“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” she said. “But it does seem unlikely they’d hurt you. They really do seem to stay away from humans—us in particular. And if there’s a chance to get Karp out of there… well. That would save us a lot of fallout with the Moroi.” Stanton’s tone told me, however, that even if she thought I’d be safe, she wasn’t so optimistic about Sonya. “Be careful, Miss Sage.”

Adrian’s apartment was filled with tension when I arrived. Dimitri, Eddie, and Angeline were clearly agitated, probably because they were being left out of the action. Adrian, surprisingly, looked upset too, though I couldn’t figure out why. Jill watched him with concern, and they kept staring at each other, unseen messages undoubtedly passing to her through the bond. At last, he averted his gaze, like he was ending a conversation. Jill sighed and walked toward the others in the kitchen.

I started to speak to Adrian, but Eddie beckoned me forward. “We’re debating on whether to give you a weapon or not,” he said.

“Well, the answer is ‘not,”’ I said immediately. “Come on, they’re blindfolding me. Do you think they won’t search me for weapons too?”

“There must be a way,” said Dimitri. Since we were in air conditioning, he wore the duster. “I can’t let you go in there defenseless.”

“I’m not in danger,” I said, feeling like I’d been repeating the same thing all day. “They might be crazy, but Trey says if they give their word, they’ll stick to it.”

“Sonya doesn’t have those guarantees,” Dimitri pointed out.

“No weapon is going to help me save her,” I said. “Except for my reasoning. And I’m armed with that about as well as I can be.”

The dhampirs still didn’t seem happy. They went back to arguing amongst themselves, and I left them to find some water. Adrian called to me from the living room. “There’s diet pop in there.”

I opened the refrigerator. Sure enough, it was stocked with all kinds of pop. And, in fact, it had more food than I’d ever seen. Another benefit of Nathan Ivashkov’s generosity. I grabbed a can of Diet Coke and joined Adrian on the couch.

“Thanks,” I said, opening the can. “This is the next best thing you could have to gelato.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Gelato? Sounds like dessert to me, Sage.”

“It is,” I admitted. The mundane topic was comforting amidst all the tension. “It’s kind of your fault for bringing it up yesterday. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. I wanted some at dinner last night, and Brayden talked me out of it—which is probably why I’m even more obsessed with it. Ever had that happen? Once you can’t have something, you want it that much more.”

“Yes,” he said bitterly. “It happens all the time.”

“Why are you so down? You think I should have a weapon, too?” With Adrian, it was really hard to guess where his moods would go.