Dawnbreaker

Seventeen

Upon waking, I hit my head, banged my knee, and stubbed my toe all at the same time. I had forgotten that I was curled up in a trunk and not stretched out on a bed in Savannah. We had been somewhere over the Atlantic when I finally curled up in the trunk I brought along before hopping on a plane just outside the city. I hated the thing before I even climbed into it. It was cramped, and the only lock was on the exterior. I preferred my metal alloy, fireproof box with its double interior locks and silk lining. Unfortunately, I was once again traveling without my bodyguards, and I didn’t want to worry about Danaus trying to maneuver the coffin while trying to keep an eye on Shelly and Cynnia at the same time. Gabriel had offered to come along, but that would mean bringing Matsui along as well, and I wasn’t prepared to be asleep around my newest guardian. Trust came with time.

Now I was stuck with a trunk that Houdini would have felt at home in. I, on the other hand, needed to get the hell out of the thing before I developed an acute case of claustrophobia. Shifting as best as I could in the tiny space, I put my back into the lid and slowly pushed, testing to see if it was locked. I had the strength to force open the trunk anyway, but no desire to break the one lock on my only protection during the daylight hours for the next couple of days. Luckily, the lid offered no resistance.

Sighing as I stood, I instantly banged my head against a metal rod and wooden plank. Barely stifling a string of curses that were perched on the tip of my tongue, I hunched down and rubbed the top of my head as I looked around. The room was positively tiny, with an extremely low ceiling and a pair of sliding wood doors inches from my face. The curses escaped me this time in a rough whisper as I realized I was standing in a closet. As if waking up in a trunk wasn’t bad enough. No, Danaus had shoved me a closet.

With my teeth clenched, I slipped my fingernails into the crack between the door and the wall. Yet, I froze in the act of sliding the door open when I heard a doorknob turning in the next room. Someone was coming and it wasn’t Danaus. The hunter was already in the room, and by the sound of his soft, steady breathing, asleep on the bed. Sliding the door open without a sound, I smiled to see that the room was pitch-black except for the shaft of light that cut through it as the stranger entered.

The man with short black hair blinked against the inky darkness, waiting for his eyes to finally adjust to the gloom. I wasn’t about to give him the chance. Sweeping soundlessly across the room, I clamped my right hand on his throat and slammed him into the wall behind him. At the same time, I pushed the door shut, plunging the room back into total darkness. I could still see him clearly, but I knew he could see nothing of me.

“What are you doing here?” I snarled.

“I—I’m sorry I’m late,” he stumbled, his speech carrying a thick accent that made his words difficult to understand. “I had trouble getting away from the bar.”

“The bar? What are you talking about? Late for what? Who are you?”

“Let him go, Mira,” Danaus’s calm voice interjected before the man could speak.

Turning my head to the right, I saw Danaus kneeling on the bed, knife in hand. I hadn’t even heard him move.

“He was sneaking into the room,” I said. My grip had not changed. A little tighter and I would crush his windpipe.

“He’s from Themis.”

While not the most reassuring information, it was enough to buy him some time. Releasing the man’s throat, I stepped away, flipping on the overhead light as I walked to the opposite side of the room.

“Mira, this is Eduardo, one of the few Themis contacts in South America and the only one located in Peru,” Danaus explained.

When I reached the far corner of the room, I turned on my heel to face the man. I knew I didn’t look my best, but I hadn’t expected the violence of his reaction. Eduardo attempted to back up, but he was already against the wall so all he achieved was hitting the back of his head. His dark brown eyes widened and he quickly crossed himself with a shaking hand. A string of words escaped him, but they were spoken in neither English nor Spanish. I could only guess it was Quechua or one of the Highland dialects, but couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that those hushed words teased at memories in my brain of nights spent on Machu Picchu, sounding too similar to the dialect used by the Incans centuries ago. They had watched as I was tortured by the naturi, their hushed conversations swirling around me.

“Stop it!” I screamed, pressing the heels of my palms against my ears, wishing I could just as easily blot out the memories. “Shut up!” I closed my eyes and stepped backward until my back touched the wall. A second later my eyes popped open at the sound of a muffled footstep. Danaus was standing before me, a concerned look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded when I dropped my hands from my ears.

“Why is he here?” I asked, ignoring his question. He didn’t need to know I was terrified of old ghosts.

