“Hold off,” I reminded Nina. I hit the second Strigoi squarely with another fireball, and then I once again finished the job with a silver stake. As I did, I felt my triumph falter as four more Strigoi suddenly stepped forward. I hastily retreated back to Nina.

“No problem,” I told her. “We’ll get rid of them too.” Seeing four of them was daunting, but my method seemed to be working. In a dream, at least, I could be as badass as any guardian.

“There’s no time!” Nina exclaimed. Spirit swelled within her—a lot of spirit. I turned on her in alarm.

“What are you doing? That’s too much!”

She ignored me and, impossibly, called on even more spirit. I was reminded of a balloon, ready to burst. “We need them gone, and we need them gone now!”

“Stop it!” I cried. I shook her arm, hoping I could get her to lose her concentration. She shook me off and continued building up spirit to impossible, dizzying heights.

“I won’t let Olive escape again!” Nina said.

Fire shot out from her fingertips. It wasn’t a compact little ball like I’d formed. Nina was wielding sheets and sheets of fire. Substantial amounts of fire. Flames lit up the night, wrapping around the three Strigoi. There was no need to stake them; I think they were killed almost instantly.

I shook her again. “Let go! Let the magic go!”

What she’d done, to create that ridiculous amount of fire, hadn’t been a small change to the dream. She’d not only had to break through Olive’s control, she’d also had to break through mine at the dream’s foundation. The spirit that had required—to blast all those Strigoi away in one fell swoop—was staggering. It was at least twice as much as I’d seen her wielding when we were in the dream together before.

The fire vanished (as did the incinerated Strigoi), and Nina dropped to her knees. She rested her hands on the side of her head and began to scream. And scream. Around us, the dark parking lot transformed to the sunny Getty Villa as my control of the dream returned—thanks to her efforts. I knelt beside her and gently rested my hands on her shoulders. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, lost, as she kept screaming.

“Nina, Nina . . . it’s okay. It’s okay.”

But I didn’t know if it was. She wasn’t screaming because of the Strigoi. There was something else going on, the terrible aftereffects of all that spirit use. Week after week of so much use, now followed by this . . . it was too much. The final straw. I had no idea how much damage had been done, but something was seriously wrong. I needed to wake us up and find out how she was in real life. With a thought, I let the dream begin to disintegrate.

“Nina . . .”

The small voice jerked my attention up. I hadn’t realized that Olive was back with us in the Getty Villa. When Nina had blasted through the Strigoi, she’d wrested control back from Olive and temporarily from me. Now Olive was left with nothing, no more control, no ability to escape. She was fading, though, just like Nina and me as I sent us to the waking world.

Before we all disappeared, however, I saw a few things very clearly. One was concern on Olive’s features as she stared at Nina. No matter what had passed between them, Olive loved her sister and wasn’t trying to purposely hurt her with these obstacles.

The other thing I noticed was that Olive’s cloak was gone. With no control left of the dream, Olive now appeared as she did in the waking world. The clothes she wore were old and threadbare, as though they’d been passed around a few times. Around her neck was a small, circular wooden pendant edged in green. I’d never seen it before and didn’t know what it meant.

But as I got my last glimpse of her before waking, I saw something else about her that I recognized immediately.

The dream completely shattered, and I found myself alert and sitting up in the inn’s bed. As I blinked and tried to focus, Sydney clutched my arm and tried to calm me.

“Adrian,” she exclaimed, and I knew it wasn’t the first time she’d said my name. “What’s wrong?”

“Olive’s pregnant,” I gasped out.

Chapter 8

“OLIVE?” I REPEATED STUPIDLY. I was a little addled myself, having been woken out of a deep sleep by Adrian’s cries. “What are you talking about?”

He shook his head, regret on his features. “I’m sorry, Sydney. I didn’t mean to. Nina found me in a spirit dream, and I got pulled into looking for Olive. And this time we got to her. She was pregnant.”

I was so stunned to hear that he’d gone through with the dream that I couldn’t process the rest of what he was saying immediately. But the regret on his face was so sincere, I believed that it had been against his will. “She can’t be pregnant,” I said at last. “I mean . . . I guess she can. But I thought she was involved with Neil. If she’s pregnant, then . . .”

Adrian swallowed and slowly seemed to be recovering himself. “I know, I know. If she’s pregnant, then it was by someone other than Neil.”

Soap opera drama with Olive wasn’t dire in the grand scheme of things—especially when compared to what was happening with Jill—but it was still a surprise. Olive and Neil had seemed so close. “Do you know for certain she is?”

He gave a shaky nod. “We did it. Nina and I broke through Olive’s defenses and saw her as she truly is in the waking world. No question—she was pregnant. I guess that’s why she kept trying to hide herself in the dream.” He paused to consider. “I guess that’s why she’s hiding herself in real life too.”

“I suppose I can understand her wanting to hide from Neil . . .” I began, my mind spinning. Because she was a dhampir, only a Moroi could have gotten her pregnant. Well, a human could have as well, but most people in the mainstream Moroi world weren’t taking after Adrian and me. “But why Nina? Especially since they were so close? Unless . . . oh.” My heart sank. “Maybe . . . maybe whatever happened wasn’t consensual.”

It took Adrian a moment to catch on, and anger darkened his features. “If some Moroi forced her, then why wouldn’t she tell Nina? And everyone else?”

I laced my fingers through his. “Because unfortunately not all girls think like that. Look at my sister Carly, when Keith raped her. She thought it was her fault. She was mortified at the thought of anyone finding out and judging her.”