Once again, I was torn. My logic said to stay here and stay safe. But my heart—especially when it feared Olive might have been raped like Carly—wanted to go off and help. “There’s no telling what we could be walking into,” I said. “From what I’ve heard, some of those dhampir communes are like the Wild West.”

Adrian grinned at that. “Good thing we’ve got our own cowboy.”

“Um, hello,” said Rose from the screen, her face lined with irritation at being left out of the conversation. “Do you guys want to fill us in on what you’re talking about?”

Adrian looked up, glancing between her and Dimitri. “How would you two like to take a trip with us?”

Chapter 9

“SO THIS IS CANADA,” I SAID, looking outside my car door.

“For the last time, it’s not Canada,” Sydney replied, rolling her eyes. “It’s northern Michigan.”

I glanced around, seeing nothing but enormous trees in every direction. Despite it being a late August afternoon, the temperature could’ve easily passed for something in autumn. Craning my head, I just barely caught a glimpse of gray waters beyond the trees to my right: Lake Superior, according to the map I’d seen.

“Maybe it’s not Canada,” I conceded. “But it’s exactly how I always imagined Canada would look. Except I thought there’d be more hockey.”

Sydney gave me an indulgent smile as she slid out of the backseat and stood beside me. “It’s a lot different from Iowa.”

“That’s for sure,” I agreed, slipping my arm around her as we admired the scenery.

It was crazy to think how far we’d come in less than twenty-four hours. After convincing Rose and Dimitri to go with us to the dhampir commune, we’d had to wait for Dimitri to use his resources and confirm where Olive’s medallion was linked to. He’d gotten back to us fairly quickly, revealing that the symbol on the necklace was used by a commune in Michigan’s upper peninsula. He and Rose had then begun a series of convoluted flights to get there from Court. Sydney and I had chosen the more direct route, hopping back in the car and driving twelve hours. It had been exhausting, given how little sleep we’d gotten, but we’d traded off driving and napping. It had also given us little opportunity to discuss the larger issues that still loomed over us. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

“Come on,” said Rose, hopping out of the SUV’s passenger seat. “It looks like the entrance is that way.” We’d rendezvoused with her and Dimitri in Houghton and then taken their more rugged rental vehicle out here to the packed-earth parking lot we now found ourselves in. Several other cars with Michigan plates were parked beside our rental, most of them the kind of heavy-duty models needed for life out in the wilderness. Admittedly, we were only an hour from Houghton, but it was hardly what you’d call a major metropolitan area. It had the basics—grocery stores, a hospital, Starbucks, even a university—but that was about it. Once you left the city limits, you were almost immediately out in the woods again. That was all I could see right now, and it took me a moment to spot the opening to the trailhead that Rose indicated.

“Narrow,” I remarked as Sydney and I followed her and Dimitri over to it. The trail itself was clear, but around it, the thick forest was difficult to pass through.

“By design,” he said, setting off like he did this sort of hike all the time. Probably it was how he’d gotten to school every day in Siberia. “Makes it harder for Strigoi to come through.”

“I bet it’s a real bitch to get through in the winter,” I added. I swore as a low branch snagged my coat.

Careful, warned Aunt Tatiana. That’s Italian leather.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them left for the winter,” Dimitri remarked. “This is an ideal summer location—somewhat high latitude. In peak summer, there’s probably only five hours without daylight. If you’ve got that and some solid wards, you can hold out relatively well against attacks—especially when it’s a group of dhampirs we’re talking about. They put up a good fight.”

I could believe that and stayed silent as I focused on paying attention to my footing and not eating any gnats. My muscles were stiff from so much time in the car, and the movement actually felt good. When Dimitri had said the medallion symbol was linked to a place called Wild Pine Intentional Community, I’d had no idea what we’d be getting into. Apparently, “intentional community” was the modern name for a commune, and they were something that humans still formed nowadays too. I’d also learned—thanks to Sydney’s endless knowledge on the drive here—that a lot of communes weren’t just hippie love fests à la the 1960s. Some were very modern but embraced green ways of living. Some were little more than campgrounds. Dimitri had told us in Houghton that this particular dhampir community likely fell somewhere in the middle. I was crossing my fingers for something on the more modern side, maybe like a secret wooded resort. Images of the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi came to mind.

“I just hope they have plumbing,” Rose said. “That was the rough part about staying with the Keepers.”

“I was actually okay with that,” Sydney said unexpectedly. “It was the questionable meat I had a problem with.”

“Whoa, no plumbing?” I exclaimed. My brain had trouble wrapping itself around how you’d even function in such a scenario.