“He was to wake me before sunset,” Danaus replied. A frown still hovered over his lips, and I could see the worry in his eyes. I knew his thoughts without delving into his mind. He was wondering if I was finally going insane. And maybe I was. Being able to count the final minutes to your demise had to drive any creature a little mad. In just a matter of nights I would once again be standing on the mountain retreat of the Incans, the naturi on one side and the nightwalkers lined up on the other side, with me standing in the middle. The one hope of the nightwalkers to put an end to this war. My only complaint was that it was likely to kill me in the process.

“Send him away,” I whispered, letting my eyes fall shut. No words were spoken. The only sounds were the quick shuffle of feet, the rattle of the doorknob, and finally the slam of the door. Opening my eyes, I pushed away from the wall. Danaus stepped away from me, allowing me to walk over and slump in the only chair in the room.

Sitting in the sagging cushion chair with the faded green fabric, I let my eyes slowly take in the tiny room as he sat on the edge of the bed. Next to the closet was a rickety bureau that I had a feeling was made of pressboard instead of the oak it was supposed to resemble. A matching nightstand squatted next to the bed that dominated the room with its loud striped spread. There was one other door in the room, which I presumed led to the bathroom. The room was neat and clean, but it had a worn and weary feel to it, as if it had seen too many occupants in its long history. The one appeal it seemed to possess was the fact that there were no windows.

“You look like hell,” Danaus announced, shattering the silence. My eyes jerked back to his face to find him frowning at me.

“You sleep in a trunk shoved in a closet and see how you come out looking,” I snapped, not caring how bitchy I sounded. My gaze fell down to my T-shirt and leather pants, and I absently tried to smooth the wrinkles, but it was a futile gesture. I had a feeling they were now permanent.

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied calmly, unruffled by my tone. I could well imagine how I looked. I needed to feed again. I should have fed before we boarded the plane in Savannah, but there was a problem with getting my jet off the ground. I’d been forced to make a series of unplanned phone calls to get everything in line again so we could quickly leave, which left no time for feeding. It had been too long since I last fed. It also didn’t help that I had been injured on Blackbeard Island, leaving me feeling drained and edgy, in addition to the magic training I’d endured the previous night.

Fear also had its talons deeply embedded in my flesh. If I were still alive, I would have been hyperventilating while my heart raced within my chest. As it was, I fought the urge to rub my palms on my knees, but I no longer sweated. I knew what Danaus saw. I was ghostly pale and my lavender eyes were wide with a near permanent glow. And if he looked close enough, he’d see the slight tremble in my fingers.

“I need to feed,” I admitted, trying to shrug off the feeling that was like a conflagration building in my veins and blotting out rational thought. With a somewhat extravagant sigh, I put my left elbow on the arm of the chair and rested my head in my hand. “Where are we?”

“Cuzco.”

“What?” Bolting upright, I lurched to the edge of my chair. The sudden movement caused Danaus to jump to his feet, his right hand instinctively reaching for a weapon. I flinched at the defensive move and forced myself to slowly sit back. Either my earlier outburst or my appearance had the hunter on edge despite our continued truce. Or worse, he could feel my starvation. He had admitted as much when we were in Crete together, commenting on how the hunger burned through his mind as well when we were together. We were both dancing on the edge of the knife now, working together simply because we were desperate, but trust was thin on the ground.

“We are supposed to be at the lodge at the foot of the Machu Picchu ruins,” I continued in an even voice when he sat on the edge of the bed again. “Or at the very least in Aguas Calientes. We should be closer to the mountain.”

“We’re lucky we’re in Cuzco,” he said, his shoulders slumping wearily. “The plane was redirected to Lima at the last minute due to storms in Cuzco. After a three-hour delay, we left for Cuzco. The landing was rough due to high winds. It took another hour to get out of the airport. By then it was late afternoon. All the trains into the Sacred Valley were on their way back to Cuzco.”

“And nothing else was headed toward Machu Picchu?”

“This isn’t America,” he reminded me grimly. “There are only two trains to Aguas Calientes, and both leave before seven A.M.”

“What about renting a car and driving?”

“I checked. The road goes only as far as Ollantaytambo. From there you have to take the train the last two hours to Aguas Calientes.”

“How can you run a country like this?” I shouted, pushing out of my chair. I shoved both of my hands through my tangled hair as I paced the room. The heels of my boots tromped across the wood floor, sending the noise banging against the thin walls, so I was now sure that our neighbors in the next room could hear my growing anxiety.

“Mira, you’ve got the Andes on one side and the Amazon rain forest on the other. We’re lucky we’re here,” Danaus patiently stated.

