He raised his eyebrows, clearly pleased, and gave me a rough pat on the shoulder. It was the closest he’d come to real affection in a while. I flinched, both from surprise and because of how rigid I was with frustration. “Good.” He moved toward the kitchen door and then paused to glance back at me. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
CHAPTER 3
THE DRIVE TO PALM SPRINGS WAS AGONY.
I was exhausted from being dragged out of bed, and even when Keith took over the wheel, I couldn’t fall asleep. I had too much on my mind: Zoe, my reputation, the mission at hand.... My thoughts spun in circles. I just wanted to fix all the problems in my life. Keith’s driving did nothing to make me less anxious.
I was also upset because my father hadn’t let me say goodbye to my mom. He’d gone on and on about how we should just let her sleep, but I knew the truth. He was afraid that if she knew I was leaving, she’d try to stop us. She’d been furious after my last mission: I’d gone halfway around the world alone, only to be returned with no clue as to what my future held. My mom had thought the Alchemists had used me badly and had told my dad it was just as well they seemed to be done with me. I don’t know if she really could’ve stood in the way of tonight’s plans, but I didn’t want to take my chances in case Zoe got sent instead of me. I certainly hadn’t expected a warm and fuzzy farewell from him, but it felt strange leaving on such unsettled terms with my sister and mother.
When dawn came, briefly turning the desert landscape of Nevada into a blazing sea of red and copper, I gave up on sleep altogether and decided to just power through. I bought a twenty-four-ounce cup of coffee from a gas station and assured Keith I could drive us the rest of the way. He gladly gave up the wheel, but rather than sleep, he bought coffee as well and chatted me up for the remaining hours. He was still going strong with his new
Some of the conversation wasn’t so bad. I could handle business talk, and we had plenty of details to still work out. He told me all he knew about the school, and I ate up his description of my future home. Amberwood Preparatory School was apparently a prestigious place, and I idly wondered if maybe I could treat it as pretend college. By Alchemist standards, I knew all I needed for my job, but something in me always burned for more and more knowledge. I’d had to learn to content myself with my own reading and research, but still, college—or even just being around those who knew more and had something to teach me—had long been a fantasy of mine.
As a “senior,” I would have off-campus privileges, and one of our first orders of business—after securing fake IDs—was to get me a car. Knowing I wouldn’t be trapped at a boarding school made things a bit more bearable, even though it was obvious that half of Keith’s enthusiasm for getting me my own transportation was to make sure I could shoulder any work that came along with the job.
Keith also enlightened me about something I hadn’t realized—but probably should have. “You and that Jill girl are being enrolled as sisters,” he said.
I saw him shrug in my periphery. “Why not? It explains why you’ll be around her so much—and is a good excuse for you to be roommates. Normally, the school doesn’t pair students who are different ages, but . . . well . . . your ‘parents’ promised a hefty donation that made them change their normal policy.”
I was so stunned that I didn’t even have my normal gut reaction to slap him when he concluded with his self-satisfied chuckle. I’d known we’d be living together . . . but sisters? It was . . . weird. No, not just that. Outlandish.
“That’s crazy,” I said at last, still too shocked to come up with a more eloquent response.
“It’s just on paper,” he said.
True. But something about being cast as a
“Living with one of them shouldn’t be so bad for you,” Keith commented, drumming his fingers against the window in a way that put my nerves on edge. Something about the too-casual way he spoke made me think he was leading me into a trap. “You’re used to it.”
“Hardly,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I was with them for a week at most. And actually, most of my time was spent with dhampirs.”
“Same difference,” he replied dismissively. “If anything, the dhampirs are worse. They’re abominations. Not human, but not full vampires. Products of unnatural unions.”
I didn’t respond right away and instead pretended to be deeply interested in the road ahead. What he said was true, by Alchemist teaching. I’d been raised believing that both races of vampires, Moroi and Strigoi, were dark and wrong. They needed blood to survive. What kind of person drank from another? It was disgusting, and just thinking about how I’d soon be ferrying Moroi to their feedings made me ill.
But the dhampirs . . . that was a trickier matter. Or at least, it was for me now. The dhampirs were half human and half vampire, created at a time when the two races had mingled freely. Over the centuries, vampires had pulled away from humans, and both of our races now agreed that those kinds of unions were taboo. The dhampir race had persisted against all odds, however, in spite of the fact that dhampirs couldn’t reproduce with each other. They could with Moroi or humans, and plenty of Moroi were up to the task.
“Right?” asked Keith.
I realized he was staring at me, waiting for me to agree with him about dhampirs being abominations—or maybe he was hoping I would disagree. Regardless, I’d been quiet for too long.
“Right,” I said. I mustered the standard Alchemist rhetoric. “In some ways, they’re worse than the Moroi. Their race was never meant to exist.”
“You scared me there for a second,” Keith said. I was watching the road but had a sneaking suspicion he’d just winked at me. “I thought you were going to defend them. I should’ve known better than to believe the stories about you. I can totally get why you’d want to gamble at the glory—but man, that had to have been harsh, trying to work with one of them.”
I couldn’t explain how once you’d spent a little time with Rose Hathaway, it was easy to forget she was a dhampir. Even physically, dhampirs and humans were virtually indistinguishable. Rose was so full of life and passion that sometimes she seemed more human than I was. Rose certainly wouldn’t have meekly accepted this job with a simpering, “Yes, sir.” Not like me.
Rose hadn’t even accepted being locked in jail, with the weight of the Moroi government against her. Abe Mazur’s blackmail had been a catalyst that spurred me to help her, but I’d also never believed that Rose had committed the murder they’d accused her of. That certainty, along with our fragile friendship, had driven me to break Alchemist rules to help Rose and her dhampir boyfriend, the formidable Dimitri Belikov, elude the authorities. Throughout it all, I’d watched Rose with a kind of wonder as she battled the world. I couldn’t envy someone who wasn’t human, but I could certainly envy her strength—and refusal to back down, no matter what.
But again, I could hardly tell Keith any of that. And I still didn’t believe for an instant, despite his sunny act, that he was suddenly okay with me coming along.
I gave a small shrug. “I thought it was worth the risk.”
“Well,” he said, seeing I wasn’t going to offer anything more. “The next time you decide to go rogue with vampires and dhampirs, get a little backup so you don’t get in as much trouble.”
I scoffed. “I have no intention of going rogue again.” That, at least, was the truth.
We reached Palm Springs late in the afternoon and got to work immediately with our tasks. I was dying for sleep by that point, and even Keith—despite his talkativeness—looked a little worn around the edges. But we’d gotten the word that Jill and her entourage were arriving tomorrow, leaving very little time to put the remaining details in place.
