The Fiery Heart Read Free Page A

he’d gone to school in England and had picked up a faint British accent especially seemed to fire up their estrogen.
    The last member of the party stood outside the car, refusing to get in. Zoe Sage, Sydney’s sister.
    She leaned forward and met my eyes with brown ones almost like Sydney’s, but with less gold. “There’s no room,” she said. “Your car doesn’t have enough seats.”
    â€œNot true,” I told her. On cue, Jill moved closer to me. “This seat’s meant to hold three. Last owner even fitted it with an extra seat belt.” While that was safer for modern times, Sydney had nearly had a heart attack over altering the Mustang from its original state. “Besides, we’re all family, right?” To give us easy access to one another, we’d made Amberwood believe we were all siblings or cousins. When Neil arrived, however, the Alchemists had finally given up on making him a relative since things were getting kind of ridiculous.
    Zoe stared at the empty spot for several seconds. Even though the seat really was long, she’d still be getting cozy with Jill. Zoe had been at Amberwood for a month but was in full possession of all the hang-ups and prejudices her people had around vampires and dhampirs. I knew them well because Sydney used to have all of them too. It was ironic because the Alchemists’ mission was to keep the world of vampires and the supernatural hidden from their fellow humans, who they feared wouldn’t be able to handle it. The Alchemists were driven by the belief that members of my kind were twisted parts of nature best ignored and kept separate from humans, lest we taint them with our evil. They helped us grudgingly and were useful in a situation like Jill’s, when arrangements with human authorities and school officials needed to occur behind the scenes. Alchemists excelled at making things happen. That was how Sydney had originally been drafted, to smooth the way for Jill and her exile, since the Alchemists didn’t want a Moroi civil war. Zoe had been sent recently as an apprentice and had become a huge pain in the ass for hiding our relationship.
    â€œYou don’t have to go if you’re afraid,” I said. There was probably nothing else I could’ve said that would’ve motivated her more. She was driven to become a super Alchemist, largely to impress the Sage father, who, I’d concluded after many stories, was a major asshole.
    Zoe took a deep breath and steeled herself. Without another word, she climbed in beside Jill and slammed the door, huddling as close to it as possible. “Sydney should’ve left the SUV,” she muttered a little while later.
    â€œWhere is Sage, anyway? Er, Sage Senior,” I amended, pulling out of the school’s driveway. “Not that I don’t like chauffeuring you guys around. You should’ve brought me a little black cap, Jailbait.” I nudged Jill, who nudged me back. “You could whip up something like that in your sewing club.”
    â€œShe’s off doing some project for Ms. Terwilliger,” said Zoe disapprovingly. “She’s always doing something for her. I don’t get why history research takes up so much time.”
    Little did Zoe know that said project involved Sydney being initiated into her teacher’s coven. Human magic was still a strange and mysterious thing to me—and completely anathema to the Alchemists—but Sydney was apparently a natural. No surprise, seeing as she was a natural at everything. She’d overcome her fears of it, just as she had of me, and was now fully immersed in learning the trade from her zany yet loveable mentor, Jackie Terwilliger. To say the Alchemists wouldn’t like that was an understatement. In fact, it was really a toss-up which would piss them off more: learning the arcane arts or making out with a vampire. It would almost be comical, if not for the fact that I