I dropped my hands back to my sides. “You’re right.” We had another problem brewing that needed to be taken care of anyway. “Where are Shelly and Cynnia?”

“In the next room,” he said with a jerk of his head.

“Any problems?” I asked as I headed for the door, Danaus following close behind me.

“None. Both were perfectly behaved. In fact…” His voice faded before he could finish the thought.

I stopped in the hallway beside him, my body blocking him from heading to the room that held our two companions. “What?”

Danaus frowned and looked away, his gaze traveling the length of the hallway before finally settling on a point just over my shoulder. “I had no choice. At one point I had to take off her shackles in an effort to get her through security. My bigger concern was making sure that they didn’t search your trunk. Shelly couldn’t shield their minds from both the iron shackles and the trunk.”

“So you freed her?” I gasped, struggling to keep my voice down in the public area. I wanted to shake him. Had he lost his mind? I could understand the circumstances that he found himself in, but still, he set free our prisoner! I fought the urge to shove my fingers through my hair and stomp down the hall. Instead I settled for just curling my hands into fists at my sides and gritting my teeth.

“I had no choice. She was well-behaved the entire time. She helped cloak us. We got through security faster with her help.”

“And I’m sure that she also alerted her own kind to her presence in Cuzco,” I snapped irritably.

“Possibly,” Danaus admitted with a shrug as he pulled another hotel room key out of his pocket. “But I thought that’s what we wanted. A confrontation with Rowe before the sacrifice? If she’s alerted them that she’s in the country, then they should come running for her.”

“And have they?”

“The naturi are close. In the city, but not one has come close to the hotel from what I have been able to tell.”

“You were also asleep.”

“Because I don’t think she told them she’s here.”

“Why?”

He knocked once on the thin hotel room door before inserting the key. As he turned the knob, he looked over his shoulder at me, a dark look filling his deep blue eyes. “Because she looks worse than you.”

Surprised by his comment, I wordlessly followed the hunter into the small hotel room that looked identical to ours with the exception of a small window in the wall opposite the door. Shelly sat on the bed with her back against the headboard, a fingernail file slowly sculpting each nail on her left hand. Cynnia sat on the ground in the corner, as far as she could get from both the door and the window. Her arms were wrapped around her bent knees, and her shoulders were painfully stiff. The iron shackles once again graced her slender wrists. There was the slightest jingling of metal in the air, as if her hands were trembling.

“You’re still here,” I said with a note of surprise filling my voice.

“Where else would I be?” Her soft voice was little more than a whisper of wind. Her normally pale, pearlescent skin was sallow now, almost gray, and her bright green eyes were flat as they jerked from one end of the room to the other.

“From what I hear, you could have run off to meet up with your own kind. They’re crawling all over the place like a bunch of cockroaches. You could have rejoined your herd.”

“For what purpose? Fall in with another group that wants me dead? What if Rowe believes what they are saying about me? He’ll kill me on the spot. Or worse…” She paused, pushing one shaking hand through her stringy brown hair. “…he could hand me over to Aurora when she makes it through the door.”

“First off, Aurora is not getting through the door. That door is staying closed!” I said, walking to stand in front of her. When I was less than a foot away, I knelt down and leaned forward on the knuckles of my left hand, causing her to press farther into the corner. “And second, why would you want to stay with a group that plans to kill you as well?”

“Because at least you still need me,” she said, lifting her chin slightly.

I backed off a bit, but remained kneeling in front of her, a frown toying with the corners of my mouth.

“Not at the risk of my own life,” I said. “I’ve no reason to protect you at the risk of my own life, and so far, you’ve given me little reason to keep you alive.”

“I protected you while you slept!” she cried, leaning forward. “The sun was high and those men would have demanded to check the trunk Danaus was carrying if I had not cloaked you.”

“Why do it?”

“You mean other than the fact that Danaus would have cut my heart out the moment I revealed your location?” she said, her mouth twisting into an ugly frown. “I need you. I need your protection from the rest of my kind. Particularly Rowe. He’s my sister’s mate. If she’s trying to kill me, I expect that he would happily follow her orders.”

My grin spread slowly across my face, stretching to reveal my perfect white fangs. “Then I’m going to need more from you than a simple cloaking spell.”

Cynnia sighed heavily and lowered her head so her forehead touched her knees. Her voice was muffled when she spoke, but I could easily make out what she said. “There are dozens of naturi here. More than a hundred. They’re in the city and out in the mountains. They are everywhere.”

“And you felt that when Danaus took off the manacles?”

