That had been four days ago, and I was too afraid to try to use spirit again. I didn’t know if I could handle what I’d find. Had that day been a fluke? Was spirit still functioning normally? Or was it fading away, maybe even gone? I didn’t know how to feel about that. Relieved? Devastated?

That panic threatened to overwhelm me, and I had to take a moment to push those thoughts out of my mind and stay calm. Spirit wasn’t the issue right now. Sydney was. I had to be there for her.

The thing was, I hadn’t told her about the mood stabilizer. I hadn’t even told her about Einstein. Part of me wanted her to know I really was trying to change–that I would do anything for her–but on the other hand, I was still too nervous about what the prescription’s ultimate results would be. I was embarrassed at the thought of hyping the pills up to her only for them to fail. And I was equally wary of them working–and me stopping because I couldn’t handle the changes. Until I knew what was going on, I didn’t want Sydney to know about it. I’d rather have her think I hadn’t tried at all than have her know I’d failed.

“What do you need from me?” I asked.

“From us,” corrected Jackie.

I couldn’t help shooting her a smile. Putting on charm and a happy face for everyone wasn’t that difficult for me. Actually liking and respecting people was rarer, but Jackie had reached both of those bars in my esteem. A large part of it was that she cared about Sydney so much and would do anything for her. I loved Jackie for that. And I also loved that she needed to know only half of what was going on to want to help. That was one of the perks of her already being involved in supernatural affairs. She had an excellent ability to roll with new and unexplainable complications.

“I’m going to have to use the compound I made,” Sydney said. She clasped her hands together, and I realized it was to stop them from shaking. “I just mixed the salt into some binding solution and ink. It all seems stable, so now the trick is to finally tattoo our subject.”

“You actually have a subject?” I looked around to see if I’d missed somebody, but it was just the three of us. “One of the cats?” I asked.

There was a knock at the door, and a moment later, Jackie let in Trey Juarez, which was a surprise. I’d only ever talked to him a couple of times. Aside from having been born into the group that had tried to kill Sonya Karp, Trey seemed like a reasonably decent guy. I knew Sydney considered him a friend, despite everything that had happened, and her opinion went a long way. The fact that she’d invited him here spoke legions.

“Mr. Juarez, what a pleasant surprise.” It was clear Jackie was, indeed, very surprised.

“I’m surprised you haven’t invited me over sooner, Ms. T. I was your TA first! And here you let Melbourne over all the time.”

He gave her a grin that could’ve been out of my playbook and probably worked wonders with women. Unlike Neil, who seemed to charm them haphazardly, Trey was a pro. I was glad he was stuck in a weird dysfunctional hang‑up over Angeline because, let’s face it, some might argue a good‑looking athletic human scholar was a better match for Sydney than a mentally unstable vampire artist.

Jackie rolled her eyes, showing the smile had no effect on her. “Oversight noted. I presume Mr. Juarez is the subject you’ll be tattooing?”

When Sydney nodded, I asked, “How are you going to pull that off exactly? Are you doing a fresh design? Or are you just using a syringe to touch it up?”

Marcus had only needed a syringe when he “broke” her tattoo. It was one of the useful things he’d done for her before he left town: injecting her lily tattoo with small amounts of ink derived from vampire blood. It had cracked all the tattoo’s powers but had still left her susceptible to re‑inking by the Alchemists if she didn’t seal it.

“No syringe,” she said. “I think we need a substantial amount in there, plus we have to make sure it gets into the dermis. That’s the next layer of skin below the surface one.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking I understood. I had a feeling the “dermis” definition had been for me alone. “You need more ink in there. How are you going to pull it off?”

Another knock at the door startled us, and Jackie moved toward it. “Ah, that would be Malachi.”

I did a double take. “Did she just say–”

There was no need to finish because she flung open the door, revealing our unstable former self‑defense teacher in all his eye‑patch glory. He jerked his thumb behind him. “Hey, darling. I got the tattoo apparatus in my van. Where do you want me to set up?” He squinted inside at us. “Oh. Hey, kids.”

Jackie took him to the garage, and I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor as I turned to face Sydney. “He’s your tattooist?”

She shrugged. “When I told Ms. Terwilliger I needed to do a tattoo, she told me he had his own machine. I guess he does all his own tattoos.”

“I’ve never seen any.”

“Maybe they’re in places most people don’t see,” she said.

I winced. “Thank you for sending my imagination to a place it can never return from.”

“Whoa, hold on here.” Trey pointed down the hall, where I could hear Wolfe regaling Jackie with some crackpot tale of daring. “That guy’s going to be using a high‑powered needle on me? He has one eye! Do the words ‘depth perception’ mean anything to you?”

“Ms. Terwilliger swears he knows what he’s doing,” said Sydney. “And since the ink doesn’t have any color, it’s not going to show. So as long as everything’s sterile, and he has some competence, the artistry won’t matter. We just need the gun to deliver it. But if you’re interested . . .” A small smile played at her lips. “It’d be easy enough to add some dye to it. I bet Wolfe could do a Chihuahua on you.”

Trey shuddered. “No thanks.”

Sydney suddenly frowned. “Your Warrior tattoo is just a tattoo, right? No powers?”

“Nope. Tattoos don’t have to have amazing abilities for us. Decoration is enough.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’ll give me a good cover story for Wolfe. Don’t worry–whatever I say, nothing will happen to your current tattoo.” Trey didn’t look reassured.

I pondered that. “Doesn’t he need a special tattoo, though?” I asked. I didn’t elaborate in front of Trey, but the whole point of this experiment was to see if her ink could deactivate Alchemist ink.

She nodded, catching my unspoken question. “Yes, but we’ll worry about that after this, once I get some of those materials. Then we’ll do a second tattoo.”

Trey’s mouth dropped, but he didn’t get a chance to comment. Jackie and Wolfe returned just then, and he rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Okay, so what’s the late‑night emergency? You two getting your names tattooed on each other? I can do a pretty nice Courier font.”

Sydney had been about to speak but faltered a moment. Wolfe had no evidence of our relationship, but he’d always assumed there was one, even before there was. She quickly recovered herself and laughed off his comment, like it was a funny joke. Trey, understandably, seemed too transfixed by the idea of a one‑eyed man tattooing him to have really noticed.

“The opposite,” Sydney told Wolfe. “We actually want to remove my friend’s tattoo, and we’ve got some special ink that’ll eventually make the old one fade over time.”

He grunted. “Really? Never heard of that. I thought laser removal was really the only way to get rid of one.”

“It’s a new technique,” she explained easily, giving a small nod to Trey. “His parents are visiting soon, and they’ll kill him if they see it.”

I blinked in surprise. She was so convincing, I nearly believed her story, and I knew the truth. Wolfe certainly bought it. It was something I tended to forget about: Alchemists were excellent liars. If Sydney ever wanted to lie to me, I’d probably be none the wiser.

“Where is it?” Wolfe asked.