That's pretty weird—and when I say something's weird, you know it's serious.

Which is weird. But not the craziest thing I can think of Rose doing.ʺ I appreciated the support.

Maybe I was in love, but I was still me, after all.

Love is . . .” An old memory with Adrian came back to me, and some of the turbulent emotion I always carried within me these days welled up in my chest. It was stupid, feeling so lovesick when he’d been gone less than a day, but I couldn’t get him or the ways he described love out of my head. “. . . a flame in the dark. A breath of warmth on a winter’s night. A star that guides you home.

She stared at me with concern a few moments longer and then relaxed a little. "Okay. But if you need anything—" "I know, I know. Call on the Love Phone.

Did Belikov bend the rules of time and space to get here so fast? He can do that, right?

All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I’d also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn’t care. In that moment, it seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great for us.