“No, not exactly.” She pursed her lips as she thought. “He just gets a little scattered… weird. You’ll know it when you see it. He kind of makes sense but kind of not. Gets dreamy and rambles. But not in the way I do. It’s got like a—I don’t know—mystical feel. But it’s not actually magical. It’s just him kind of… losing it temporarily. It never lasts and, like I said, you’ll know it when you see it.”

“I think I might have…” An unexpected memory flashed back to me, of just before Sonya and Dimitri had arrived. I’d been at Adrian’s, and he’d looked at me strangely, like he was just noticing me for the first time. Thinking about it still sent chills through me.

My God, Sage. Your eyes. How have I never noticed them? The color… like molten gold. I could paint those…

“Girls?” Mrs. Weathers was at her desk, shutting things down for the night. “You need to get to your rooms.”

We nodded obediently and moved toward the stairs. When we reached Jill’s floor, I stopped her before she could leave. “Hey—if Adrian’s not the problem, then what was bothering you when you came in? Is everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, that.” She flushed in a cute kind of way. “Yeah. I guess. I don’t know. Micah… um, well, he kissed me tonight. For the first time. And I guess I was just kind of surprised at how I felt about it.”

I was surprised they hadn’t kissed before and supposed I should be grateful. Her words resonated with me. “What do you mean? Did it feel a lot less exciting than you expected? Like you were just touching someone’s lips? Like you were kissing a relative?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “No. That’s crazy. Why would you think that?”

“Um, just guessing.” I suddenly felt silly. Why had it felt that way for me?

“It was great, actually.” A faraway look came over her. “Well, almost. I couldn’t quite get into it as much as I wanted because I was worried about my fangs. It’s easy to hide them talking and smiling. But not while kissing. And all I kept thinking was, ‘What am I going to say if he notices?’ And then I started thinking about what you and everyone else said. About how this thing with Micah isn’t a good idea and how I can’t keep things hands-off forever. I like him. I like him a lot. But not enough to risk exposing the Moroi… or endanger Lissa.”

“That’s a noble attitude.”

“I guess. I don’t want to end things yet, though. Micah’s so nice… and I love all the friends I’ve made by being with him. I guess I’ll just see what happens… but it’s hard. It’s a wake-up call.” She looked so sad as she went into her room.

Continuing on to mine, I felt bad for Jill… but at the same time, I was relieved. I’d stressed over her casual dating of Micah, worried we’d be facing some dramatic, romantic situation where she refused to give him up because their love was too great and transcended their races. Instead, I should have had more faith in her. She wasn’t as immature as I sometimes thought. Jill was going to realize the truth and resolve this on her own.