“I can feel them with the manacles on. I sensed it the moment my feet touched the ground.” She raised her head and met my gaze, revealing glassy green eyes. She was looking at me, but I had a feeling that she didn’t actually see me. “The earth is saturated with power here. I can feel it everywhere. In the earth, in the air, in the animals that lurk in all the shadows and in the surrounding forests. Rowe has more than enough power to open the door between the two worlds. He has the power to completely tear down the walls and destroy the cage that held us. The mountain called Machu Picchu may be the pinnacle, but the entire valley area is overflowing with energy. The nightwalkers haven’t a chance if you expect to take on the naturi directly here.”

I sat back on my heels for a moment, staring at my captive. She didn’t look triumphant like I would expect when someone was prophesying the complete annihilation of my kind when we attempted to take on the naturi. Instead she looked sad, almost broken, as she sat on the floor, her shoulder slumped and her eyes nearly closed as tears shimmered there in the faint light.

“Danaus, do you still have those tree pictures that you showed me?” I asked, not looking up from Cynnia. She seemed willing to talk, and it honestly felt like she was telling me the truth.

“What?”

I twisted around to look at the hunter, who was staring down at me with a confused look on his face, his fists resting on his hips. He looked as if he was prepared to attack, but at the moment I wasn’t sure who he intended to protect—me or Cynnia.

“Months ago in the bar, you showed me a stack of pictures with symbols in trees. Do you still have them?”

“Yes, in my bag,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the room we were currently sharing.

“Go get them.”

Danaus looked at me strangely for a moment, then left the room to fetch the pictures. Behind me, I heard Shelly slide off the bed and walk over to where Cynnia and I still sat on the floor.

“Is there something that I can do? After we arrived at the hotel, Danaus said that I wasn’t to use a sleep spell on Nia.”

“Nia?” I asked, looking from Shelly back to Cynnia, who gave me a weak smile, shrugged one shoulder.

“It’s a family nickname,” she admitted, then gave a soft sigh and shook her head a little. “Actually, only Nyx ever used it. I don’t mind Shelly calling me Nia,” Cynnia continued. “She’s been nice to me.”

I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes to keep from snapping irritably at both of them. Cynnia was a prisoner. I kept repeating this, but it seemed like I was the only one who was actually listening to this tale. She wasn’t a puppy or a goldfish that we were keeping. We didn’t need to be establishing a friendship with a creature that I ultimately planned to kill.

“If you didn’t use a sleep spell, what’s the magic that I can feel in the air?” I asked Shelly when I was sure I could keep my voice even and calm.

“A cloaking spell.”

“It’s not working. I had no trouble spotting her when I entered the room,” I said with a frown.

“It’s not a cloaking spell against nightwalkers. It’s only supposed to work on the naturi,” Shelly corrected. “It’s like a special kind of glamour.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Glamour doesn’t work on naturi. And when did you learn a spell that worked specifically against the naturi?”

“Nia taught it to me.”

My head snapped back to look at the naturi that was still seated in front of me, a tentative smile touching her pale lips. “She needed help,” she said, “and I can’t rely on you completely to protect me. I know a few tricks. If I can’t use them, I don’t see any harm in teaching Shelly.”

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of Cynnia teaching Shelly magic when I wasn’t around. But then, it wouldn’t really matter if I was present or not. I didn’t know enough magic to recognize whether Cynnia was truly teaching Shelly a cloaking spell or possibly a tracking spell. Much to my chagrin, I actually had to trust Cynnia, and I didn’t like it.

Danaus chose that moment to enter the hotel room again, saving me from making a rude comment.

“Are there any naturi in or near the hotel?” I demanded as soon as he closed and locked the door again. I felt his powers rush out of his body and fill the room before pushing out to encompass the entire structure. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my own powers, connecting with his in such a way that I rode the energy out of the hotel. I couldn’t sense anything beyond the scattering of humans and the nightwalkers in the city, but for now I needed the feel of his warm energy to soothe my frazzled nerves.

You need to feed, he said in my mind while our powers mingled.

Soon, I whispered back, not needing the reminder.

It’s becoming a distraction.

I can handle it.

You’re not the only one that’s being distracted.

A part of me wanted to smile at the reminder that Danaus could sense my hunger as well. The stronger the blood lust grew, the more difficult it became for him to be around me. He never told me exactly how it affected him, but I was willing to bet that the consequences were not happy ones. For me, it fed my more predatory side, making me more violent and more willing to take unnecessary risks. And then the feeding itself frequently turned into something sexual with the right partner, though it wasn’t necessary.

