The Golden Lily

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a few people who experiment with magic and help to connect the human and vampire worlds. Alchemists safeguard both human life and vampire secrets.

Sydney would much rather attend college, but she's been sent into hiding at an upscale boarding school in Palm Springs, California, where she must guard Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to start a civil war within the Moroi court. Sydney, who was formerly ashamed, is now commended for her obedient and faithful behavior and is looked up to as an example of a perfect Alchemist.

But the more she gets to know Jill, Eddie, and Adrian in particular, the more she starts to doubt her long-held Alchemist convictions, her conception of family, and her understanding of what it means to really belong. When magical tests reveal Sydney may have the secret to preventing her from turning into one of the toughest vampires in the universe—the Strigoi—her world becomes even more difficult. But more than anything, what terrifies her is her dread of becoming just that—special, magical, and powerful. Her current relationship with Braydon, a gorgeous and intelligent boy who looks to be her perfect match, is equally intimidating. Despite his seeming perfection, Sydney can't help but feel herself pulled to someone else—someone she isn't allowed to be with.

Sydney's allegiances are put to the test more than ever before as a startling truth threatens to shatter the vampire community. She questions how she should reconcile the beliefs and doctrines she has been taught with what her gut is currently telling her.

Which would she rather trust, her heart or the Alchemists?