I was nowhere near retirement, but after a couple hours, I’d built up a decent enough amount to take back to Sydney. I planned on doing a couple more hands first, and as I did a quick aura check when the bet came around, something caught my attention. It had actually caught my attention earlier, but I hadn’t given it much thought. When I used spirit to look at my competitors’ auras, I inadvertently caught sight of everyone else’s around me. What was odd today was that there were a lot of people with yellow in their auras. Yellow—and occasionally orange, which I was also seeing a lot of—was a thinking person’s aura, an academic’s aura. Sydney’s aura had a lot of yellow. It wasn’t something you generally saw a lot of chronic gamblers with, certainly not this time of day. Those who only gambled for occasional fun and novelty came out at night, not early mornings. This was the hardcore lot, the desperate lot . . . and their auras should’ve reflected as much.

I pondered this as I made my bet and played out the hand. I ended up splitting the pot with the guy next to me, much to his delight. As the next hand was dealt, I checked the auras around me again and was once more struck by the overabundance of yellow. I also noticed something else. No one with a yellow aura was directly looking at me, but they were arranged around me pretty symmetrically in the room. Just me. When I looked past them, the colors of other patrons shifted back to what I would have expected in a casino.

Yellow. A thinking person’s color.

An Alchemist’s color.

When the next hand started, I waved myself out and took out my cell phone, wishing I’d thought to pick up a prepaid one for Sydney. That would have to be our next priority for sure. Trying not to look panicked, I typed out a text to Marcus.

Call the Silver Springs Hotel in West Side, NV, and ask for room 301. Tell Sydney to pack right now and meet me at the car.

I was about to hit “send” when an explosion from somewhere outside rocked the casino. People gasped, and glasses rattled.

“Never mind,” I muttered, deleting the message and heading for the door.

CHAPTER 19

SYDNEY

I ATE AND ATE, AND it was wonderful. I hadn’t thought I’d be able to so soon, but after a real night of good rest, my body seemed ready to start accepting what it needed. Hopper shared my giant breakfast, of course, and I was pleased to see he too looked a lot better.

I put on another of Adrian’s brightly colored shirt choices (teal this time) and debated going down to the casino to cheer him on. I knew he’d like seeing me out and about, but each time I thought about facing the crowd downstairs, something tensed within me. I longed to reenter the normal world, but I just wasn’t quite ready for some things. It was overwhelming enough to turn on the news and hear references to big events that had happened while I was in re-education. Journalists spoke about them like they were common knowledge to everyone—which they probably were, if you hadn’t just had four months of your life taken away.

I made catching up on the modern world my new goal, and after packing everything up, I settled on the couch with Hopper while I also pondered our next step. After this, we’d have to keep moving, and as much as I hated to admit it, our next task would have to be trading the Mustang for something less conspicuous. From there, we had to make the same choice that Moroi always made in strategizing how best to stay away from Strigoi: Go somewhere heavily populated or totally deserted? Each had its own pros and cons.

A knock at the door made me jump. Immediately, my eyes darted to the knob, verifying that the “Do Not Disturb” sign was gone. We’d hung it outside last night. I stayed frozen and waited to see if the knocker would recognize their error and go away. A few moments later, another knock came, this time with, “Housekeeping.” That sealed it. Room service would knock, despite the sign, if you’d placed an order, but hotel housekeeping almost never did. Nervously, I crept up to the chained door and dared a peek out the eyeglass. A young woman stood out there, smiling pleasantly and wearing a hotel uniform. She certainly looked innocuous, and I wondered if perhaps our sign had fallen down.

Just then, something in my peripheral vision caught my attention. A shadow off to her side—that didn’t belong to her. It shifted slightly, and I realized there was another person standing near her, out of the eyeglass’s site. Maybe more than one person. Quietly, I backed away and murmured the spell that turned Hopper into a statue before putting him into the shopping bag that held our clothes. I slung it and Ms. Terwilliger’s bag over my shoulder and began assessing my escape routes. The bedroom window wasn’t big enough to escape out of. The living room had a small glass sliding door that opened up to a Juliet balcony . . . on the third floor.

I stepped outside onto it and surveyed my options. There weren’t many. Our room overlooked the parking lot, and there was nothing on the ground to break my fall. Directly under my balcony was another, and I wondered if I was physically up to managing that climb. Six months ago, I would have said yes. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Before I could decide, a large black SUV pulled up, and two men in sunglasses got out, stationing themselves so that they could watch me. I could just barely make out an earpiece on one of them, and he looked like he was speaking softly.

It must have been to the group outside my room, because the knocking suddenly took on a much greater intensity. They also gave up on any pretenses of housekeeping: “Sydney, we know you’re in there. Don’t make this any harder than it is.” This was followed by the sound of a hotel keycard sliding in the lock, but when they tried to open the door, the chain caught it. I stepped back inside and saw an eye appear in the crack formed by the chain. “You have nowhere to go, Sydney.”