Diantha shook her head, and the gelled spikes of her bright platinum hair trembled all over her head, making her look like an agitated porcupine. “Uncle has to stay neutral,” she said clearly. “Nopapernophonecallsnoemails. That’s why he sent me.”

Cataliades had really stuck his neck out for me. No, he’d stuck Diantha’s neck out. “What if they capture you, Diantha?” I said.

She shrugged a bony shoulder. “Godownfightin’,” she said. Her face grew sad. Though I can’t read demon minds in the same way I can read human ones, any fool could tell Diantha was thinking about her sister, Gladiola, who had died from the sweep of a vampire’s sword. But after a second, Diantha looked simply lethal. “Burn’em,” Diantha said. I sat up and raised my eyebrows to show I didn’t understand.

Diantha turned her hand up and looked at the palm. A tiny flicker of flame hovered right above it.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said. I was not a little impressed. I reminded myself to always stay on Diantha’s good side.

“Little,” she said, shrugging. I deduced from that that Diantha could make only a small flame, not a large one. Gladiola must have been taken completely by surprise by the vampire who’d killed her, because vampires were flammable, much more so than humans.

“Do fairies burn like vamps?”

She shook her head. “Buteverything’llburn,” she said, her voice certain and serious. “Sooner, later.”

I suppressed a shiver. “Do you want a drink or something to eat?” I asked.

“Naw.” She got up from the ground, dusted off her brilliant outfit. “Igottago.” She patted me on the head and turned, and then she was gone, running faster than any deer.

I lay back down on the chaise to think about all this. Now Niall had warned me, Mr. Cataliades had warned me, and I felt well and truly scared.

But the warnings, though timely, didn’t give me any practical information about how to guard against this threat. It might materialize at any time or in any place, as far as I could tell. I could assume the enemy fairies wouldn’t storm Merlotte’s and haul me out of there, since the fae were so secretive; but other than that, I didn’t have a clue about what form the attack would take or how to defend myself. Would locked doors keep fairies out? Did they have to be granted entry, like vampires? No, I couldn’t recall having to tell Niall he could come in, and he’d been to the house.