Adrian's new research partner stepped through the door, and I knew the uneasy peace we'd just established in Palm Springs was about to shatter. Dimitri Belikov had arrived.

Where are we going?" asked Victor. "If I'm allowed to ask." I squirmed around in my seat so that I could look him in the eye. "That's what you're going to tell us. As hard as it is to believe, we didn't do all that just because we missed your pleasant company." "That is hard to believe.

Thatʹs a dangerous look,ʺ said Dimitri, giving me a brief glance before returning his eyes to the road. ʺWhat look?ʺ I asked innocently. ʺThe one that says you just got some idea.

Too bad. Family members hit you by accident. Psychopathic whores tend to come back for more.

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.

Sage,” Adrian declared. “These hands don’t do manual labor.

This was the kind of dress that changed the world. The kind of dress that started religions.