Silver Shadows Read Free

and now they’d see their training put to work.
    “Yes, Sydney. A real bed, real clothes, real food. And people to talk to—people who’ll help you if you’ll only listen.”
    That last part sealed the deal. If I were going to be put regularly around others, surely they couldn’t keep drugging the air. As it was, I could feel myself being especially alert and agitated now. They were piping in that stimulant, something that would make me anxious and want to act rashly. It was a good trick on a worn and frazzled mind, and it was working—just not how they’d expected.
    Out of old habit, I put my hand on my collarbone, touching a cross that was no longer there.
Don’t let them change me
, I prayed silently.
Let me keep my mind. Let me endure whatever there is to come.
    “Sydney?”
    “What do I have to do?” I asked.
    “You know what you have to do,” the voice said. “You know what you have to say.”
    I moved my hands to my heart, and my next internal words weren’t a prayer, but a silent message to Adrian:
Wait for me. Be strong, and I’ll be strong too. I’ll fight my way out of whatever they’ve got in store. I won’t forget you. I won’t ever turn my back on you, no matter what lies I have to tell them. Our center will hold.
    “You know what you have to say,” the voice repeated. It was practically salivating.
    I cleared my throat. “I have sinned against my own kind and let my soul become corrupted. I am ready to have the darkness purged.”
    “And what are your sins?” the voice demanded. “Confess what you’ve done.”
    That was harder, but I still managed the words. If it got me closer to Adrian and freedom, I could say anything.
    I took a deep breath and said: “I fell in love with a vampire.”
    And like that, I was blinded by light.



CHAPTER 2
Adrian
    “D ON’T TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY , but you look like crap.”
    I lifted my head from the table and squinted one eye open. Even with sunglasses on—indoors—the light was still almost too much for the pounding in my head. “Really?” I said. “There’s a right way to take that?”
    Rowena Clark fixed me with an imperious look that was so like something Sydney might have done. It caused a lurch in my chest. “You can take it constructively.” Rowena’s nose wrinkled. “This
is
a hangover, right? Because, I mean, that implies you were sober at one point. And from the gin factory I can smell, I’m not so sure.”
    “I’m sober. Mostly.” I dared to take off the sunglasses to get a better look at her. “Your hair’s blue.”
    “Teal,” she corrected, touching it self-consciously. “And you saw it two days ago.”
    “Did I?” Two days ago would’ve been our last mixed mediaclass here at Carlton College. I could barely remember two hours ago. “Well. It’s possible I actually wasn’t so sober then. But it looks nice,” I added, hoping that would spare me some disapproval. It didn’t.
    In truth, my sober days at school were about fifty-fifty lately. Considering I was making it to class at all, though, I thought I deserved some credit. When Sydney had left—no, been taken—I hadn’t wanted to come here. I hadn’t wanted to go anywhere or do anything that wasn’t finding her. I’d curled up in my bed for days, waiting and reaching out to her through the world of dreams with spirit. Only I hadn’t connected. No matter what time of day I tried, I never seemed to find her asleep. It made no sense. No one could stay awake that long. Drunk people were hard to connect to since alcohol dampened spirit’s effects and blocked the mind, but somehow I doubted she and her Alchemist captors were having nonstop cocktail parties.
    I might have doubted myself and my own abilities, especially after I’d used medication to turn spirit off for a while. But my magic had eventually come back in full force, and I’d had no difficulties reaching out to others in their dreams. Maybe I was inept at a lot of other things in life, but I