the face of such otherworldly power. It was a reminder that these weren’t fun, easy people to hang out with. These were creatures wholly different from me.

“Stop it,” I said, feeling the panic rise. I was afraid of the magic, afraid it would touch me, afraid of what it might do to me. “Don’t do it anymore!”

Jill didn’t even hear me. She grinned at Lee. “You’re air, right? Can you create fog over the water?”