“What else am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Are you going to teach me?”

I turned back to the beautiful Mustang. “Yes,” I said adamantly. “If that’s what it takes to save it from you.”

“I can show you too,” said Eddie.

Adrian ignored him and focused on me. “When we can start?”

I ran through my school schedule, knowing I’d have to make talking to the Alchemists about the Warriors of Light my top priority. Then, the obvious hit me. “Oh. When we see Wolfe this week. We’ll take this out there.”

“Is that really to help me?” asked Adrian. “Or do you just want to drive the car?”

“Both,” I said, not embarrassed to admit it.

Angeline’s clock at school was ticking, so the rest of us had to leave. I’d driven three blocks away when I realized I’d left my purse on the grass. With a groan, I looped around and returned to his building. My purse was there, but the Mustang was gone.

“Where’s the car?” I asked, panicked. “No one could have stolen it that fast.”

“Oh,” said Jill from the backseat, sounding slightly nervous. “I saw through the bond. He, um, moved it.”

It was handy having the bond as a source of information, but her words made me panic more than if the car actually had been stolen. “He what?”

“Not far,” she said quickly. “Just behind the building. This street’s got weird overnight parking rules.”

I grimaced. “Well, I’m glad it won’t get towed, but he should’ve had me move it! Even if it’s not far, he could ruin the transmission.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Jill. There was a strange note to her voice.

I didn’t respond. Jill was no car expert. None of them were. “It’s like letting a toddler loose in a room full of china,” I muttered. “What was he thinking? About any of this?”

No one had an answer for that. I got us back to Amberwood in time for Angeline’s curfew and retreated to the sanity and calm of my room. As soon as I was satisfied my friends were safe and secure for the night, I e-mailed Donna Stanton—a high-up Alchemist whom I’d inexplicably developed a good relationship with—about the hunters and what we’d learned. I even took pictures of the pamphlet and e-mailed those as well. Once that was done, I sat back and tried to think if there was anything else at all I could provide her with that might help.

It was only when I’d exhausted all options (and refreshed my inbox a few times to see if she’d responded already) that I finally moved on to homework. As usual, I was pretty much caught up on every assignment—save one.

Ms. Terwilliger’s.

That stupid book was on my desk, staring back at me, daring me to open it. I still had a number of days before her spell was due, time during which I could continue to procrastinate. I was beginning to accept, however, that this assignment wasn’t going to go away. Considering how long some of the prep on these took, maybe it’d be best to bite the bullet and get it out of the way.