Richelle Mead - The Golden Lily

“Hey you! Elder Melrose!”

I turned and winced when I saw Lia DiStefano striding toward me. Lia was a fashion designer with a shop here in downtown Palm Springs. I hadn’t realized we were standing directly across from her store. If I had, I would’ve waited inside the restaurant. Lia was short but had an overwhelming presence, enhanced by the flamboyant gypsy style she often chose for her personal attire.

“I’ve been calling you for weeks,” she said, once she reached our side of the street. “Why don’t you answer?”

“I’ve been really busy,” I said straight-faced.

“Uh-huh.” Lia put her hands on her hips and tried to stare me down, which was kind of amazing since I was taller. “When are you going to let your sister model for me again?”

“Miss DiStefano,” I said patiently, “I’ve told you before. She can’t do it anymore. Our parents don’t like it. Our religion doesn’t allow faces to be photographed.”

Last month, Jill’s runway-perfect build and gorgeous, ethereal features had attracted Lia’s attention. Seeing as having your picture taken en masse was kind of a bad way to stay in hiding, we’d only agreed to let Jill walk in Lia’s fashion show because all the models wore Venetian masks. Lia had been on me ever since to let Jill model again. It was hard because I knew Jill wanted to, but she understood as well as I did that her safety came first. Claiming we were part of some obscure religion had often explained away our weird behaviors to others, so I’d figured it would get Lia off my back. It hadn’t.

“I never hear from these parents of yours,” Lia said. “I’ve watched your family. I see how it is. You’re the authority. You’re the one I have to go through. I have the chance to do a major magazine spread for my scarves and hats, and Jill was born to do it. What’s it going to take to get her? You want a cut of the pay?”

I sighed. “It’s not about the money. We can’t show her face. If you want to put her in a Venetian mask again, then be my guest.”

Lia scowled. “I can’t do that.”

“Then we’re at an impasse.”

“There must be something . Everyone has a price.”

“Sorry.” There was no price in the world she could offer to get me to shirk my duty to Jill and the Alchemists.

A restaurant clerk stuck his head outside and called that our order was ready, mercifully freeing us from Lia. Sonya chuckled as we loaded up on our bags and headed back down the street to make the walk to Adrian’s. The sky was still purple with the last of the day’s light, and street lamps made whimsical patterns on the sidewalk as they cast their light through the leaves of palm trees.

“Did you ever imagine your job here would involve dodging aggressive fashion designers?” Sonya asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Honestly, I never foresaw half the stuff this job has-”

“Sonya?”

A young man appeared seemingly out of nowhere, blocking our path. He was no one I knew and looked to be a little older than me. He wore his black hair in a buzz cut and was staring curiously at Sonya.

She came to a halt and frowned. “Do I know you?”

He brightened. “Sure. Jeff Eubanks. Remember?”

“No,” she said politely, after a few moments of study. “You must have me mistaken for someone else. I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” he said. “I know it’s you. Sonya Karp, right? We met in Kentucky last year.”

Sonya stiffened. She’d made Kentucky her home while she was a Strigoi. I knew those couldn’t be pleasant memories.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, voice strained. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The guy was undaunted, still smiling as though they were best friends. “You’ve come a long ways from Kentucky. What brings you out here? I just transferred for work.”

“There’s some mistake,” I told him sternly, nudging Sonya forward. I didn’t know what that mistake could be exactly, but Sonya’s attitude was all I needed. “We have to go.”

The guy didn’t follow us, but Sonya remained silent for most of the walk home.

“Must be hard,” I said, feeling like I should say something. “Meeting people from your past.”

She shook her head. “He’s not. I’m certain of it. I’ve never met him.”

I’d figured she just wanted to avoid all associations with being a Strigoi. “You’re sure? He wasn’t just some casual acquaintance?”

She shot me a wry look. “Strigoi don’t have casual acquaintances with humans. They have them for dinner. That guy shouldn’t have known who I was.”

“He was human? Not dhampir?” I couldn’t tell the difference, but Moroi could.

“Definitely.”

Sonya had stopped again and was glancing back at the guy’s retreating figure. I followed her gaze. “There must be some reason he recognized you. He seems pretty harmless.”

That got me another smile. “Come now, Sydney. I figured you’d been around us long enough to know.”

“Know what?”

“Nothing’s ever as harmless as it seems.”

SONYA DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING about the mysterious encounter to the rest of the gang at Adrian’s, so I respected her silence. Everyone else was too preoccupied with dinner and the experiments to notice much else. And once they conducted the second wave of experiments, even I grew too distracted to give much thought to the guy on the street.

Sonya had said she wanted to see how Eddie and Dimitri responded to direct spirit. This was accomplished by her and Adrian focusing their magic at the dhampirs one at a time.

“It’s sort of like what we’d do if we were trying to heal them or make something grow,” Sonya explained to me. “Don’t worry-this isn’t going to make them supersized or anything. It’s more like we’re coating them with spirit magic. If Dimitri’s got some lasting mark from when he was healed, I’d imagine it would react with our magic.”

She and Adrian coordinated their timing and did Eddie first. Initially, there was nothing to see-just the two spirit users staring at Eddie. He looked uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Then, I saw a silvery shimmer run over his body. I stepped back, amazed-and unnerved-at seeing a physical manifestation of spirit. They repeated the process on Dimitri, with the same results. Apparently, on an unseen level, things were the same too. There was nothing notable about Dimitri’s response. All of them took this in stride as part of the scientific process, but seeing that magic actually embrace the two men had creeped me out.

As Eddie and I drove back to Amberwood that night, I found myself sitting as far away from him as I could in the car, as though residual magic might leak over and touch me. He chatted with me in our usual, friendly way, and I had to work hard to hide my feelings. Doing so made me feel guilty. This was Eddie, after all. My friend. The magic, even if it could’ve hurt me, was long since gone.

A good night of sleep went a long ways to shake both my anxiety and guilt, leaving the magic a distant memory when I woke and prepared for classes the next day. Even though being at Amberwood was an assignment, I’d kind of come to love the elite school. I’d been homeschooled before this, and while my dad had certainly taught tough curriculum, he’d never gone beyond what he felt was necessary. Here, even if I surpassed what my classes were learning, there were plenty of teachers ready to encourage me to push farther. I hadn’t been allowed to go to college, but this was a nice substitute.

Before I could get on to it, I had to chaperone a training session with Eddie and Angeline. Even though he might want to avoid her, he wouldn’t-not with Jill’s safety on the line. Angeline was part of Jill’s defense. I settled down in the grass with a cup of coffee, still wondering if he wasn’t just imagining Angeline’s interest. I’d recently acquired a one-cup coffee maker for my dorm room, and while it couldn’t compare to a coffee shop, it had gotten me through a number of rough mornings. A yawn smothered my greeting as Jill sat down beside me.