"Then why do you talk to her at all?"

She smiled helplessly. "I have no idea. They're like . . . they're like Hero and Claudio. The Blandersons of Blandville."

"Then don't answer," David said reasonably, snapping the case back on the computer, then zipping the tools into their own case. "We don't get to choose how we're born, Miranda, and very rarely how we die; but we get to choose how we live. Life is too short to spend in dread and guilt."

She cocked her head to one side and gave him a look. "You do realize that you lack any sort of credibility in the 'life is too short' cliche department."

"Conceded," he replied, rising. "But I'm still right. Shall we?"

Miranda sighed. "Now that we're one for one on sharing our life stories, I guess we should get to the fun part of the evening."

She slipped her laptop back into its bag and slung it over her shoulder, following him out of his workroom and down the hallway. She expected him to take her back to the suite, but he headed in the opposite direction, stopping in front of a locked door that was almost hidden in a corridor.

Like most doors in the Haven, it had an electronic lock. She had watched the Elite hold their coms up to the locks to open them; apparently the locks were programmed to check security clearance before admitting someone. David did the same, and the red light on the lock changed to green.

Whatever she was expecting from the room, what she found wasn't it. Peering in she saw nothing but two armchairs, just like the ones near the fireplace in his room, but there was no hearth here; in fact aside from the chairs there was no furniture at all, and the floor was bare of rugs. There were no windows and only the one door, no decoration of any kind.

When she crossed the threshold, her knees almost buckled. It felt like walking through a wall of water; for a second she couldn't breathe as power engulfed her, pushing at her nonexistent boundaries like a living thing trying to learn her shape.

She started to fight against it, but something dragged her forward-David's hand.

On the other side of the threshold, the air felt normal, if a little too clear. Looking back at the doorway it almost seemed there was a veil of . . . not light, but diffusion, again like water.

"It's a shield," she realized. "I've never seen anything so powerful."

He nodded and gestured for her to take a chair. "This is a protected room devoted to psychic training. There are several in the Haven, but this one belongs only to me. Primes have used it for centuries, so the walls are imbued with energy that keeps out unwanted influences and keeps in whatever we do here. That way if you lose control, no one outside this room will be hurt, and no one can attack you while you're vulnerable."

"Why are we working in here this time instead of in the suite?"

"Last time was all groundwork. This time, I'm going to lower your shield, and you're going to rebuild it. If we tried that in the suite, you would have every mind in the Haven running through yours."

"A hundred vampires in my head," Miranda said, feeling cold. "Bad idea."

"Precisely."

They settled into their chairs. David looked to his left, and the lights dimmed slightly, mimicking the soft ambience of candlelight. There were no candles-no open flames, no lamps that could be knocked over, nothing to break or explode. She wondered if he had learned to work his telekinesis in a room like this.

She still hadn't decided whether it was weirder that he was a vampire or that he could move things with his mind.

Actually the weird thing was that she now had a relativity scale for weirdness, and that just being a vampire wasn't automatically at the upper limit of that scale.

"Let's begin," he said. "Ground."

She did so, first slowing her breath, then connecting her energy to the earth beneath her, following the movement of inhalation and exhalation with her awareness. The world slowed down, and the agitation she was starting to feel about facing another lesson grew still, not disappearing, but no longer grasping at the limelight.

"Very good," David told her, warm approval in his voice.

She smiled in spite of herself. "I've been practicing."

"All right. Now, keep your breathing steady, and try not to clench your energy. Act as though you're still totally shielded and remember, in this space you're safe."

She nodded and did her best to stay calm. She was familiar enough with energy now that she could essentially see what he was doing: He parted the barrier around her mind like a curtain and drew it back, leaving her completely unshielded for the first time since she'd come here.

Panic seized her. There were no voices, no marauding emotions from outside, but it felt so . . . exposed. She tried to keep her ground, but she was a rodent in the middle of an open field with hawks circling overhead; the vastness of the sky and the need to hide were overwhelming.

"Put it back," she moaned, clapping her hands over her ears. "I can't. I can't."

"Breathe, Miranda. In and out. Come back to your breath. There's nothing here that will harm you. I won't allow it. You know that."

"No, no . . . please . . . it's too much. Put it back!"

A note of hysteria entered her voice. For two weeks she'd had the comfort of his power standing between her and the madness, but now it was just her will, and she knew it wasn't strong enough. She'd never been strong enough. Just like her mother . . .

