He gave me a look of mock surprise. “You mean you aren’t already? And here I thought you were dazzled from the moment you met me.”

Sonya shook her head indulgently at the two of us, like we were adorable children. “You’re missing out, Sydney,” she remarked, tapping the open pop in front of her. “I need about three of these a day to keep me focused on all this work. No detrimental effects so far.”

No detrimental effects so far? Of course not. Moroi never had any. Sonya, Jill… they could all eat whatever they wanted and still keep those amazing bodies. Meanwhile, I labored over every calorie and still couldn’t reach that level of perfection. Fitting into these size four khakis had been a triumph this morning. Now, looking at Sonya’s slender build, I felt enormous by comparison. I suddenly regretted my comment about drinking a can of pop, even if it had succeeded in distracting Adrian. I supposed I could rest easy knowing that him skipping cigarettes for a day was impossible. I’d never be called to pay up on my sugary wager.

“We should probably get to work. We’re losing time.” That was Dimitri, getting us back on track.

“Right,” said Adrian. “This is five minutes of valuable research wasted. Up for more fun, Castile? I know how much you love sitting around.” Because they were trying to find something special about Dimitri, Sonya and Adrian would often sit the two dhampirs side by side and study their auras in fine detail. Their hope was that Dimitri’s Strigoi conversion had left some sign that would help explain the immunity to being turned again. It was a valid idea, though not something that someone as active as Eddie enjoyed.

He didn’t complain, of course. Eddie wore a look as tough and determined as Dimitri. “Tell me what you need.”

“We want to do another aura study,” said Sonya. Looked like poor Eddie would be doing some more sitting around. “Last time we focused on any sign of spirit. This time, we want to show both of you some pictures and see if they trigger any color changes in your auras.” I nodded in approval. A lot of psychological experiments attempted similar techniques, though they usually monitored physiological responses instead of mystical auras.

“I still say it’s a waste,” said Adrian. “They’re both dhampirs, but that doesn’t mean we can assume any different reactions they have are because Belikov was a Strigoi. Everyone’s unique. Everyone’s going to respond differently to pictures of kittens or spiders. My old man? He hates kittens.”

“Who could hate kittens?” asked Eddie.

Adrian made a face. “He’s allergic.”

“Adrian,” said Sonya. “We’ve already been over this. I respect your opinion but still think we can learn a lot.” I was actually impressed that Adrian had an opinion. So far, I’d kind of felt like he was just going along with everything Sonya and Dimitri told him to do and that he didn’t give these experiments much thought. And, although I wasn’t familiar with the auras that surrounded all living creatures, I could understand his point that individual differences would throw off their research.