“I’ll let them know,” Sydney said. To Sabrina, she held up the hand wearing the silver ring. “Are there any rules about jewelry? Will they let us wear these in?”

“They should,” she said. “They’ll search for weapons or anything else they think is suspicious. Cell phones too—they don’t want any way for people to track you. You’ll go blindfolded when I take you in.”

“Sounds a lot like when I went to their arena,” Sydney remarked. She took off her engagement and wedding rings and walked over to me. “I don’t want anything to happen to these while I’m there.”

I clasped both of her hands in mine. “It’s not the rings I’m worried about.”

A faint smile crossed her lips, and even though the face was different, there was a feel to that smile that was uniquely Sydney. “I’ll be fine . . . but I want you to hold on to these for me until I get back.”

“Deal,” I said in a low voice that only she could hear, “but I get to put them back on you.”

“Okay,” she said.

“On my knees,” I added.

“Okay.”

“And we both have to be nake—”

“Adrian,” she said warningly.

“We’ll discuss the terms later,” I said with a wink. But I felt a pang in my heart as I squeezed the rings and let go of her hands, hating the danger she was about to walk into. Her appearance might be different, but her aura shone to me like no one else’s—so brave, despite the dangers ahead. I wanted so badly to go with her but knew there was nothing I could do there. My biggest help would be with Alicia when the witches unfroze her.

“We should grab something to eat and then hit the road,” Sabrina said.

“Hope you like Oreos and cheese puffs,” Eddie told her.

We ate a bizarre meal of junk food while Sabrina elaborated on a few more things for us. “We’re going to Calexico, down by the border,” she said. “But you’re not supposed to know that. We have to keep up appearances. Once we go in, we’ll probably be separated, but I’ll be around. They’ll also let me keep my phone, so I can send messages to Marcus.”

“And you’ll then update me, right?” I said.

Marcus gave me a tight smile. “Right. Don’t worry. Sabrina will look after them.”

It was a hollow reassurance, since we all knew things could go very, very badly at the Warriors’ place and that Sabrina would probably be able to do very little. In her usual way, Sydney was more concerned about me as they were leaving. “Be careful, Adrian. I want to find Jill too but not at the cost of losing you.”

“It’ll be remedial compulsion,” I assured her. “You’re the one walking into a hornet’s nest.”