"You can do it. Listen to me, Miranda. You can."

"I can't . . . I can't . . ."

The protected room wasn't enough. Any second now the walls would fall and the voices would pour into her, and that would be the end of it-she'd go mad, she'd die, and never have that precious silence again- Heart racing, gasping for breath as if she were drowning, she flailed in her chair, panic so thick and black around her that she could no longer hear anything, or see, and there was nothing left but screaming.

She came back to herself slowly, barely even aware that she was once again shielded and no longer cold.

For a moment she kept her eyes shut, listening. There was a drum beating against her ear, and everything else was so quiet . . . she clung to the tentative peace jealously for as long as it lasted before awareness crept back in.

She blinked and tried to make sense of her surroundings. She was still in the training room, but everything seemed very tall all of a sudden, and the chair was hard beneath her butt.

Floor. Not chair.

Miranda moved her hand over smooth fabric, squeezing slightly, feeling muscle beneath. There was an arm around her. She was leaning into someone's shoulder.

She drew back and looked into his stormy blue eyes. "I'm sorry," she said hoarsely.

One of his hands was in her hair, toying with a few strands. "You have to do this," he said to her softly. "You can't stay here forever."

"Are you sure?" she kidded wearily.

Something passed through his eyes, and he sighed. "I'm sure." The hand moved down to her arm, then lifted to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. "No one can save you except you, Miranda."

"You saved me once."

He smiled briefly. "No, I didn't. I only brought you in out of the rain."

"But what if . . . what if I learn how to do this, and I get better, and I go back to Austin, and . . ."

"There's no way to know the future except to step into it. But I promise you, I won't let you go until I'm sure you'll be safe."

She laid her head back on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Don't let go yet."

Miranda sat on her bed with her guitar, her fingers absently plucking a few notes, her heart, as her mother would have said long ago, as low as the rent on a burning building.

She stared off into space without thinking for the better part of an hour before a knock at the door made her look up.

"Come in," she said listlessly.

Almond-shaped eyes and shining black hair announced Faith's arrival, as did the light glinting on her weapons.

The Second looked her up and down and said, "He wasn't kidding. You do look like hell."

Miranda shrugged. "Just losing my will to live, thanks."

"I take it the lesson ended badly."

She rested her chin on her guitar. "You might say that."

"Try again tomorrow," Faith said. "This kind of thing takes practice-nobody gets it right overnight."

"I think I'm hopeless."

"You are if you say you are. If I were you, I'd say something else."

Miranda wanted to throw her guitar on the floor in a fit of pique, but the instrument didn't deserve that kind of treatment. There was nothing in the room she was willing to break, either-the servants would just end up cleaning up after her, and she didn't like that. "Everybody around here is just full of clever advice," Miranda muttered irritably. "It's like a house full of Goth Yodas."

"I'm not here to give you advice. I was thinking more along the lines of a distraction." A hint of mischief appeared in Faith's eyes. "Want to see something fun?"

"Only if it involves getting blind drunk."

"Come on," Faith urged, taking the guitar from her and putting it in its case, then pulling her to her feet. "Grab your sweater and get moving or I'll be late."

Miranda knew a lost argument when she came up against one. She didn't waste her remaining energy protesting.

For such a small woman, Faith covered a lot of ground very quickly. Miranda had to practically run to keep up with her as they left the Prime's wing of the Haven, then left the building itself. Miranda was familiar with most of the garden paths by now, but Faith took her along a different one, leading toward one of the larger outbuildings.

"Now, you have to stay where I put you, and keep out of sight. Got that?"

"But where are we going?"

Faith opened a locked side door with her com and ushered Miranda inside.

"Over here."

At first it was too dark to see, but she could definitely hear; there were the sounds of a crowd, maybe dozens of people, above and before her, milling around and talking among themselves. Slivers of light penetrated the gloom, and Miranda puzzled out that she was under some sort of bleachers. She chose not to think of the possibility of spiders.

Faith tugged her arm and maneuvered her into a corner where a larger pool of light was falling. "Stand here, and you can look without being spotted. Can you see?"

Miranda looked out through the gap in the slots at the huge room bordered on all sides by bleachers like the ones she was hiding under. It strongly resembled a gym, down to the geometric figures painted on its floor-there was a central circle and several marked-off circles beyond it.

"Vampires play basketball?"

