Rose’s errand boy scurried away. With nothing to do but wait, Rose leaned against Dimitri and sighed. Neil, surprisingly, began lauding Olive for her determination and bravery. I was too restless to simply stand around, so I wandered out to the porch, wishing for the first time in a while that I had a cigarette, both because it was a nervous habit and because it could take the edge off spirit. Instead, I contented myself with pacing and obsessively checking for messages from Sydney.

“Expecting a call?” Nina appeared in the doorway, wrapped in the blanket again.

I put the phone away. “Just hoping I might hear from someone.”

“Girlfriend?”

“A friend who’s a girl,” I said smugly. “I have a few ‘friends’ like that.”

She leaned against the porch’s wall, the inside lights illuminating her in the night’s darkness. “So I’ve heard. I didn’t realize who you were at first.”

“Should you have?”

She shrugged. “You and your family are kind of well known.”

I didn’t ask her to elaborate. She could’ve been talking about Aunt Tatiana–or my mom, who was locked away in prison somewhere. No one would tell me where, and when I had tried to dream visit, she’d ordered me away with such vehemence that I had uncharacteristically obeyed. I wasn’t sure if she was freaked out about spirit dreams or just embarrassed at me seeing her in that state. I held on to the hope that I’d get a better reception if I showed up in person, but that didn’t seem to be a possibility anytime soon. With all the other complications in my life, I kept her on the far edges of my mind and contented myself with writing letters to her that were never sent. Not even Sydney knew that.

“Well,” I said, putting on the arrogant role everyone expected of me, “I’m not surprised about that. My charm and good looks are legendary–especially with women.”

“I’m sure,” Nina said with a rueful smile. “But you aren’t what I expected. Thank you . . . for helping Olive.”

“Thank yourself for that. I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re helping her get over this–mentally. I mean, we haven’t had a chance to talk much, but I can tell. I know her and realize how traumatic this was for her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know her, and even I can see how traumatic it was. That, and I know enough people who’ve gone through it.”

Nina was silent for a long time. “Do they ever get over it?” she asked quietly.

I thought about the haunted look I still sometimes saw in Dimitri’s and Sonya’s eyes. “No. But they learn to go on with their lives. Olive will too.”

“Do you know how it happened?” Nina wrapped the blanket around her more tightly as a cool breeze ruffled her curly hair. “She was protecting our dad. He never even considered not letting us grow up together, you know. He and my mom split up, and then he married Olive’s mom. She’s a dhampir, obviously. Or was. She passed away a few years ago.”

“Brave guy,” I said. Moroi men usually kept their dhampir mistresses in the shadows.

“Amazing guy. But not royal. When Olive was in school, she found out there’d never be any way she could protect him when she was a guardian. They told her she’d have to go wherever she was assigned when she graduated–which would be some royal.” Nina chuckled at the memory. “She didn’t take that quietly.”

I thought back to Olive’s face, determined even in her weakened state. “I can see that.”

“So she left the school and made herself Dad’s unofficial guardian. He wasn’t happy about that–dropping out of school. But he respected the reasons and let her do it, so long as she took human GED classes. Everything was great, until . . .” Her words choked off.

“Strigoi?” I guessed.

“He was attacked on a business trip. She threw herself in their path, so Dad could get away. He did. She didn’t. I thought she was dead for a long time, and when I found out she wasn’t, I read everything I could about Dimitri Belikov and Sonya Karp. I got my friend James to help me . . . and here we are.”

“It was very brave,” I said. It was also incredibly dangerous, but who was I to fault her? I knew without a doubt I’d do something equally risky to save someone I loved. Hell, I’d brought Jill back from the dead.

The silver‑seeking guardian arrived later, just before the nurse. No one bothered telling the nurse what was going on, mostly because we were all too keyed up. She glanced around nervously as she entered Olive’s bedroom and silently set to work. For all the fuss, it was pretty simple. Less than a minute to draw the blood, and it was all done. She put a stopper on the vial and held it out uncertainly. I took it from her and peered at it intently. There it was, spirit still humming inside–but also still gradually fading.

I swore and quickly took hold of the silver rings. Our courier had done a good job. The rings were thick and plain and large enough to go around the vial. But I’d never charmed silver and had only a vague understanding of it, based on Lissa’s explanations. Feeling everyone’s eyes on me only made things worse. The metal was cool against my skin, and the rush of spirit filled me as I tried to send it into the ring. My plan was to create a type of compulsion that would trap the spirit within the blood. It would require making the two variants of magic butt heads, something I wasn’t even sure was possible. I glanced up at the nurse.

“You aren’t an earth user, are you?”

“No,” she said. “Air.”

Pretty much the opposite of what I needed. Spirit users exceled at compulsion more than other kinds of Moroi, but earth users had an affinity to metals and other things that dwelt in the ground. Silver readily accepted magic, but I wouldn’t have minded an edge and wished I’d thought to have them rustle up an earth user. Too late now.

“Here.” Nina walked up beside me and rested her hand over the ring in my palm. I felt her magic rise–only a trickle compared with mine–and help guide my spell into the ring. My hold faltered as I stared at her in surprise.

“You’ve made charms before.”

“A few.”

Once I saw how she did it, I was able to successfully meld spirit into the silver. I did it four more times with the other rings, and although I kept repeating to myself how Sydney believed in me, I also had a brief reminder of that concern in her eyes, her warnings about how continuing to use spirit would harm my mind. And I wasn’t just using spirit today. I was drowning in it. Between using it to “peer” into Olive’s blood and now this charm making, I felt as though I  were made of spirit. It was overwhelming, but what I could do? Everyone was counting on me, and by the time I finished, I could barely stand. I rested my hand on the back of a chair to steady myself and handed the rings to Dimitri. “Put them around the vial.”

The rings were a little larger around, and so he ended up setting the vial in a small box stuffed with cotton so that the rings wouldn’t slip off. Palpable silence filled the room, and he handed the box back to me. I used the last of my strength to study the spirit in the blood. The magic was still in there, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t trickling out. I glanced at Nina for confirmation, but she shook her head.

“I can’t see what you see.”

“Then this is as good as it gets.” I gave the box back to Dimitri. “Get it back to Court for Sonya as soon as possible. She’s your best bet for figuring it out now. I think I’ve got it stabilized, but I don’t know for how long.” As the others scurried to make travel plans, I felt the room sway. I needed to get out of here but couldn’t stand to show weakness in front of these people who’d placed so many hopes on me. I finally sought help from the person least likely to judge me and touched Nina’s arm. “Can we talk in private about, uh, spirit stuff?”

“Sure.” She gave Olive a few soothing words and then left Neil to keep the younger girl company. Nina walked out of the room with me and looked up in concern. “What’d you want to talk about?”