Bloodlines recap

Sydney Sage, an eighteen-year-old Alchemist in disgrace with her order, takes an assignment meant for her younger sister: hiding Jill Dragomir, the newly discovered half-sister of the Moroi queen, whose death would cost the queen her throne. Jill is enrolled at Amberwood Prep in sun-drenched Palm Springs, with Sydney posing as her sister, the guardian Eddie Castile as their brother, and the spirit-using royal Adrian Ivashkov trailing along. Sydney answers to Keith Darnell, an Alchemist she has hated since he assaulted her older sister and was believed over her. At school she uncovers a black market in tattoos mixed with Moroi blood, some of them charmed with compulsion, and proves Keith has been supplying it; he is arrested and she is left in charge. She also finds that a string of murdered young Moroi women is not Strigoi work: Lee Donahue, the friendly son of a local recluse, was restored from Strigoi and has been killing in an attempt to regain what he lost. Lee takes Jill, and the group stops him. Meanwhile Sydney's history teacher reveals herself as a witch, and Sydney works her first real charm - proof that the world does not divide as cleanly as the Alchemists taught her.

Previously: Moroi are living, mortal vampires who work elemental magic; dhampirs, half human and half Moroi, are trained as their guardians; Strigoi are undead vampires who kill to feed and cannot bear sunlight. The Alchemists are a secret order of humans who hide all of this from the rest of the world as a religious duty, and Sydney Sage was raised inside it. In the events that closed the Vampire Academy books, the guardian Rose Hathaway was cleared of the queen's murder and her friend Vasilisa Dragomir was elected queen in the dead woman's place. Vasilisa could only stand for the throne because a second Dragomir was found: Jill Mastrano, the illegitimate daughter of Vasilisa's late father, a shy girl raised with no idea who she was. Moroi law requires a royal line to have more than one living member, so Jill is now the only thing keeping her half-sister on the throne, and killing her is the simplest way to unseat a queen. In the violence at Court, Jill was fatally injured and brought back by Adrian Ivashkov, a royal Moroi who uses spirit magic; the healing left the two of them psychically bonded. Adrian had already been left by Rose for the dhampir Dimitri Belikov, and has been drinking his way through the aftermath. Sydney's own standing with the Alchemists is poor: she once helped Rose against orders, and her superiors have watched her ever since.

Sydney is woken before dawn at her father's house and taken to a meeting with the Alchemists, where she is offered a chance to redeem herself. The assignment was first offered to her younger sister Zoe; Sydney takes it instead to keep Zoe away from vampires. The Moroi have asked the Alchemists to hide Jill Dragomir, the queen's newly discovered half-sister, whose death would cost the queen the throne. The plan is to enrol Jill at Amberwood Prep, a human boarding school in Palm Springs, chosen because relentless sun makes the area unappealing to Strigoi. Sydney will pose as Jill's sister and run the cover story under the surname Melrose; the guardian Eddie Castile will pose as their brother; and Adrian Ivashkov comes along because nobody has a better idea of what to do with him. Sydney is placed under Keith Darnell, the Alchemist already stationed there, whom she has privately hated for years. She takes the job knowing it means living among the creatures she was raised to fear.

The group settles into Amberwood. Sydney and Jill share a dorm suite with two human girls, Julia and Kristin, while Eddie rooms with a friendly human boy named Micah, who looks unsettlingly like the friend Eddie lost and who is immediately interested in Jill. Sydney is put in a chemistry class with Trey Juarez, a popular athlete who becomes her lab partner, and in a history class with Ms. Terwilliger, an eccentric teacher who bullies her into becoming a research assistant. Keith obstructs Sydney at every turn and reports on her unfavourably. Adrian takes a room at the house of Clarence Donahue, an elderly Moroi recluse who insists his niece Tamara was killed years ago by human vampire hunters, a story everyone else treats as senility. Clarence's easygoing son Lee takes an interest in Jill, who is struggling badly: she is conspicuous at a human school, cut off from her own world, and constantly aware of Adrian's moods through the bond between them.

