Roz finds me as soon as I step outside. She shoves a baseball cap on my head and puts her arm over my shoulder. “You can’t be here.” She walks me along the side of the building and then across a rear driveway that leads to the service entrance and into the street on the opposite side of all the crowds.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“No talking.”
Once we’re in the road, she grabs my hand and drags me along behind her. We weave our way through the neighborhood and then into the back yard of a small single-story house covered in green ivy. Roz lifts a flower pot and grabs a silver key and uses it to unlock the back door.
“Whose house is this?” I ask.
“No talking.” She shoves me inside and then checks left and right before closing and locking the door, covering the door with a magical alarm, and then ushering me through the tidy little kitchen and into the living room. “Sit.”
I do as she says, dropping into the plush cushions and folding my hands onto my lap.
Roz sits down next to me. “I’m worried about you.”
“Roz…” I stretch out her name like a kid whining for their mom.
“Don’t Roz me, Joely. Talk to me.”
I shake my head and she grabs my hands.
“Joely. I’m serious. I saw you that night when Marco carried you to your room covered in blood. I didn’t say anything because Marco waved me off at the time and has sworn me to secrecy since. It’s been killing me but I did it because I love you and I don’t want to push you if you’re not ready.”
“I can’t. I—”
Roz lifts her hand to cut me off. “I know something happened to you. You haven’t been yourself for weeks. And after seeing you today with Quinn and then that scene in the meeting… I know that whatever was going on is still going on and I just wish you’d let me in. You look like you need a friend.”
And just like that the floodgates open inside me and I let it all out. To her credit, Roz sits through it all without interrupting even once. I tell her about the night my magic sparked, and the visions and how the wolf in my visions is actually Van’s brother, Tobias. I tell her about Angus and Marco and Van, and how the three of them are not twenty-something, but over two hundred years old, kept alive because they drank two bodies’ worth of vampire blood.
I tell her about how my father made a deal with Porter Allbright to swap me and Quinn when we were babies. I tell her about Damon Underwood and Daria and how I saw Mel’s ghost the night of the gala. I tell her the truth about the origins of the Society’s Vessel. I tell her about everything, all of it, and how my entire life has been upended because of a pair of prophecies that I don’t even understand, and how I stood up to Van and how I am no longer willing to stand by and watch as they try to bring the Society back to its old ways.
I feel like I talk for hours, and when I finally finish, Roz sits back, stunned.
“Say something,” I beg, feeling my old fears creeping in. Will Roz run away and cut me off now that she knows who I am? Will she forget that she’s my friend? I settle myself because whatever she is going to do is beyond my control.
Roz gets up and disappears into the kitchen. When she returns, she’s holding a knife.
“Roz! What are you doing?”
She places the knife on the couch and takes off her shirt. Standing in front of me in her jeans and a bra, Roz picks up the knife and slices the blade across her hand, barely flinching as blood pools in her palm. She pulls me to my feet and presses her bloody hand over her heart.
“Joely. You just told me about five thousand things that could really hurt you and a lot of other people. I need you to know that you can trust me.”
“Roz, you don’t have to…”
She shushes me. “After what you just told me, I look at you and I see someone who has been betrayed by just about everyone you’ve ever known. You need to know there is someone in the world who will be there for you, no matter what. You need to know it. Someone who has your back.”
“Stop this,” I say. The tears are in my eyes, making my vision blurry, and my throat aches. How can she know? How can she know this is what I need to hear? Why did I wait so long to trust her? How—
She shakes her head and closes her eyes, stopping my brain in its tracks. “I, Rosamund Yellenbard, swear a solemn oath to protect my friend Joelle Everstar. I will shield her from harm and keep her secrets. No matter what. No matter who. No matter how. With my blood, I am bound.” She pulls her hand off her chest. The bloody handprint glows white for a second and then disappears into her skin.
I blink back tears at the gesture. No, this was more than a gesture. It was everything. “Roz…”
Roz pulls her shirt back on. “Sorry to be so dramatic, but seriously, girl. You’ve been let down by all the people who are supposed to have your back. I didn’t need to take that vow for myself. I know what it means to be your friend. But I wanted you to know for sure, in your mind and in your heart that you have someone whose word you can really trust.”
I feel as though a weight has been lifted from me. “Thank you,” I whisper. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” I laugh, but it