Without the blood lust clawing at the inside of my brain, feeding was nothing more exciting that grabbing a hamburger at a local fast-food location. However, when the world before you was covered in a haze of blood, the act of feeding could be positively orgasmic. It definitely made me wonder about my dear Danaus.

“There are a few naturi a couple blocks away, but Cynnia is the only naturi that I can sense in the hotel,” he finally said. “And I can’t technically sense her.”

“The pictures?” I asked, reaching over my shoulder toward him.

Danaus slapped the sheaf of color pictures into my open hand. The edges were wrinkled and worn from their journey. So far, they had traveled from Savannah, Aswan, London, Venice, Heraklion, and then back to Savannah again. It was amazing they had survived.

“Danaus, I want you to take Shelly to find some food for her and Cynnia. The naturi is starting to look a little pale, and I don’t need her dying before I’m ready,” I said, my gaze never wavering from Cynnia as she watched me.

“I don’t like this, Mira,” he said, making no effort to hide his disapproval. I could feel his worry and anger beating against my back as he stood near me.

“I don’t expect you to,” I snapped. “Just do it and be quick about it. I promise not to kill her without you here.”

“Mira, please don’t talk like that. Nia has been cooperating with your every request,” Shelly argued. “Maybe we can find another way.”

“Shelly, get out of here. Take Danaus with you. If you want to be sure that ‘Nia’ remains safe, then I suggest that you don’t dawdle.”

No one spoke again. There was only the sound of two pairs of footsteps and the slam of the door. I smirked at Cynnia, who was watching me, no expression on her weary face.

“Alone at last,” I said.

“You’re not going to kill me,” Cynnia boldly announced, lifting her chin in a moment of bravery.

I laughed at her, tossing my head back as I resettled myself on the floor with my legs crossed before me. “Of course I’m going to kill you eventually. But for now, you seem willing to help me, and if you haven’t guessed yet, I’ll take all the help I can get to keep your sister Aurora locked in her own realm. I’ll also take any help I can get against Rowe, so it seems we’re on the same side.”

“Like you and Danaus. He’s a nightwalker hunter, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but there’s a very distinct difference between you and Danaus.” Smiling again, I leaned forward so my elbows rested on my knees. “I don’t hate Danaus with every fiber of my being. What happens between Danaus and I is still up in the air. When this is over, I’d be willing to let him walk away. You? Not so much.”

“So, what can I do to prolong my life?” Cynnia asked.

“Take a look at these.” I handed over the pictures of the trees that Danaus had shown me just a few months ago, the ones that started me down this long horrible journey. There were twelve different pictures of twelve different types of trees. Each tree had a different symbol carved into it. Neither Danaus nor I had been able to figure out what it meant, but now we at least had a naturi at our disposal. The mystery might finally be solved.

Cynnia slowly moved, crossing her legs before her as well so she could more easily spread the photos out on the floor before her. She flipped through each one, her eyes pausing over a symbol for less than a second before moving on to the next.

“Trees,” she murmured. That had pretty much been my reaction, but I hadn’t expected it out of the naturi. This was their handwriting. It had to mean something to her.

“I noticed that the pictures were of trees as well,” I said between clenched teeth as I struggled to keep my temper under control. “I was hoping you could enlighten us as to what the symbols meant.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have said that she was toying with me.

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure? How can you not be sure?” I grabbed up a few of the photos and shook them at her. “This is your language, isn’t it? Your writing?”

“Yes, but some of them are just symbols used in spells. I’m not that strong a spell weaver. I know enough to protect myself, it’s all I was ever taught.”

And suddenly that struck me as odd. Why hadn’t Aurora seen to it that her youngest sister was well-versed in their own magical arts? Cynnia had never tried to physically attack us, and she had cooperated with Danaus during her one chance to escape when her manacles were off. Had Aurora purposefully kept her little sister weak? It was a thought I was content to let stew for a while.

Spreading the twelve pictures out between us in three neat little rows, I drew in a slow, steadying breath. I caught a whiff of her own unique scent this time over the stale scent of dust and some kind of cleaning product from the nearby bathroom. She smelled of spring rain and yellow tulips. “Can you read any of this?” I asked, feeling a little calmer.

“Yes, some of these are words, but I don’t know what order any of this goes in.” She picked up one picture that looked like a birch tree. “This one means ‘open,’ and this one means ‘welcome,’” she continued, picking up another picture of what appeared to be a type of palm tree. Cynnia put those two pictures aside and scanned over the rest. “This one over here refers to a ‘weary traveler,’” she said, putting aside a picture of blue spruce.

