Mira shrugged her shoulders as she dropped the last of the dirt back to the ground. “Like I said, it’s good dirt. I’ve slept covered in Peruvian dirt.”

“But still,” LaVina pressed as she edged closer. “No nightwalker should be able to sense such a thing. All nightwalkers lose their connection with the earth upon rebirth.”

“Yes, well, I’m special,” Mira said, curling her lips in such a way that she briefly flashed her fangs. There was also no missing the sarcasm that laced every syllable of that statement.

To my surprise, LaVina knelt on the ground next to Mira and clasped the nightwalker’s chin between two thin fingers. She tilted Mira’s head up, looking into her lavender eyes as she once again clucked her tongue. “You, my child, should never have been reborn as a nightwalker.”

“No kidding,” Mira replied snidely as she tried to turn her head away, but LaVina jerked Mira’s head back to face her.

“You were destined for many great things,” LaVina continued. “Being a nightwalker may have delayed, if not completely deterred those things. So sad.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked when Mira just stared mutely at the old witch.

“Nothing specific,” LaVina quickly said, releasing Mira’s face. “Just idle dreams and broken nightmares.”

Using the blood that was still on her fingers, she traced a symbol on Mira’s forehead that caused a knot to form in my stomach. I knew a few old symbols from my travels, and this one felt positively ancient. Older than the pagans, older than Mesopotamians, older than most civilizations that had crawled across the Earth. The monster that lived wrapped around the remains of my soul recoiled at the sight of it and my skin crawled. While I couldn’t name the source of the symbol, something told me that I was looking at the original marking for chaos.

Energy sizzled in the air around LaVina and Mira, as the old witch started speaking in a tongue I had never heard before. My ears started ringing and the air started to grow too thick to draw into my lungs. I thought I would soon begin choking. Mira lay as still as death while LaVina worked her magic, her eyes closed, but a glimmer of lavender light still shined beneath her eyelashes. I didn’t like this.

“LaVina?” I pressed, touching the woman’s arm. The witch immediately stopped what she was doing and smiled at me. She placed her hand in mine and I helped her to stand again. She walked back over to the bench where she fiddled around with some unseen objects.

“So, you were saying that this nightwalker has been drinking from a warlock,” she said, changing the subject to the real reason we had come to her in the first place. I was tempted to pull her back to our previous topic, but decided to drop it. It was more important that we got Mira well and sane again.

“Yes.” I sighed.

“Powerful one?” she asked, glancing over her bony shoulder at me.

“Very powerful.”

“Hmmm…” she said as she slowly turned around again. She leaned up against the bench and crossed her arms over her middle. “Did you know different types of blood affect nightwalkers in different ways?”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, shoving my hands into my back pockets. “Naturi blood is poisonous to nightwalkers.”

“In that same vein, some nightwalkers can’t drink shapeshifter blood. They’re too close to that nature tie, and it makes them sick for several nights on end.”

“Mira can drink shifter blood,” I countered, recalling Mira’s special meal with the lycanthrope Nicolai in Venice.

“Hmmm,” she said again with a nod. “I’m not surprised by that. For some, shifter blood can temporarily make a nightwalker stronger, heighten senses, and satisfy the thirst for longer. However, blood from a powerful witch or warlock does none of those things.”

“Then why drink it?” Lily inquired. I looked over my shoulder to find her rising and walking down to the stand on the last stair.

“Because it can have special side effects,” LaVina said, smiling up at the girl.

“Like what?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us, Mira?” I asked, turning my attention back to the nightwalker. Mira had dropped her head and was once again running her fingers through the dirt. She refused to look up at us, but there was a new stiffness to her shoulders.

“Go to hell, Danaus,” she muttered.

“Oh, think about it,” LaVina chided. “Weakness, trembling hands, circles under her eyes, hallucinations. At the root, Mira’s still human.”

“She’s not sleeping,” Lily murmured. My gaze jerked from the teenager to the nightwalker. Her shoulders were now slumped as if she were cowering away from me. Could it be something as simple as not sleeping?

“That’s not possible,” I said, pinning my gaze on Mira. “You can’t be awake during the day. Nightwalkers can’t be awake during the day.”

“Ryan’s blood is special,” Mira admitted in a low voice. “I drink it and I can stay awake during the day.”

“How long has it been since you last slept?” I demanded.

“I need this,” Mira said, clenching her fists in the dirt. “It’s my only edge against Aurora. What if she sends someone for me during the daylight hours?”

“How long?” I repeated.

Mira pushed to her knees so that she was now facing me, her fists clenched at her side. “She’s going to come for me during the day! I won’t be helpless against them.”

“How long has it been?” I shouted back at her, taking a step toward her.

“Ten days!” she shouted back, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I’ve not slept in ten days!”

Pacing away from Mira, I shoved my hands through my hair, but managed to hold my tongue as I caught sight of Lily intently watching me. Ten days. Humans were known to hallucinate after just a few days without sleep. Vampires were resilient creatures, but even their minds couldn’t possibly withstand such an extended period of deprivation. James had mentioned that Mira was up during the day, but it never occurred to me that she was never sleeping. I had just thought that she was waking earlier in the evening or maybe staying up a couple hours past sunrise—not staying awake the entire day.

“How long did you think you could keep this up?” I demanded, losing my tenuous grip on my temper.

“Months, if I had to. Whatever it takes!” she shouted at me.

“Leaving you at Ryan’s mercy.”

“Better at the mercy of a warlock that is just trying to help me defeat the naturi than at the mercy of an entire race that wants to see me dead.”

“You think Ryan is a better option than the naturi?”

“Of course he is.”

“Ryan doesn’t care about you,” I snarled, taking a step closer. “He only cares about how he can use you. You’re a member of the coven. You’re one of the most powerful vampires in all the world. How could you think something so stupid as this notion that he cares about protecting you?”

“Fine, maybe he doesn’t care about me, but he at least doesn’t want the naturi to succeed in wiping out humanity. At least we have that in common! Keeping me alive helps that goal. We can’t let the naturi win.”

“I don’t want the naturi to succeed either, but this isn’t the best way to beat them.”

“They’re going to come after me again.”

“I know,” I murmured. I knew it like I knew the sun was going to rise in a few hours and that Gaizka would come hunting for the rest of my soul. Little inevitabilities that we couldn’t escape. Once Aurora had her forces pulled together, she was going to come after Mira again and she wouldn’t stop until the nightwalker had suffered a gruesome, excruciating end. If the naturi won, Mira faced a horrible death.

“I won’t let Aurora have me without a fight. She’ll come during the daylight hours when I am vulnerable. They’ll steal me away again and no one will be able to find me. Not even you and all your magic tricks. I swear I won’t sleep again until Aurora is dead,” Mira vowed.