I obediently turned away, exposing my cheek. A moment later, Horowitz's shadow fell over me. 'This will sting a little, but nothing like when you originally got it. It's just a touch-up,' he explained kindly.

'I know,' I said. I'd been re-inked before. 'Thanks.'

The needle pricked my skin, and I tried not to wince. It did sting, but like he'd said, Horowitz wasn't creating a new tattoo. He was simply injecting small amounts of the ink into my existing tattoo, recharging its power. I took this as a good sign. Zoe might not be out of danger yet, but surely they wouldn't go to the trouble of re-inking me if they were just going to send me to a re-education center.

'Can you brief us on what's happening while we're waiting?' asked my father. 'All I was told was that you needed a teen girl.' The way he said 'teen girl' made it sound like a disposable role. I fought back a wave of anger at my father. That's all we were to him.

'We have a situation,' I heard Stanton say. Finally, I'd get some answers. 'With the Moroi.'

I breathed a small sigh of relief. Better them than the Strigoi. Any 'situation' the Alchemists faced always involved one of the vampire races, and I'd take the living, non-killing ones any day. They almost seemed human at times (though I'd never tell anyone here that) and lived and died like we did. Strigoi, however, were twisted freaks of nature. They were undead, murderous vampires created either when a Strigoi forcibly made a victim drink its blood or when a Moroi purposely took the life of another through blood drinking. A situation with the Strigoi usually ended with someone dead.

All sorts of possible scenarios played through my mind as I considered what issue had prompted action from the Alchemists tonight: a human who had noticed someone with fangs, a feeder who had escaped and gone public, a Moroi treated by human doctors. . . . Those were the kinds of problems we Alchemists faced the most, ones I had been trained to handle and cover up with ease. Why they would need 'a teenage girl' for any of those, however, was a mystery.

'You know that they elected their girl queen last month,' said Barnes. I could practically see him rolling his eyes.

Everyone in the room murmured affirmatively. Of course they knew about that. The Alchemists paid careful attention to the political goings-on of the Moroi. Knowing what vampires were doing was crucial to keeping them secret from the rest of humanity - and keeping the rest of humanity safe from them. That was our purpose, to protect our brethren. Know thy enemy was taken very seriously with us. The girl the Moroi had elected queen, Vasilisa Dragomir, was eighteen, just like me.

'Don't tense,' said Horowitz gently.

I hadn't realized I had been. I tried to relax, but thinking of Vasilisa Dragomir made me think of Rose Hathaway. Uneasily, I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to assume I was out of trouble here. Mercifully, Barnes simply kept going with the story, not mentioning my indirect connection to the girl queen and her associates.

'Well, as shocking as that is to us, it's been just as shocking to some of their own people. There's been a lot of protests and dissidence. No one's tried to attack the Dragomir girl, but that's probably because she's so well guarded. Her enemies, it seems, have therefore found a work-around: her sister.'

'Jill,' I said, speaking before I could stop myself. Horowitz tsked me for moving, and I immediately regretted drawing attention to myself and my knowledge of the Moroi. Nevertheless, an image of Jillian Mastrano flashed into my mind, tall and annoyingly slim like all Moroi, with big, pale green eyes that always seemed nervous. And she had good reason to be. At fifteen, Jill had discovered she was Vasilisa's illegitimate sister, making her the only other member of their royal family's line. She too was tied to the mess I'd gotten myself into this summer.

'You know their laws,' continued Stanton, after a moment of awkward silence. Her tone conveyed what we all thought of Moroi laws. An elected monarch? It made no sense, but what else could one expect from unnatural beings like vampires? 'And Vasilisa must have one family member in order to hold her throne. Therefore, her enemies have decided if they can't directly remove her, they'll remove her family.'

A chill ran down my spine at the unspoken meaning, and I again commented without thinking. 'Did something happen to Jill?' This time, I'd at least chosen a moment when Horowitz was refilling his needle, so there was no danger of messing up the tattoo.

I bit my lip to prevent myself from saying anything else, imagining the chastisement in my father's eyes. Showing concern for a Moroi was the last thing I wanted to do, considering my uncertain status. I didn't have any strong attachment to Jill, but the thought of someone trying to kill a fifteen-year-old girl - the same age as Zoe - was appalling, no matter what race she belonged to.

'That's what's unclear,' Stanton mused. 'She was attacked, we know that much, but we can't tell if she received any real injury. Regardless, she's fine now, but the attempt happened at their own Court, indicating they have traitors at high levels.'

Barnes snorted in disgust. 'What can you expect? How their ridiculous race has managed to survive as long as they have without turning on each other is beyond me.'

There were mutters of agreement.

'Ridiculous or not, though, we cannot have them in civil war,' said Stanton. 'Some Moroi have acted out in protest, enough that they've caught the attention of human media. We can't allow that. We need their government stable, and that means ensuring this girl's safety. Maybe they can't trust themselves, but they can trust us.'

There was no use in my pointing out that the Moroi didn't really trust the Alchemists. But, since we had no interest in killing off the Moroi monarch or her family, I supposed that made us more trustworthy than some.

'We need to make the girl disappear,' said Michaelson. 'At least until the Moroi can undo the law that makes Vasilisa's throne so precarious. Hiding Mastrano with her own people isn't safe at the moment, so we need to conceal her among humans.' Disdain dripped from his words. 'But it's imperative she also remains concealed from humans. Our race cannot know theirs exists.'

'After consultation with the guardians, we've chosen a location we all believe will be safe for her - both from Moroi and Strigoi,' said Stanton. 'However, to make sure she - and those with her - remain undetected, we're going to need Alchemists on hand, dedicated solely to her needs in case any complications come up.'

My father scoffed. 'That's a waste of our resources. Not to mention unbearable for whoever has to stay with her.'

I had a bad feeling about what was coming.

'This is where Sydney comes in,' said Stanton. 'We'd like her to be one of the Alchemists that accompanies Jillian into hiding.'

'What?' exclaimed my father. 'You can't be serious.'