Thanks again to BriEva for helping with this chapter. It is better because of her...

Adrian

I was awakened by my ringing phone.

It took me a few minutes to figure out where I was. I saw that I was at my apartment, and remembered that I had come home after reaching Sydney. I had taken the shower everyone else seemed to think I needed, and fallen asleep. I had no idea how long I had slept.

"Jackie?" I answered after checking my phone's display. I was surprised she was calling me, since she was the last one I had seen before coming home.

"Come back at 7," she said without any preamble. "We're going to try a spell."

"Spell?" I asked out loud, without really intending to. I glanced at the time on my phone – it was 3:30 in the afternoon. I had left Jackie's house at 1AM, so at least I had gotten some sleep. "I thought you said you needed to wait."

"I reached out," she said. "I wasn't thinking straight before, but I have a coven. Sydney and I have a coven, and Inez liked Sydney."

Inez's name didn't register with me at first. "But aren't you supposed to be one of the most powerful in the coven? You said you needed to wait until the new moon to have enough power."

"We have an idea, but I've got to go. Come and see."

'Come and see', I repeated in my mind. Well, what else did I have to do? I could try to reach Sydney again, but it didn't seem likely that she would be asleep again so soon.

I was still in bed, trying to decide if I should try to get a little sleep before going to Jackie's, if I should try to reach Sydney, or if I should just get up and find something else to do - when my phone rang again. It was Lissa.

"Your Highness," I said grandly, and bowed (as much as I could sitting in my bed) before I realized she wouldn't see me.

"Cut it out, Adrian," she said, though I could hear a smile in her voice. "You know I don't want you to call me that."

"Really? What was the point of us getting you elected queen then?"

"Stop!" She repeated. "I don't have much time. I talked to Abe Mazur. He'll be on a plane within the hour."

That caught me by surprise. "On a plane to where? On a plane from where?"

"He didn't tell me where he was. Rose thinks he's in Europe somewhere. As far as where he's going, it'll be Palm Springs unless you can tell him where Sydney is."

We hadn't heard back from Marcus, and had no other information on her location. I was trying to think of a way to tell her to have Abe just land at Court until we could figure out more, but I guess I hesitated too long.

"Adrian?" Lissa asked. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard," I sighed. "I don't have anything new on her location, but we're still trying."

"You're not kidnapping and torturing Alchemists, are you?"

I couldn't tell if she was joking, but I said, "Not yet."

I thought heard a bit of a sigh of relief.

"Ok. Call Rose if you learn anything else," Lissa said before I could say anything about just having Abe go there. "She'll get word to Abe. Otherwise, you'll get to pick him up at the airport."

I made some kind of a sound of disgust. The note of amusement was back in Lissa's voice when she said, "You're the one that said Sydney is in danger. You're the one that said we need to get Abe's help."

"I just wish there was another way," I grumbled.

"You have about 15 hours to find one," She said quickly. I could tell she was in a hurry, so I wasn't surprised when she added, "Got to go. Good luck. Let me know if I can do something else."

"Something besides send snakes to me?" I asked, proud of myself for coming up with a play on Abe's nickname, but she was gone.


Adrian

I tried to reach Sydney again and got something to eat before arriving at Jackie's house 20 minutes early. Jill and Eddie were already there and let me into the house. I expected some comment about finally having showered and looked into a mirror, but both of them wore serious expressions, and I was given a warning before being led into another room.

"We have to be quiet," Jill whispered to me. "There's witches here, and they don't like it if we make any noise.

The only witches I had met were Jackie and Inez (who I finally remembered as being a witch that was powerful enough that even Jackie was nervous to be around her). There were two women there besides Jackie, but neither was Inez. They were all holding hands and softly chanting something I couldn't understand. They wore robes with some kind of symbols on them. One of the other witches looked younger than Jackie, the other about the same age. They were around a girl that looked younger than Sydney. The girl was sitting on the floor staring into a bowl of something. Her long, dark hair was hanging free as she stared. What I could see of her skin looked tanned, and she also wore a robe with symbols, similar to those surrounding her.

I was a little shocked at the sight, and almost made a noise, but Jill clamped her hand against my mouth. I got the message, and just watched - though there wasn't much to see or hear - just the chanting witches and the concentrating girl.

Not much for the ordinary person to see. I, however, can see auras. Really, there wasn't much to see there, either. The witches aura's didn't look remarkable, though the young girl's was extremely bright and it was glowing. I assumed it was because she was the one really using her power. The others were supporting her somehow, but she was the real actor here.

Here aura was bright, but it had a lot of darkness mixed in – more than I had seen in anyone. I had seen darkness in Rose's aura when she was bound to Lissa, when Rose was pulling darkness from her friend, but there was more here than I ever saw in Rose. I wasn't really sure what it meant, but I wasn't going to forget it. It might prove to be important.

Still, the auras didn't change, and the sound of chanting didn't change. It wasn't long before I was tired of standing there quietly. I slipped away to another room of the house where I heard virtually nothing from the others. I was going to try to reach Sydney again, so I made myself comfortable and concentrated.

