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“We both felt it,” Lenore says, gesturing to Solon and he nods. “Witches. At least two. And I swear I picked up on a vampire as well. It was all a little muddled, there are so many rich scents in there, but there was the vague smell of a bloodsucker.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Solon? He did get off a long flight,” I point out.
Solon glares at me.
Lenore rolls her eyes and ignores me. “Maybe it’s nothing. I’m sure a city as rich in history as Istanbul is just teeming with vampires and witches and who knows what else. We’re always a little egotistical aren’t we, thinking we’re the only ones that matter.”
“Well, I am the only Dracula,” I say, half-joking, and that brings out a communal groan and eyeroll from everyone.
“Wait a minute, this spice bazaar,” Rose says to her, “it’s like a market?”
Lenore nods. “Yeah. You know, mounds of saffron and cumin and whatnot.”
“See, when I was able to track them before, I saw them in this market,” Rose says, getting excited. “Maybe that’s where they are. We should start there.”
“Except you could be describing all the markets in Istanbul,” I tell her.
“It’s still worth a shot, don’t you think?”
“No matter what,” Solon speaks up, “I don’t think it would be wise if we all went to the spice bazaar together. The five of us leaving the airport together was a bit much for the humans. You know how they can get. Seven of us together would cause problems.”
Right. As a rule, vampires tend to travel in small groups. Generally, the more vampires together in a cluster, the more it starts to affect the world around them. Most humans don’t believe in vampires, but put them in a room filled with them and things start to get really weird. You attract a lot of attention, and not the good kind. The kind that will get you in trouble and fuck up all your plans. The last thing we need is to get hauled off by the police.
“So then we split up,” Wolf says. “Half of us will go check out the place you saw them at before. Just to put eyes on the building, scope it out. The other half will go to the market and see if it correlates with what Rose saw.” He pauses. “Of course, now the question is, who is going with who?”
Chapter26
Rose
“Rose and I will go to the industrial area,” Valtu says.
I slap him across the chest with the back of my hand. “I’m going to the spice bazaar. You don’t get to make my decisions.”
“That’s my girl,” I hear my mom say under her breath.
Valtu balks, staring down at me. “I’m not letting you out of my sight and they don’t know where the location is.”
“And I need to lay my eyes on the bazaar to see if it’s the same one I had seen through Bellamy’s eyes,” I counter.
“How about we go to the industrial area later?” Van Helsing says, attempting a compromise. “That way we can all go together.”
“Nah,” Wolf says. “I feel like we’re running out of time here. Amethyst and I will go to the industrial area. I’m sure you both can tell us exactly where to go and how to get there. That is the last place you saw Leif, so I’m going with that.”
“You shouldn’t go without a witch,” Lenore says. “I’ll go with you.” She looks to me. “You okay with that?”
I shrug. “Guess it’s hard when there’s only one witch to go around.”
“You’re a witch, my dove,” Valtu says, giving my hand a squeeze. “Whatever magic Dahlia had in her veins runs in yours now. Just believe in it.”
I sigh tiredly. I wish I could. Aside from the lightning, I feel totally lost. If only the spells I had memorized from the book still worked, but I guess those spells were tied to that book and that book alone.
“I’ll give you some pointers before we split up, okay?” Lenore assures me.
I give her a grateful smile. “First I borrow your clothes, then I borrow your magic?”
“What’s mine is yours,” she says, and I know shestillfeels guilty for her hand in Dahlia’s death.
You’ve been wearing her clothes this whole time?Valtu asks in my head.That explains so much.
