“What? I don’t understand.”

“I can’t allow you to endanger my people.”

She unfolded her legs so she could push to her feet. “But I thought you needed me to help you learn how to use earth magic. I can still help you,” she argued.

“I need to learn how to use this magic in an aggressive manner, for fighting. I don’t get the impression that you even know how to do that.”

“I do!”

“Prove it,” I growled. In the blink of an eye my hand slipped down to the knife in the sheath on my belt. With a flick my wrist the knife spiraled through the air toward her. I was careful to aim it to land a foot in front of her, but to my surprise she deftly rolled out of the way of the approaching blade and got to her feet. With a wave of her hand, three balls of fire appeared before her and shot toward me.

“Normally a nice move,” I said, raising my hand to catch each of the fireballs as they approached me. “But I’m the Fire Starter. Fire isn’t about to stop me.”

“True, but this might,” Shelly said between clenched teeth. She moved her left hand in another sweeping motion, but no fire appeared. I prepared to pitch my own ball of fire at the little witch when vines broke out of the ground and wrapped around my ankles. The plant quickly thickened so they were like ropes snaking up my legs to my knees, holding me trapped to the spot on the stone patio.

“It’s a nice start, but it still won’t hold me for long,” I said with a smirk. Fire ate at the vines, and with a little tug, I pulled free again.

Shelly gave out a little grunt of frustration and took a step back for every step I took toward her into the yard. When the fight started, I had cloaked the yard from the view of any neighbors that might decide to look out their windows. I didn’t want to waste my evening wiping the memories of my darling neighbors because they saw fireballs, or plant life, crawling across my back lawn.

“It’s a nice effort, but you don’t have it in you to attack a person with the skills you have,” I commented, stopping when we were both in the center of the yard. “You have to be willing to kill the creature that is trying to kill you. Not everyone has that instinct.”

“You’re wrong,” she sneered.

I hadn’t a chance to react. Vines burst out of the ground, wrapping around both my arms and legs in the blink of an eye. My entire body was lifted up and my back was slammed into the trunk of the nearest tree. Stars exploded before my eyes and my vision briefly swam, destroying my ability to concentrate. Before I could conjure the thought to burn the vines, I felt a sharp point pressing against my chest just over my heart. I looked down to find a fifth vine shaped like a sharpened staff and pointed directly at my heart. A wrong word from me, a flinch, and Shelly would have me staked.

“Admit it,” she shouted in an angry voice. “I’ve got you.”

Instead of conceding like a sane person would, I started to laugh. My head fell back and hit the trunk of the tree behind me as laughter poured from my throat. “Yes, you’ve got me! Why couldn’t you have done this sooner?”

“They attacked with animals! Helpless animals. It wasn’t their fault they were attacking us.”

“So your answer is to let them kill us?”

“I believe that you should find another way besides killing when it comes to fighting your enemy. Isn’t there another way?”

“No, there isn’t,” said a sad voice from the house. We both looked up to find Cynnia standing in the open doorway and Danaus on the patio with a long knife in his hand. “Mira is right in that there is no other way to deal with my kind. Aurora believes that the only way to save the earth is through the total extermination of all nightwalkers and humans,” she continued, closing the door behind her as she came to stand on the patio beside Danaus.

“What are you doing out here?” I snapped, ignoring the fact that I was still held completely defenseless and in absolutely no shape to start shouting orders.

“She said that she felt someone using a great deal of earth magic out here,” Danaus replied before Cynnia could speak up. “I thought it might be a good idea to check it out.”

“Shelly, put me down.”

“Can I stay?”

Instead of answering, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the vines wrapped around my arms and legs as well as the one that still pressed against my chest. I didn’t like being in this position. I wasn’t sure what Cynnia was capable of, but there was the potential that a single thought from her and I was dead. The vines immediately went up in flames around me, but neither my clothes nor my skin were singed.

Dusting off the last of the debris, I looked over at the earth witch who stood clasping both of her hands before her. She had the power I needed in someone who could handle themselves with the naturi, but she seemed to lack the killer instinct of Danaus or the nightwalkers that surrounded me. There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have seen that as a bad thing, but in my world as it stood now, it was positively fatal. If she wasn’t willing to kill a creature whose only goal was to kill her, she was undoubtedly going to end up dead, and it would be on my shoulders.

Yet, if she knew what was at a stake and still wanted to stay, I could only hope that she would learn to take care of herself before it was too late. There was only so much protection I could offer her.

“Mira?” Shelly pressed softly.

“You protect when I tell you to protect and kill when I tell you to kill. Endanger another one of my people and I’ll kill you myself,” I threatened. It was the closest she was going to get to an acquiescence out of me.

Walking back toward the house, I paused at the edge of the patio and stared at the naturi.

“I heard stories about you,” she volunteered when she realized that I was staring expectantly at her, waiting to hear whatever thoughts were churning away in her brain. “I thought you were a myth, a scary tale my sister Nyx made up to frighten me. I never expected you to be real.”

“Nyx? How many sisters do you have?” I demanded, irritated. I wasn’t exactly pleased to discover that I was a bedtime story for the naturi.

“Two. Aurora and Nyx.”

“And Nerian was your brother,” I said in a low voice that seemed to crawl across the distance separating us.

“Yes,” she replied with a frown marring her young face. “Nerian was the one that hurt you. He’s the reason that you hate us all so much.” My gaze automatically swung up to Danaus, but Cynnia spoke before I could utter the accusation that rested on the tip of my tongue. “No one told me. I can hear it every time you say his name. I’ve only known one other person to speak with such hatred.”

“Who?”

“Aurora, when she’s talking about you.”

I smiled at the young naturi, my eyes undoubtedly bright with my contained laughter. The queen of the naturi not only knew who I was, but she hated me. It was a pleasantly uplifting thought.

“What am I to do with you?” I said aloud, though I was mostly talking to myself.

“Set me free,” Cynnia suggested, raising her chained wrists. The sight of the iron bindings reminded me that while she was a naturi, she had also been a prisoner of her own kind. While I wouldn’t call this an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of situation, it did mean that she might be willing to provide me with some interesting information in an effort to prolong her own life.

“Why were you manacled and spellbound by your own kind?” I demanded.

“They called me a traitor. Said I wanted to betray our kind to the humans and the nightwalkers,” she reluctantly admitted. She dropped her gaze down to her hands, where her long fingers fiddled with the iron chain connecting the two wrist irons.

“Is it true?” Danaus asked before I could.

“No! It’s not like that!” she cried, her head snapping up again to look at him and me.