As she pulled pictures out of the three rows, I carefully rearranged them before her so she could clearly see each one. None of it made sense to me so far, but I was hoping that as we identified more pieces of this puzzle, a picture would become clear.

“There isn’t a clear translation for this one between our two languages,” she said, pulling up one that looked like a maple tree.

“Can you give me something close?”

“Maybe…‘forgotten path.’ Or ‘hidden road.’”

That didn’t feel particularly reassuring, and a knot twisted in my stomach. I had yet to guess what the naturi were up to with this assortment of pictures, and I felt more anxious the closer we drew to the evening of the equinox and the coming sacrifice. Rowe had something special planned up his sleeve.

With the pictures whittled down to two rows of four, I noticed that Cynnia had stopped picking them up, her brow furrowed in concentration as she stared at each one. Every once in a while she would rearrange them into a particular order and then shake her head again, as whatever she was looking for failed to appear.

“Is there anything else here that you recognize?”

She sighed, her eyes slowly traveling over the remaining eight pictures. I noticed that her hand trembled slightly when she reached for one picture that was on my far left. I had always hated that picture. It was hard to tell from the darkness of the image, but it looked like the symbol had been carved into the dark, thick bark of a live oak tree, just like one of the hundreds of live oaks that dotted the historical district of my beloved Savannah.

“This one means ‘home,’” she said, then shook her head. “But not just the idea of home as the place where you live. It’s home as in Earth—our home.”

Nodding, I took the picture from her and added it to the pile that she had already identified. “What about the rest?”

“Just magical symbols. They don’t equal words, ideas, or phrases to me. They’re used for some kind of spell.”

“Spell? Not message?”

“I doubt it’s a message of any kind unless the naturi on this side have developed their own kind of shortened language or base of symbols. It’s possible, but it looks like these trees are from all over the globe. You would need to see most if not all of the message to make sense of it. I’ve seen it all and it doesn’t make sense to me,” she admitted. She picked up one of the pictures that she couldn’t identify and shook her head before putting it back on the floor. “I’ve thought about the symbol and what it resembles, and the potential relation to the type of tree that it’s in, but I’m coming up with nothing. Why are some easily identifiable words and the rest is just nonsense?”

“I need answers, Cynnia, not more questions,” I snapped, resting my head against my hand while placing my elbow on my right knee.

“Sorry.”

I glared up at her, curling my lip up to reveal one of my fangs. She quickly held up her manacled hands as if to ward me off.

“I’m serious. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with this. Helping you means that I get to stay alive a little bit longer.”

“So you’re willing to sell out your own kind just so you can live a little while longer?”

“No,” she quickly said, then frowned as she looked down at the iron manacles on her wrists. “Not really.” She drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, holding back tears that I saw suddenly rise to the surface. “I’ve not told you anything that would endanger my people. They’ve cast some kind of spell using symbols in trees, but I can’t tell you what the spell is. It’s honestly beyond my knowledge.”

“And if it wasn’t? If you could identify the spell, would you tell me?” I asked, straightening my back as I watched her closely.

“I—I don’t know,” Cynnia replied. “I don’t know what I would do. Yes, they’re my people and I know I should do everything within my power to protect them. And according to our laws, that means killing any nightwalker or human that we come into contact with. Yet, they’ve called me a traitor when I’ve done nothing to betray them.” She shook her head and a tear slipped out from beneath her right eyelid, which she quickly wiped away with a jangle of chains. “They left me for dead, to be killed by the infamous Fire Starter, because they were too afraid to kill their queen’s sister. They left you to do their dirty work, sure you would give me a tortured and gruesome end.”

“So the question becomes, why protect them?” I asked. It was a question I’d had to answer myself on more than one occasion during the past couple of months. And every time I did, I was left wondering if I had made a mistake.

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “And what exactly is the ‘right thing’? That’s the true sticking point in this mess. I truly wish you luck in figuring that out. I’m still looking myself.”

There was a knock at the door, and my hand instantly went to the knife at my side even though I had already sensed Danaus’s approach down the hall, with Shelly following directly behind him.

“Mira, I won’t lie to you,” Cynnia quickly said before Danaus could come into the room. “If it comes down to telling you something that would betray and hurt my people and lying to you, I will simply refuse to tell you.”

“And then I’ll kill you.”

“There are worse reasons to die,” she said.