Jill begins seeing Micah, which eases her isolation and adds to the risk of exposure, and Eddie has to watch it. Sydney's cover holds, but her friction with Keith worsens and she becomes convinced he is doing more in Palm Springs than the Alchemists know. She notices that several Amberwood athletes are wearing new tattoos that are doing more than decorating them: the wearers report sudden strength, stamina and fast healing. Sydney recognizes the signs of Moroi blood used as an ingredient, which is forbidden under both Moroi and Alchemist rules, and starts working out where it comes from. Ms. Terwilliger meanwhile keeps steering her towards reading that has nothing to do with a history syllabus, and takes an interest in Sydney's abilities that Sydney cannot account for.

Sydney traces the tattoos to a local parlour where a particular clientele can buy ink mixed with Moroi blood and earth magic. Working with Adrian, she obtains samples and confirms what is in them. She also finds that a second, more expensive grade has appeared, and that the people wearing it are not only stronger but noticeably compliant: that ink has been charmed with compulsion, so a customer can be steered into doing what the seller wants. Trey admits how far the trade runs through the school's sports programme. Every line of Sydney's investigation leads back to somebody well placed to supply Moroi blood and keep the paperwork clean, and she becomes certain that Keith is at the centre of it - although proving it against a superior, with her record, is another matter.

Sydney assembles enough evidence to show that Keith has been buying Moroi blood and selling it into the tattoo trade, using his position to cover the traffic. When Keith tries to use her past against her, she finally says out loud why she has hated him since she was a child: he assaulted her older sister Carly, and her family chose to believe him rather than her. The Alchemists take Keith into custody, and Sydney is left as the senior Alchemist in Palm Springs, running the assignment she was sent to serve on. At the same time the local Moroi are unsettled by the deaths of several young Moroi women, drained and discarded, which everyone assumes to be Strigoi work despite the sunlight that should make Strigoi impossible there.

With Keith gone, Sydney runs the assignment herself, and Jill's life becomes more settled: she ends things with Micah and spends more of her time with Lee Donahue. Sydney keeps returning to the killings of young Moroi women and to Clarence's insistence that his niece died the same way, and the pattern stops matching a Strigoi attack. Ms. Terwilliger drops the pretence: she is a witch, human magic is real, and she believes Sydney has an unusual aptitude for it. She has Sydney work a charm herself. It succeeds, which is worse than failure would have been, because everything in Sydney's upbringing tells her that human magic is as unnatural as anything the Moroi do - and she can feel how easily it comes to her.

Sydney works out that the killer is Lee. He was turned Strigoi and then restored to Moroi by spirit magic, and a restored Moroi can never be turned again; unable to get back the power he lost, he has been killing young Moroi women in an attempt to find a way around that, and the death of Clarence's niece was never the work of vampire hunters. Lee takes Jill, and Sydney, Adrian and Eddie track them down; Lee is killed in the struggle and Jill is recovered alive. Keith is removed from duty by the Alchemists, and Sydney's own standing is restored: she is left in charge in Palm Springs, which keeps her living among Moroi indefinitely, and Adrian settles in rather than going home. Ms. Terwilliger continues to press her to train, and Sydney, who has now worked real magic and watched it hold, can no longer honestly claim that the world divides as neatly as the Alchemists taught her.

Lee Donahue is exposed as the killer of the local Moroi women. He was turned Strigoi and then restored to Moroi by spirit magic, and a restored Moroi can never be turned again; unable to recover what he lost, he had been killing young Moroi women in an attempt to find a way back, and the death of Clarence's niece years earlier was never the work of vampire hunters. Lee takes Jill, and Sydney, Adrian and Eddie find them in time; Lee dies in the confrontation and Jill is recovered alive. Keith Darnell is taken away by the Alchemists for trading in Moroi blood, and what he did to Sydney's sister Carly is finally said out loud, though her father's regard for him is not easily undone. Sydney is confirmed as the Alchemist in charge in Palm Springs, which is both a vindication and a sentence: she will go on living among the Moroi she was raised to distrust, with Jill, Eddie and Adrian in her care, and Adrian settles in for the long term. Ms. Terwilliger, having proved that magic is real and that Sydney can work it, presses her to train properly; Sydney refuses to think of herself as a witch while being unable to deny what she has already done. Jill remains a target for anyone who wants the queen unseated, so the hiding goes on.