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CHAPTER 15

Schuyler

The look on Jack’s face when she broke the glass was a mixture of shock and pride, but Schuyler only allowed herself a quick gli about hi She had leaped out of the roo off the roof to the ground She was running outdoors, in the uests

It was past ht and the festivities had taken a darker turn, thatand everything is available to anyone and everyone There was a raucous feeling of wild abandon in the air, as the Bollywood stars shi in serpentine curves, and a hundred drummers on wooden-barrel dhol drums beat a steady and seductive rhyther on it, but there was so almost sinister about how hypnotic theto it was like being tickled too hard, when the tickling stopped being funny and becahter unwelcoh a line of bhangra dancers, cy, and knocked down one of the costu a crew of torchbearers standing guard by the periht behind her

"A heartbeat away Schuyler!"

She heard his voice clearly in her lom on her It wasn’t fair If he had said her naive him, but to know that he was in her

She ran past tiger taroup of drunken European nobles fat with blood, their human familiars left to swoon by the river walls This wasn’t a party any evil and depraved an orgy, a paean to ence, pernicious and wicked And Schuyler couldn’t help but feel that there was soe of disaster And still she could hear Jack’s footsteps, light and quick behind her

In a way the chase invigorated her: running so fast, using her va theod he was fast! But I aht "I can outrun you, Jack Force Just try; you’ll never catch me"

"I can and I will"

Schuyler closed her ht her That would shut him out

There had to be somewhere she could hide She knew this place Cordelia had left her here for hours when they visited, and as a child she had explored every inch of its sprawling grounds She knew every crevice, every secret hiding place, she would lose hied closets and clandestine coh the servants’ entrance

While she ran she sent a lom "Oliver!"

"Oliver!"

She tried to locate his signal "Oliver!"

But huht communications Oliver had never been able to read her mind, let alone speak to it directly And while they had tried to practice building the e that tied a vampire to its human Conduit, they had faltered in their exercise They were young, and a bridge took a lifetime to build, like the one between Lawrence Van Alen and Christopher Anderson Maybe in fifty years they would be able to communicate telepathically, but not now

She had to find Oliver He was probably sick orry Probably pacing the party, ignoring the fireworks, drinking too iven up so much to be with her Of course he would tell her it was his duty, his very destiny to live and die by her side But still she could not stop feeling that she was a burden to hiht too much on hiiven her everything, his friendship, his fortune, his life, and all she could give in return was her heart Her fickle, foolish, guilty, unreliable heart She hated herself

A terrible thought struck her: What if they had gotten to Oliver first? They wouldn’t hurt hi had happened to him She did not want to think about it

As she ran through the hallway, everything suddenly went black Sohts in the palace She had a feeling she kneho that someone was

Fine, but like you, Jack, I can see in the dark She found the door that led to a secret staircase that led down to the baseeons, a relic from an earlier century Not many knew that the H’tel Lambert had been built on the ruins of a medieval castle, and that the castle’s foundation hid layers of secrets

Oh god, please don’t let that have been a skeleton I just stepped over, Schuyler thought as her sandaled foot landed on so way

She could see the outlines of the steps, ruined and steep, down, down, she had to go down She had to get away

"Oliver!"

Nothing

She would have to send for him later somehow