Jackie and Eddie both agreed they didn’t want to know where Sydney and I were going. The less they knew, the less they could accidentally reveal to others. They were both filled with advice on the kinds of places we should go, however, and I finally had to send them both on their way and tell them we’d be fine.

That left Sydney and me in our rental car, suddenly faced with infinite possibilities. It was also the first time we’d truly been alone in a very long time.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” she admitted to me as we sat in the restaurant’s parking lot. “It’s like we could suddenly live out any of our escape plans.”

“Well, not any,” I remarked. “We’re in the middle of the United States and need to be safely lodged somewhere in five hours so that I can, um, meet up with Nina in a dream.”

Sydney’s eyes widened. “What?”

I sighed and started the car. “Let me explain.”

I’d known it would all have to come out . . . I just hadn’t expected it to come out this soon. So we got on a highway headed north, and I briefed Sydney on what had happened in the days we’d been apart. Nina had made good on her word about covering for me. She’d driven me out of Court in her own car, using compulsion on the gate guard so that he wouldn’t remember seeing me. After she’d dropped me off at a small regional airport, she’d promised to go to our rooms in guest housing and stay with my mom. In the twenty-four hours it had taken me to catch connecting flights and drive to Sydney’s location in the Ozarks, I’d heard updates from both Nina and my mom. No one had come looking for me, and Nina had strolled down to the lobby and had a compulsion-filled conversation that convinced the desk attendant she’d seen me leave and come back for a feeding.

“And now I’ve got to uphold my part of the bargain,” I explained to Sydney, once I’d recapped the backstory.

“By engaging in a bunch of spirit use that’s burning her out?” cried Sydney. “Adrian, you told me you’d back off!”

She doesn’t understand, snarled Aunt Tatiana. You did this for her!

I felt my anger rise in response. “It was the only way I could get away from Court!”

“You didn’t have to get away from Court,” Sydney argued. “We were fine. You just needed to stay safe and cover for us.”

“Fine? I saved you from getting sliced up by those blades!”