Amusement lit Sydney’s features as she let me draw her near. She patted the top of the towel, where it wrapped around her chest. “It’s all in how you fold it,” she said practically. “Do it the right way, and nothing will get it off.”

“Challenge accepted,” I murmured, bringing my lips down to hers.

She melted into me, warm and vibrant and smelling exquisitely of Sydney. I pressed her against the wall, bringing us closer together, and she wrapped a leg around my hip. I ran a hand over the smooth, perfect skin of her thigh, and it hit me that we were truly alone for the first time in a very long while. My mother wasn’t outside our door. We didn’t have an entire Court of Moroi surrounding us, waiting for us to step outside, or a team of Alchemists hunting us beyond its walls. We’d lost ourselves. We’d made an escape plan. No one knew we were here. If we’d wanted to, the power to simply disappear was right before us.

I think that knowledge, that we were truly and really free for the first time, sparked an extra intensity between us. There was a heat in Sydney as she kissed me back and entwined her fingers in my hair that reminded me of our early days together. I lifted her easily in my arms and carried her over to the bed, amazed at how the strongest women I knew could feel so light in my arms.

I was also amazed at how difficult that towel was to get off.

Sydney laughed softly, trailing her fingers along my cheek. The sunlight peeping in around the window blinds made her look like she was made of gold. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Are you going to fail in your challenge?”

I finally untwisted the fold and removed the towel, tossing it as far from the bed as I could. “No way,” I said, as always in awe of her body. “It takes a lot more than that to keep me away. You’ll have to try harder next time.”

She helped pull my shirt off over my head. “Now why would I want to do that?”

We kissed again, and as we became entangled in each other, I found all the worries that had chased me in the rest of the world disappearing. Nina, the Alchemists, Alicia . . . even Aunt Tatiana. There was no one in the world but Sydney and me just then, and the only things that mattered were our love and the way I felt in her arms. It was a joy that went beyond just physical pleasure, though I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t plenty of that.