"Can we check the place out?" Adrian asked. "I mean, if there are any vacant rooms?"
"Sure," she said, standing up. She spit her gum into a trash can and walked over to us. "I'm Alicia. My aunt and uncle are the owners."
"Taylor," I said, shaking her hand.
"Jet," said Adrian. I nearly groaned. For inexplicable reasons, "Jet Steele" was a pseudonym Adrian really liked using. In our rehearsal today, he was supposed to be called Brian.
Alicia glanced back and forth between us, a small frown on her face that soon smoothed out. I had to guess it was Adrian's compulsion, confusing her perceptions of us a bit. "Follow me. We have a few vacant rooms you can see." With one last puzzled look at us, she turned and headed toward a stairway.
"Isn't this great, sweetie?" Adrian asked loudly as we walked up the creaking stairs. "I know how much you like rabbits. Didn't you have one when you were little? What was his name, Hopper?"
"Yeah," I said, resisting the urge to punch him on the arm. Hopper? Really? "Best rabbit ever."
"Oh, neat," said Alicia. "Then I'll take you to the Bunny Suite first."
The Bunny Suite had more of those well-dressed stuffed rabbits as part of the decor. The quilt covering the king-size bed also had a border of alternating hearts and rabbits stitched in. Several books sat on the mantel above the wood-burning fireplace, including The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Rabbit, Run. Until that moment, I hadn't realized just how absurdly far a theme could be taken.
"Wow," said Adrian. He sat down on the bed and tested its bounciness, giving it a nod of approval. "This is amazing. What do you think, buttercup?"
"I have no words," I said honestly.
He patted the spot beside him. "Want to try it out?"
I answered with a look and felt relieved when he stood up. Adrian and beds stirred up too many conflicting feelings in me.
After that, Alicia showed us the Morning Glory Suite, the Velvet Suite, and the London Suite, all of which competed to outdo the others in tackiness. Nonetheless, despite the absurdity of Adrian's ruse, the tour had given me the opportunity to take note of the other labeled doors in the hallway. We followed Alicia back downstairs.
"We don't get to see the Sapphire Suite or the Prince Albert Suite?" I asked.
Alicia shook her head. "Sorry. Those are occupied. I can give you a brochure with some pictures, if you want."
Adrian had his arm around me again. "Angel cake, wasn't the Prince Albert Suite where Veronica stayed? She's not still here, is she?"
"I'm not sure," I said. This, at least, was similar to what we'd rehearsed. I glanced over at Alicia. "You probably can't tell us that, huh? If our friend Veronica's here? She's really pretty, has long dark hair."
"Oh, yeah," said Alicia, brightening. "Of course I remember her. She was in the Velvet Suite, actually, and just checked out yesterday."
I resisted the urge to kick the desk. So close. We'd missed her by a day. Yes, the universe was definitely done giving me breaks. I wouldn't be able to cast the scrying spell until the next full moon, which was a month away.
"Oh, well," said Adrian, still with that easy smile. "We'll see her for Christmas anyway. Thanks for your help."
"Do you want to book a room?" Alicia asked hopefully.
"We'll get back to you on that," I said. I actually wouldn't have put it past Adrian to book one and then claim it was part of our cover. "We're checking out a few places. A one-year anniversary isn't something you want to make a hasty decision on."
"But," said Adrian, giving her a wink, "I've got a good feeling about the Bunny Suite."
Alicia walked us out, her eyes widening when she saw the Mustang. "Wow, nice car."
"It's an amazing car," I said.
"That's our baby - well, until we have real ones. Don't you think it needs a name?" asked Adrian. "I keep trying to convince Taylor." Once again, I had to fight the urge to punch him.
"Oh, definitely," said Alicia. "That kind of car . . . it's like royalty."
"See?" Adrian shot me a triumphant look. "And Alicia's an expert on royalty. Didn't you see all those paintings?"
"Thanks for your help," I told her, steering him forward. "We'll be in touch."
We got in the car, and after waving goodbye to Alicia, Adrian drove away. I stared blankly ahead. "Much like with the Bunny Suite, I have no words to describe what just happened. I mean, really? Our anniversary? Jet?"
"I look more like a Jet than a Brian," he argued. "Besides, that was a much better story than the one about how we wanted to pay a surprise birthday visit to our 'friend' Veronica."
"I don't know about that. But it did give us the information we needed. Which isn't good."
Adrian grew serious. "Are you sure? Maybe Veronica left the area altogether. Maybe you and the other girls are out of danger."
"That would be good, I guess . . . except, it just means some other poor girl somewhere else would suffer instead, and we wouldn't have any way to stop it." From my purse, I pulled out Ms. Terwilliger's list of magic-using girls. "One of these addresses is in Pasadena. We can at least swing through on our way back and warn her."
The girl we sought was named Wendy Stone. She was a student at Cal Tech, which seemed like an odd vocation for a wannabe witch. Of course, Ms. Terwilliger had said these were girls who weren't actively studying the magical path. They simply possessed magical ability, and I supposed the fact that they had no mentors suggested that they might actually be resistant to their inborn abilities - kind of like me.
Wendy lived in an apartment near campus that was easy to find. It was a no-nonsense, primarily student residence, but it seemed like a luxury palace after Marcus's building. As we passed busy students carrying backpacks and talking about classes, I felt a pang of longing that I hadn't experienced in a while. Inheriting the Alchemist mantle meant I couldn't go to college. College was a dream I'd held on to for a long time, though enrolling at Amberwood had helped ease some of my longing. Now, in this buzz of academia, a surge of jealousy sprang up in me. What would it be like to have this kind of life? To have your days solely devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, with no intrigue or life-threatening situations? Even Adrian, with his part-time art classes, was able to have some sort of collegiate experience.
"Don't be so down," he said when we reached Wendy's floor. "You might get to college someday."