Bloodlines

He looked impressed. "Damn straight. Pine-scented cleaner. As in, I cleaned." He gestured to the kitchen dramatically. "With these hands, these hands that don't do manual labor."

I stared off into the kitchen. "What did you use it on? The cupboards?"

"The cupboards are fine. I cleaned the floor and the counter." I must have looked more puzzled than amazed because he added, "I even got down on my knees."

"You used pine cleaner on the floor and counters?" I asked. The floor was ceramic tile; the counters were granite.

Adrian frowned. "Yeah, so?"

He seemed so proud to have actually scrubbed something for once in his life that I couldn't bring myself to tell him pine cleaner was generally only used on wood. I gave him an encouraging smile. "Well, it looks great. I need you to come over and clean my new dorm room now. It's covered in dust."

"No way, Sage. My own housecleaning's bad enough."

"But is it worth it? If you'd stayed at Clarence's, you had a live-in cook and cleaner."

"It's definitely worth it. I've never really, truly had my own place. I kind of did at Court... but it might as well have been an over-glorified dorm room. This? This is great. Even with the housecleaning. Thank you."

The comic look of horror he'd worn while discussing housecleaning had been traded away for utter seriousness now as those green eyes weighed me.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny and was reminded of the spirit dream, where I'd questioned if his eyes really were that green in real life.

"For what?" I asked.

"For this - I know you must have twisted some Alchemist arms." I hadn't told him that I'd actually passed on taking the place for myself. "And for everything else. For not giving up on me, even when I was being a major ass**le. And, you know, for that saving my life thing."

I looked away. "I didn't do anything. That was Eddie - and Jill. They're the ones who saved you."

"Not sure I would've been alive for their rescue if you hadn't set that bitch on fire. How did you do that?"

"It was nothing," I protested. "Just a, uh, chemical reaction from the Alchemist bag of tricks."

Those eyes studied me again, weighing the truth of my words. I'm not sure he believed me, but he let it go. "Well, from the look on her face, your aim was right on. And then you got backhanded for it. Anyone who takes a hit for Adrian Ivashkov deserves some credit."

I turned my back to him, still shy with the praise - and nervous about the fire reference - and walked over to the window. "Yeah, well, you can rest easy that it was a selfish act. You have no idea what a pain it is to file paperwork for a dead Moroi."

He laughed, and it was one of the few times I'd heard him laugh with genuine humor and warmth - and not because of something twisted or sarcastic.

"Okay, Sage. If you say so. You know, you're a lot spunkier than when I first met you."

"Really? All the adjectives in the world at your disposable, and you pick 'spunky'?" Banter I could handle. So long as I focused on that, I didn't have to think about the meaning behind the words or how my heartbeat had increased just a little. "Just so you know, you're a little more stable than when I met you."

He came over to stand by me. "Well, don't tell anyone, but I think getting away from Court was a good thing. This weather sucks, but Palm Springs might be good for me - it and all the wonders it contains. You guys. Art classes. Pine cleaner."

I couldn't help a grin and looked up at him. I'd been half-joking, but it was true: he had changed remarkably since we'd met. There was still a hurting man inside, one who bore the scars of what Rose and Dimitri had done to him, but I could see the signs of healing. He was steadier and stronger, and if he could just continue to hold the course, with no more crises for a while, a remarkable transformation might truly happen.

It took several seconds of silence for me to realize that I'd been staring at him while my mind spun out its thoughts. And, actually, he was staring at me, with a look of wonder.

"My God, Sage. Your eyes. How have I never noticed them?"

That uncomfortable feeling was spreading over me again. "What about them?"

"The color," he breathed. "When you stand in the light. They're amazing... like molten gold. I could paint those..." He reached toward me but then pulled back. "They're beautiful. You're beautiful."

Something in the way he was looking at me froze me up and made my stomach do flip-flops, though I couldn't quite articulate why. I only knew that he looked as though he was seeing me for the very first time... and it scared me. I'd been able to brush off his easy, joking compliments, but this intensity was something different altogether, something I didn't know how to react to. When he looked at me like this, I believed that he thought my eyes were beautiful - that I was beautiful. It was more than I was ready for. Flustered, I took a step backward, out of the sunlight, needing to get away from the energy of his gaze. I'd heard spirit could send him off on weird tangents but had no clue if that's what this was. I was saved from my feeble attempts to muster a witty comment when a knock at the door made both of us jump.

Adrian blinked, and some of that rapture faded. His lips twisted into one of his sly smiles, and it was as though nothing weird had happened.

"Showtime, huh?"

I nodded, reeling with a confusing mix of relief, nervousness, and... excitement. Except, I wasn't entirely sure if those feelings were from Adrian or our impending visitors. All I knew was that suddenly, I was able to breathe more easily than I had a few moments ago.

He walked across the living room and opened the door with a flourish. Abe swept in, resplendent in a gray and yellow suit that coordinated bafflingly well with Adrian's paint job. A wide grin broke out over the older Moroi's face.

"Adrian, Sydney... so lovely to see you again. I believe one of you already knows this young lady?" He moved past us, revealing a lean dhampir girl with auburn hair and big blue eyes filled with suspicion.

"Hello, Angeline," I said.

When they'd told me Angeline Dawes was going to be Jill's new roommate, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. Angeline was one of the Keepers, that separatist group of Moroi, dhampirs, and humans who lived in the wilds of West Virginia. They wanted nothing to do with the "civilization" of any of our races and had a number of bizarre customs, not the least of which was their abominable tolerance for interracial romance.

Later, when I'd thought about it, I decided Angeline might not be such a bad choice. She was the same age as Jill, possibly giving Jill a closer connection than I could manage. Angeline, while not trained the way a guardian like Eddie was, still could hold her own in a fight. If anyone came for Jill, they'd have their work cut out for them getting through Angeline. And with the aversion Angeline's people had toward "tainted" Moroi, she would have no reason to further the politics of some rival faction.