“What is it?” he asked, looking at me in concern. “Did you remember something?”

“Yes… but not what you’re thinking.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. No, no, no. The thought in my head was crazy. I had no business even considering it. Dimitri had the right idea. We needed to focus on normal, concrete methods of locating Sonya.

“Sage?” Adrian lightly touched my arm, and I jumped at the feel of his fingertips against my skin. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said softly. “I just thought of something crazy.”

“Welcome to my world.”

I looked away, conflicted about the decision before me. What I was contemplating… well, some might argue it wasn’t so different than what I’d done before. And yet, it all came down to the fine line between doing something by choice and doing something because I had to. There was no question here. This would be a choice. An exercising of free will.

“Adrian… what if I had a way to find Sonya, but it went against everything I believe in?”

He took several moments to answer. “Do you believe in getting Sonya back? If so, you wouldn’t be going against everything you believe in.”

It was odd logic, but it gave me the nudge I needed. I took out my cell phone and dialed a number I almost never called—though I certainly received texts and calls from it all the time. An answer came after two rings. “Ms. Terwilliger? This is Sydney.”

“Miss Melbourne. What I can do for you?”

“I need to see you. It’s kind of urg—no, no ‘kind of’ about it. It’s urgent. Are you at the school?”

“No. As shocking as it is, I do go home on occasion.” She paused for a moment. “However… you are certainly welcome to come to my house.”

I don’t know why that made me uneasy. After all, I spent plenty of time at Clarence’s. Surely a vampire’s sprawling estate was much worse than a high school teacher’s home. Of course, said teacher was also a witch, so I wasn’t certain if I could expect a boring suburban flat or a house made of candy.

I swallowed. “Do you keep a lot of the same spell books at home that you do at school?” Adrian arched an eyebrow at the word spell.

Ms. Terwilliger hesitated for much longer this time. “Yes,” she said. “And more.”

She gave me her address, and before I could even hang up, Adrian said, “I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“True,” he said. “But lack of information’s never stopped me before. Besides, I know it has something to do with Sonya, which is good enough for me. That, and you looked scared to death. There’s no way I can let you go alone.”

I crossed my arms. “I’ve faced scarier things, and last I checked, it’s not your place to ‘let’ me do anything.” There was such concern in his face, however, that I knew I wouldn’t be able to refuse… especially since I was kind of scared. “You have to promise not to tell anyone what we’re going to do. Or talk about what you see.”