She reached her hand toward mine again, then drew it back, though her expression had softened. “You do care about me, don’t you? I knew it. Even though you’re married—”

“Nina,” I said firmly. “It’s not like that. I care about you, but I love Sydney. And if we’re going to do this again, we’re doing it my way.”

Her eyes remained dreamy a few moments longer, and then she gave a reluctant nod. “Your way,” she reiterated. “And I really will help you.”

“I’m counting on it,” I admitted. “But hopefully you can pull off what we need using as little spirit as possible.”

She gave a meek nod and then turned curious. “Okay . . . but are you sure you aren’t worried about your sanity in all of this?”

I hesitated. If Sydney were here, I knew she’d tell me this was foolish, that I was frivolously using spirit I didn’t need to and possibly damaging myself. But there was no way I could abandon Nina to insanity, especially if there really was something wrong with Olive. And I certainly had to seize a chance to get out in the world to help both Sydney and Jill. I just hoped what I’d told Nina earlier, that a one-time use wouldn’t hurt me, would prove true. I managed a stiff smile.

“Hey, I’m not showing any signs of insanity yet,” I told her. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Me too, whispered Aunt Tatiana. I’m sure you’ll be fine too.

Chapter 6

WE HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE SANDSTONE BRICK MEANT. There was no enchantment that we could detect on it, no indication of what its role in this mystery was. The only thing we knew for sure was that we needed to get to the Ozarks or, at the very least, Missouri. Once Ms. Terwilliger had settled things with her rental car company to prolong her lease, she suggested we drive to St. Louis and then make a plan of attack. Instantly, my stomach sank.

“Not there,” I said swiftly. “There’s an Alchemist facility in St. Louis. I didn’t go to all this trouble just to walk right back into their hands.”

Eddie’s eyebrows rose in consideration. “Maybe that’s part of the plan? What if this scavenger hunt is part of an Alchemist plot to lure you out and has nothing to do with Jill at all?”

It was a sobering thought, one made more alarming when Ms. Terwilliger suggested, “Or what if it does have to do with Jill? There is the lock of hair, after all, which certainly looks like Jill’s. Would the Alchemists have taken her as a way to trap you?”

For a moment, I dared give the idea credence. Jill was taken right when Adrian and I had managed to escape and hide at Court. The Alchemists were among the few people who knew Jill’s location, so they could have easily sent someone after her. I pondered the possibility and analyzed it every way I could with lingering Alchemist logic. At last, I shook my head.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “They might have had the means, but not the motivation. The Alchemists are guilty of a lot of things, but they don’t want the Moroi turning on each other—which would happen with the death of a royal princess, one whose life influenced the throne. I also can’t see the Alchemists resorting to human magic, even to get to me. It goes against too much of their doctrine.”

Even if this wasn’t some elaborate Alchemist trap, I still didn’t want to risk walking into an Alchemist on their lunch break in St. Louis. With that in mind, we set a new destination. It took an entire day of driving, but we finally called a halt the following night in Jefferson City, Missouri, putting us well past St. Louis. It also positioned us toward the Ozarks in a slightly out-of-the-way trajectory that we hoped might throw off someone waiting for our approach. Of course, we still didn’t know exactly where we were going. The Ozarks consisted of a very large expanse of land, and thus far, our brick hadn’t yielded any clues.

We went out to dinner after checking into a hotel, all three of us weary in that way you got from sitting in a car all day. It was nearing midnight, but we’d skipped dinner in order to make better driving time. I was tired more than anything else, with food simply being a formality. Across the table, Ms. Terwilliger stifled a yawn, and even Eddie, despite his perpetual vigilance, seemed like he was looking forward to bed as well. We had the brick sitting on our table as we waited for our food to arrive, all of us staring at it as though we could make it yield some answers through sheer force of will.

I finally dragged my gaze away from it and glanced at my cell phone, hoping I’d missed a text from Adrian in response to one I’d sent earlier with our status. There’d been little communication from him throughout the day, which seemed odd after yesterday, when he’d sent almost constant updates. I knew it was unreasonable to expect him to do nothing except sit by the phone to talk to me, but I couldn’t shake the difference. After the troubling way things had been between us this last month, I found myself getting caught up in weird fits of paranoia, thinking that maybe once the shock of having me gone was over, Adrian found he kind of liked the freedom.

The waitress arrived with our food just then, and I tucked the phone back into my purse. As she set down our plates, her breath caught at the sight of the sandstone brick.

“Did you guys steal that from Ha Ha Tonka?”

We stared her as though she were speaking another language.

“I mean, that’s cool if you did,” she added hastily, unnerved by our silence. “It’s a sweet place. I see lots of people going to and from there. Wouldn’t mind a souvenir myself.”

Ms. Terwilliger recovered herself first. “Can you say that name again? Ha Ha Wonka?”

“Ha Ha Tonka,” the girl corrected. She glanced between our faces. “You really haven’t been there? That brick looks just like the one the ruins are made of. You should check it out if you’re going into the Ozarks.”

The instant she was gone, I looked up Ha Ha Tonka on my phone. “No way,” I said. “There’s a castle in Missouri!”

“Do you think Jill’s being held there?” Eddie asked, eyes aglow. I could already tell he was envisioning himself rescuing her from some tall tower, possibly battling a dragon or a robot dinosaur in the process.

“Not likely. She was right about the ‘ruins’ part.” I showed them a picture of Ha Ha Tonka, which was an impressive structure, despite having seen better days. It had no roof, and some sections of the walls were gone, making it all open-air and easy to walk through. The building was technically a mansion, not a castle, and the whole area had been turned into a state park full of trails and other natural attractions. If Jill was there, it wasn’t obvious where she could be held captive . . . but at least we had a destination now, because the waitress was right about one thing: Our brick looked exactly like those from the ruins.