"No, no. Those are sparring rings. This is where the Elite holds group combat training. If you look over to your right, you'll see the latest batch of cadets."

She did. Seven people stood more or less in a line, some looking very nervous. They were all dressed identically in a simpler version of Faith's uniform, dyed gray instead of black. None of them wore a com. There were four women and three men of a range of physical ages and ethnicities, but the one thing they all had in common was that they were in fantastic shape.

"Stay here until I come back for you," Faith instructed.

Then she was gone before Miranda could ask what the hell was going on.

At the far end of the room, a pair of double doors swung open, and Faith marched in, flanked by several more Elite. The room fell silent.

Miranda scanned the crowd. Were all of them here? How many Elite were there, anyway? If there were that many working for the Prime, how many damned vampires lived in Austin, and how in the world did they all stay fed?

"Welcome," Faith addressed the assembly. Her voice carried easily throughout the broad expanse of the room. "Honored Elite, you have been called here tonight to witness the final selection of three new brothers in arms. Each of you has stood here awaiting this moment, and each of you triumphed. Tonight we cheer the triumph of the new guard."

The crowd applauded.

The Second turned her attention to the seven recruits. "Twenty of you began this trial a month ago. Now you are seven. In an hour you will be three, and you will join the best of the best in the Shadow World. You will be inducted as full Elite warriors, pledging your lives and your loyalty to the Prime of this territory.

"To be a part of the Court is to be exalted among vampire kind. Allies of the Signet have always been the strongest, fiercest, and most cunning. To be Elite is to stand out even from the exalted-we are the Prime's hundred swords. Those of you who are victorious tonight will take your places in an Elite that is the envy of the world."

Miranda watched Faith, fascinated by how utterly she held the others in her sway. Not one dared to look away from her, and they didn't look like they wanted to; if they were the best, Faith was better than the best, and seeing her among them, Miranda finally saw it. The weapons didn't make the Second-the Second made the weapons.

She envied Faith. She envied them all their shared purpose and strength.

When her speech concluded, the Elite applauded again, this time with cheering, and Miranda could feel the sincerity of their shouts. These weren't a mindless army of soldiers just obeying orders. They believed in something. They were willing to die to defend their leader and their home.

The crowd went quiet again as the trial began. First, the recruits were pitted against each other; there was some sort of rating system at work, like at the Olympics, but Miranda had no idea what went into it. As the recruits fought, Faith and several other Elite observed them, making notes.

Right away Miranda could see two standout warriors among them. The first was a middle-aged-looking black man, the second a rail-thin strawberry blonde who looked like she was about sixteen. They had radically different fighting styles, but both were a blur of motion with and without blades.

After about fifteen minutes Faith called a halt to the sparring, which Miranda realized had mostly been a warm-up; now Faith ordered one of the recruits into the main ring, and one of the Elite went up against him.

Miranda had never been athletic. She'd taken ballroom dancing in college on a lark with her boyfriend, but that was about it. She watched the fighting mesmerized, the graceful figures like a ballet-well, a ballet with swords. The clang of metal on metal was sharp and rhythmic, the vampires moving faster than in any movie martial arts she'd ever seen.

Her heart was in her throat, constricted with strange regret. Things would have been so different now if she had known how to do any of this that night in the alley. She imagined herself as the strawberry blonde in the ring, spinning around to kick a man in the stomach, knocking the blade out of his hand. She imagined what it would be like to be so strong that no man would ever try to hurt her again.

The crowd oohed and ahhed as if they were watching a football game. Adrenaline was thick in the air.

The young-looking recruit sent her opponent to the ground bleeding. A cheer went up.

Faith nodded to her, and the girl stopped, bowed, and returned to the line where the others stood.

It went on like that until each of the recruits had fought one of the Elite. Then Faith spent a moment conferring with the black-clad warriors, some of whom looked a bit worse for wear, some of whom had won their matches-and announced two cuts from the list. Miranda didn't see where the two eliminated recruits went; they were there one minute and gone the next. Hopefully they were just escorted off the premises and not anything more sinister.

Miranda was pleased to see that both of her picks were still in the running. She wondered if any of the Elite had bets going; this was way too much like Ass-Kicking American Idol for them not to.

The best was yet to come. Next, the five remaining recruits had to face Faith.

All at once.

Each of them took up a position around the edge of the central sparring ring, with Faith in the center.