"Where the hell is this coming from?" he asked at last.
"Me," I said. "Because I'm not like you guys. I can't do nothing. I can't run away. And . . . I can't go with you."
It felt good to say that . . . and it also felt right. All week, my brain had been telling me the right thing to do was to walk away before things with Adrian and the Alchemists blew up. And yes, that probably was the smart thing. My heart had never entirely been on board, but I'd tried to ignore it. It wasn't until I'd listened to both Jill and Marcus that I realized just this once, my brain might have to opt for the less logical solution.
I had to give Marcus credit. He actually looked concerned and wasn't just put out at not getting his way. "Sydney I know how attached you are to this place and these people, but it's not safe for you here. It's not safe for you anywhere, not as long as the Alchemists are watching. Not as long as your tattoo is vulnerable."
"Someone told me any life worth living has risks," I said, unable to hide a smile. I never thought I'd be quoting Jill.
Marcus slammed his fist against the dashboard. "That's sentimental bullshit! It sounds good in theory, but the reality is completely different."
"What kind of reality could you have created if you'd stayed with the Alchemists?" I asked. "How much could you have uncovered?"
"Nothing if I was caught," he said flatly. "And no matter how useless you think we are, I've freed dozens of Alchemists. I've helped Clarence and other Moroi."
"You aren't useless, Marcus. You do good work, but we're just not on the same path, that's all. I'm staying and doing things my way. Isn't that what you said when we first met? Helping the Moroi on our own terms? These are mine."
"You're wasting your time!"
"It's my time to waste," I said. Adrian had said exactly the same thing to me on the flight to the wedding, when I'd told him he couldn't keep loving me. I felt bad for Marcus. I really did, especially since he'd truly been counting on me to come with him.
He caught hold of my hand. "Sydney, please don't do this," he begged. "No matter how confident you feel, no matter how careful you think you are, things will spiral out of control."
"They already have," I said, opening the passenger door. "And I'm going to stop fighting them. Thank you for everything, Marcus. I mean it."
"Wait, Sydney," he called. "Just tell me one thing."
I glanced back and waited.
"Where did this come from? When you called me to tell me you were coming, you said you'd realized it was the smart thing to do. What made you change your mind?"
I gave him a smile that I hoped was as dazzling as one of his. "I realized I'm in love."
Marcus, startled, looked around as though he expected to see my objet d'amour in the car with us. "And you just realized that? Did you just have some sort of vision?"
"Didn't need to," I said, thinking of Wolfe's ill-fated trip to the Orkneys. "It's always been right in front of me."
Chapter Twenty-Five
ONCE MARCUS FINALLY ACCEPTED that I wasn't going, he wished me well, though he still wore that stunned expression. He'd planned on abandoning the car at the station but handed the keys over to me as a parting gift. I watched him walk away and wondered if I'd made a mistake. Then I thought of green, green eyes and all the work Adrian and I had to do together. This was the right choice . . . I just hoped I wasn't too late.
He still wasn't answering my calls. Did he hate me? Or was he holed up somewhere, depressed and drinking away his sorrows? I fished his note out of my purse, wondering what I'd find. Knowing Adrian, I'd expected some long, flowery expression of love. Instead, all I found was a long series of numbers.
The numbers meant nothing to me. I studied them for a while in the car, applying a few common codes I knew. No answer appeared, though I wasn't entirely surprised. Codes and complex mathematics weren't exactly Adrian's style. But then, why had he left the note? Obviously, he assumed I could decipher it.
I held the note far away from me, hoping something visual would reveal itself. It did. As I looked at the numbers again, I saw a natural break in the middle of them, in a format that looked familiar. I entered the two sets of numbers into the latitude and longitude screen of my GPS. A moment later, it turned up an address in Malibu. Southern California. Was that a coincidence?
Without even thinking twice, I pulled out of the train station's parking lot and headed toward the coast. It was entirely possible I was about to waste two and a half hours (five, if you counted the round trip), but I didn't think so. There are no coincidences.
It felt like the longest drive of my life. My hands tightly clenched the wheel the entire time. I was eager yet terrified. When I was only a few miles from the address, I began to see signs for the Getty Villa. For a few seconds, I was confused. The Getty Center was a very famous museum, but it was closer to Los Angeles. I didn't understand the connection or why I had ended up in Malibu. Nonetheless, I dutifully followed the directions and ended up in the Villa's guest parking lot.
When I reached the entrance, I received my answers. The Villa was a sister museum to the Getty Center, one that specialized in ancient Greek and Roman art. In fact, a good part of the Getty Villa was set up like some ancient temple, complete with pillars surrounding courtyards filled with gardens, fountains, and statues. Admission was free but required a reservation. Things were slow today, and I quickly rectified the problem by making an online reservation on my phone.
When I stepped inside, I nearly forgot why I was there - but only for a heartbeat. The museum was a dream come true for a lover of classics like me. Room after room focusing on the ancient world. Jewelry statues, clothes . . . it was as if I'd entered a time machine. The scholar in me longed to study and read about each exhibit in detail. The rest of me, with a racing heart and barely contained excitement, only briefly stopped in each room, just long enough to search and move on.
After looking in almost all the interior areas, I stepped into the outer peristyle. My breath caught. It was a huge outdoor garden built around a pool that had to be at least two hundred feet long. Statues and fountains dotted the pool's surface, and the whole space was surrounded in gorgeously manicured trees and other plants. The sun, warm despite the December day, shone down on everything, and the air hummed with birdsong, splashing water, and soft conversation. Tourists milled around, stopping to admire the sights or take pictures. None of them mattered, though - not when I finally found the person I was looking for.