I don't know how long I was there, reaching out to her, but I got nothing. It was frustruating.

Finally, I sighed and listened to the others again. I could tell that things were changing, so I headed back into the room.

The circle had broken, but just. Jackie was giving the girl some kind of drink and talking into the phone, which was apparently on speaker, at the same time. Seeing the girl close up, I could tell that she was older than Jill, but still younger than Sydney. The robe she wore was open now, revealing that she wore jeans and a tank top.

"Did it work?" came a woman's voice from the phone.

"It did." Jackie said. "Sarah found her."

"Good," came from the phone. "I can't remember the last time we tried…"

"They found her!" Jill whispered to me excitedly breaking my mind away from the conversation.

"Who found her?" I asked, a little annoyed at being pulled from the other conversation. I was still a little out of it after using Spirit to try to reach Sydney, but I quickly realized what the right question was. "Where?"

"She's in New Mexico."

I gave Jill a 'WTF' look, but she just shrugged. "Seems weird to me, but we live in Palm Springs. I guess Alchemists can be anywhere."

Then Eddie spoke up, answering the question that Jill had ignored. "The girl found her. Her name is Sarah."

"They brought her in from another coven," Jill explained. "Inez, the one you met with Sydney, knew her. She's a virgin."

I had moved my eyes to look at the girl, at Sarah, but Jill's words made me sharply turn my head back to her.

She backed away from me and raised her arms in front of her defensively. "That's what they said. They made a big deal about it."

I remembered hearing Inez talk about the power of a virgin, something about losing virginity could make a witch lose half her power. I started feeling sick. Everything I did with Sydney caused her problems.

"They brought her here," Jill continued, "and Ms. Terwilliger and the others helped her somehow – it was because they knew Sydney and Sarah didn't. But others were on the phone and somehow they were all giving her help, lending her their power, I guess. They gave her a necklace and some other stuff. They said it would help Sarah find her, even though it isn't the best time on the calendar and even though she didn't know Sydney at all."

I looked at Sarah again. She was talking quietly with Jackie, still drinking the liquid and eating cookies. Her aura was no longer glowing, no longer as bright, but the darkness was still there. I couldn't decide if I should be concerned, or just grateful they had found her. I walked to Jackie, who was just helping Sarah get to her feet.

"They were sticking a needle into her face," Sarah was telling Jackie as I reached them.

"A needle?" Jackie asked, surprised.

I was a little upset at first, then I remembered that Sydney had mentioned that Alchemists re-inked people to increase their loyalty.

"Probably her tattoo," I said. Her witchcraft use was supposed to negate the tattoo, but we weren't eager to test that theory. It made me even more resolved to get to her quickly.

Jackie looked at me unsurely, then nodded slowly, as if she was just starting to understand.

Sarah just stared at me, as if wondering what I was doing there.

"Did they take her out of her cell to do it," I snapped at the girl, "or just restrain her there?" I knew I sounded a little bitter, and she took step back and looked at Jackie.

"Adrian," Jill said gently, touching my arm. "She helped us."

I took a breath and tried to refocus. If she had found Sydney, we were closer. I looked at her again and noticed that she held a necklace with some kind of gemstone. I had interrupted her as she was giving it to Jackie.

"Was she awake?" I asked, trying to make my voice calmer. If she was awake, it would explain my not reaching her earlier.

Sarah glanced at Jackie, and when the older witch nodded, she shook her head. "She wasn't responding to what they were doing – she looked drugged."

I nodded and rubbed my head. She was drugged again. I didn't want to think about what else was happening to her, so I couldn't bear to ask any more questions about her.

"We know where she is," Jill said, touching my arm again. "You can call Rose, tell Abe where to go."

I looked at Jackie. "Do we have an address?"

I must have been getting control of myself, speaking less harshly, because it was Sarah who spoke. "No addresses where she is – she's not in a city. But I saw the interstate and the exit to get to where she is."

I nodded and closed my eyes again. This was good, except for the drugging of Sydney. And maybe the darkness in Sarah's aura. It was still there, and I wasn't sure what to make of that.

"Adrian, Abe can get to her now," Jill said. "He can figure a way to get her out of there, to bring her back to us."

Jill was right. I started feeling hopeful again.

"Give the information to me," I told Jackie. She wrote the information onto a slip of paper and passed it to me. "You guys can't just teleport her out of there?"

Jackie laughed a little. "No. But let me know what's going on. We actually may be able to help someone get in there to get her out."

She then turned to Sarah and took the necklace that the girl was still holding. Sarah's dark brown eyes continued to stare at me until Jackie pulled her away and led her to another room.

"You promised to tell me why this girl is such a big deal," I heard Sarah say as she disappeared into the kitchen with Jackie and the other witches.

I turned back to Jill, who was looking at me expectantly. I didn't need the reminder. Despite my history with Abe's daughter, this is one time I wanted to call Rose