"A diet coke, please." I responded to the flight attendant as I opened up my phone to check my personal email.
I almost dropped the diet coke that was just handed to me when I noticed that I had received an email from Ms. Terwilliger.
From:
Subject: Greetings
Sydney,
I hope all is well. You are dearly missed, as there is currently no one else that can now do coffee runs for me. For my sake, I do hope you plan on returning. If not, it was a pleasure to work with you. I hope you found my teachings useful.
Best,
Jackie
I smiled, despite the fact that even in an email she was still trying to push me to work on magic. I had the chance to say a quick goodbye to her before my last day at Amberwood but I didn't go into details for my departure, and she didn't ask. I'm sure she assumed it was normal for alchemists to jump from post to post, which is not entirely untrue.
I contemplated responding to her email but was unsure what to write back. I definitely enjoyed getting to work with Ms. Terwilliger, but didn't want to encourage her constant push for me to learn about magic. She had insisted that I keep one of the spell books, which is currently hidden in my apartment. If the Alchemists ever found out about that… Maybe I should just get rid of it, to be safe.
The flight into Pennsylvania was shorter than expected, but it had been a long day of travel for me. There were no direct flights from Sioux Falls into Philadelphia, so I had a layover in the Chicago airport. Also, Pennsylvania is an hour ahead than South Dakota. So, it is now 3:30pm and I left my apartment this morning at 9am. I tried to suppress my yawn as I waited in line at the car rental company. I had an almost 2 hour drive ahead of me.
Once I was on the road, I picked up some coffee on my way to court. I had a feeling I would not get to sleep for a few hours, since I would have to work on vampire time.
I was correct about that.
As soon as I arrived at the gates, I was escorted to a parking lot adjacent to the building where I would be staying. I was surprised to find Rose waiting for me in the lobby.
"Hi, Sydney." Her signature smile was quickly replaced by a frown as she took me in. "You look tired."
"I just traveled for over 8 hours, I'm exhausted."
"Then let's get you into your room. I'll go check you in."
"Thank you," I said to her as she turned around to walk to the front desk. Looking around the lobby of this hotel reminded me of some of the buildings in Russia. It was large and covered in marble and gold. It was also completely empty, save for me and Rose.
"You're all set." Rose said, extending her hand to give me my room key. "You're on the second floor with an amazing view of the pool."
"Pool?" I didn't even know this hotel had a pool. For some reason, I just never really thought of vampires being interested in swimming.
"It's open at night."
That makes sense.
"But it was the best I could get you, unless they bumped you down to a regular room. I figured you'd prefer to keep a suite."
I smiled. "A pool view will be fine, thank you."
She nodded. "Come on, I'll walk you to your room."
"Will you be part of the group that I will be working with?" I asked, as she guided us to the elevator.
"Not really. I'll just pop in every once in a while to check in on everything. I'll also be there if Lissa is there, but other than that I will be out of your hair."
"Oh." I nodded as we exited the elevator to the second floor. "Do you know who I will be working with?" My heart sped up as I asked the question but I tried to sound as casual as possible.
"You will meet them all at breakfast- er, I guess dinner for you."
"Tonight?" I asked, more surprised than I should have been.
"Yup. I can meet you back downstairs in 30 minutes, to give you time to freshen up."
I took a deep breath as we reached the door to my room. "Okay, I'll be down there in 30 minutes."
"Sounds good. See you in 20, since I know you're always early." She winked before she turned around and headed back towards the elevator. Her phone rang as I was closing my door, and judging by the smile that broke out on her face I'd be willing to bet it was Dimitri.
