That was obviously news to Sonya. “She was here? At Court? How long did she stay?”

“Not long,” I said, immediately wishing I hadn’t mentioned it at all. “Just checking up on Sydney.”

“That’s a lot of effort just to check up on someone. A phone call would’ve been simpler.”

I hoped I looked guileless. “Yeah, but then she wouldn’t have been able to give us the cat. Belated wedding gift.”

“Adrian,” said Sonya, using the voice she must have used to chastise countless students when she was a high school biology teacher, “what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said, steering her to the door. “Relax, we’re all fine. The only thing you need to worry about is how fast Nina’s going to send me packing.”

“Adrian—”

“Everything’s fine,” I said cheerily. I opened the door for her. “Thanks for stopping by. Say hi to Mikhail for me.”

It was clear from her expression that I’d completely failed in convincing her of my innocence, but at least she looked like she wasn’t going to compel me to tell her what was really going on—for now. We made our farewells, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone, hoping no one else would come by and force me to fumble for another excuse about why Sydney wasn’t around.

I went to bed soon thereafter and was awakened midday by a new text message from Sydney. She reported that she, Eddie, and Jackie had made it to Pittsburgh but wouldn’t be truly investigating the museum until nightfall. She assured me everything was fine, and I assured her of the same, deciding it was probably best if she didn’t know I’d agreed to go talk to a potentially crazy girl who was either in love with me or despised everything about me. Sydney had enough to worry about.

When the Moroi Court began waking up later in the day, I managed to get Neil to come back and walk me over to Nina’s. It was early enough that not too many people were out, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Neil, driven by duty, was happy to help me regardless, but I knew he had an ulterior interest in going with me to see Nina. Months ago, he and her sister, Olive, had had the beginnings of a romance blossoming. None of us were entirely sure how far it had gone, but things had ended abruptly when Olive had taken off with little contact with Nina and none with Neil. I doubted Nina had any new details on her sister’s whereabouts, but Neil was probably hoping for some scrap of info.