A/N - This is a Sydrian fic, but Adrian doesn't actually appear in this chapter. I do promise he will be in chapter two, though! This chapter is mostly just setting things up. It is set the day after Indigo Spell, so if you haven't read it yet, I would recommend waiting until you do to proceed (but if you want to bookmark it and read later, feel free!) For those who have read Indigo and had as many Sydrian feels as I did, I am hoping that this story will contain many.
Sydney's eyes opened and she let out a soft yawn. She took a few moments to process where she was and what day it was. So much had happened lately that she wasn't even sure what reality was anymore. She turned over in her bed and saw someone sleeping in the other bed in the room. The girl was smaller, younger and for a moment Sydney thought it was Jill. Had all of that been a dream? She tried to recall everything since she had moved out of Jill's room into her own. Truth be told, far too much had happened since then, far too much for one night's dream.
That was when it started coming back to her, everything flooded her mind from Brayden to the Warriors of Light to Adrian kissing her. Then she recalled working with magic, Mrs. Terwilliger's sister and the girl they had really been up against the whole time. Zoe. Zoe was an Alchemist now and she was Sydney's roommate. And Sydney was dating Adrian. How was she supposed to be able to pull this off?
Adrian had been visiting her dreams a lot lately, though not last night. After finding Zoe in her room, she had gone back downstairs to talk to Mrs. Weathers and explain that her cousin was indeed staying with her and on her way back up she had called Adrian to tell him not to dreamwalk with her that night but she hadn't told him why. She just knew that she couldn't risk talking in her sleep. Alchemists were, by a rule, light sleepers and if Sydney said something in the dream that would tip Zoe off to some of the things that had been going on, she would be in trouble.
She slowly got out of bed, trying to figure out how to explain this one to Adrian. They were finally together and she was actually happy about it, but could it last with Zoe around? It would definitely complicate things. On top of that, Sydney had broken her tattoo and since Zoe knew better than anyone else here how the tattoo worked she had to be extremely careful around her about even that. Why had they even sent her?
That was right, after the tattoo had broken, she had gone off on Stanton and used stress as an excuse when she realized she had to cover herself. She was certainly regretting that now. She let out a soft sigh and glanced at the bed. Zoe stirred a little. A glance at the clock told her that she didn't have time to call Adrian and maybe that was for the best. She went to her closet and put on a non-descript business casual outfit and gathered some of her things for class. Zoe wouldn't actually be starting until next semester, but she was staying here in the meantime as another cousin of Sydney's. Ironic that the only person in this group that was not only of her kind but her own sister was playing her cousin while Jill and Eddie were playing her siblings.
She pushed the thought aside before sending Adrian a quick text.
I need to talk to you after class. Maybe I can come over?
She knew that it would be far too early for Adrian to actually see the text and respond, so she put her phone away and shook Zoe slightly. "Zoe? Do you want to come down for breakfast?" Sydney had skipped breakfast a lot earlier in the school year, but after a particularly intense argument with Adrian, she had honestly started to try eating more. She was at least eating all meals now, even if it wasn't much. It was a start at least, right?
She heard a groan from the girl and decided to leave her alone. She went down the stairs toward the girls' dorm cafeteria. She didn't have a lot of time to go to the other cafeteria on campus and she could usually find her friends Kristin and Julia in this one in the mornings. Right now, she needed some normalcy—no vampires, no newly tattooed-Alchemist sisters—just two human friends who knew nothing about the world she was involved in. Right now, that made them the best people to deal with. She couldn't talk about anything she was dealing with—they thought her boyfriend was her brother, they didn't know that she didn't want her sister to follow in the family business until she was at least old enough to make that decision for herself and they didn't know that her 'sister' was a vampire princess and her brother—not the boyfriend—was a half-vampire who was charged with protecting the princess. They didn't know that Sydney's life had become so unbearably complicated that she didn't know which way was up any longer.
She found the two girls sitting at one of the tables and after grabbing her breakfast, she walked over to them. She sat down across from the two girls, who were animatedly talking about something. "Morning," she greeted them.
"Have you heard from your friend?" Julia asked, looking straight at Sydney.
Sydney didn't want to be the one to tell Julia that the 'friend' she was referring to had gone to Mexico and probably wouldn't be back, or that just last night Sydney had been planning to go with him. "Not in the last few days," Sydney lied. She felt bad about it, but there was no way she could explain Marcus' disappearance without giving away information that the girls didn't need to know about. Things they couldn't know about.
Julia gave a pouty look making Sydney feel worse. Her friend had really developed a crush on Marcus and now he was gone. "Maybe he will call soon," Sydney replied lamely with a shrug.
"I heard you have another cousin starting school next semester," Kristin said to Sydney and she suppressed a sigh. While it was the normal gossip part of the situation, she was still very unhappy about Zoe being here.
"Yes," Sydney answered, "she showed up last night and she'll be going home with us for Christmas and then enroll next semester." 'Home' was actually Clarence's house, but since Jill couldn't go home for obvious safety reasons, the rest of them had to stay for her protection. It was better if people thought they went to South Dakota, even though they were staying in town.
"What's she like?" Julia asked.
As each 'family member' was very different, it was a valid question, but not one Sydney felt like discussing. Just as she opened her mouth, the bell rang. So much for having breakfast. She gave the girls an apologetic glance before grabbing a biscuit off her tray and dumping the rest. Of course the one thing that was easy to eat on the go was the one thing loaded with carbs. She sighed softly before she ate it on the way to class.
A/N - As I said before, Adrian will be in the second chapter, so please don't hate me for not having him in this one! They will have some things to discuss, mainly Zoe and try to figure out how they can work their new relationship around her sister being there. As for Julia asking about Marcus, more than likely he won't make an appearance in the story as it will mostly revolve around Sydney, Adrian and Zoe... but you never know. Anyway, reviews would be fantastic and are likely to keep me going :)