“Jinx?” she whispered as loud as she dared. Her only answer was a loud crash as something was slammed onto the door. Suddenly, she heard voices coming not from above, but from deeper in the shelter. She ran across the room, using her hand to flatten her leather collar over her chest, smothering the skyfire light, and then hurled herself behind the supply barrels moments before the door she’d been listening at flew open.

Aurora pressed her back into the wall, doing her best to slow her breathing. The silver-blue glow of a skyfire lantern cast shadows on the wall. She crouched lower, and quickly strapped her collar back into place. The thud of multiple sets of feet were drowned out by more noises overhead. Before Aurora could wrap her mind around anything but hiding, the shelter door was pulled wide, washing the room in daylight, and revealing a large brute of a man with one thick, inked arm curled threateningly around Jinx’s small throat.

Aurora slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her gasp. Jinx, on the other hand, looked nonplussed, almost bored, despite the fierce grip of the man who held her. Aurora ducked lower as the man’s eyes roved over the room, and she saw that Jinx was careful not to let her eyes wander.

“Brax!” a deep, feminine voice called out, mere feet away from Aurora. The man’s eyes snapped to attention. The woman asked, “What have you brought me?”

Aurora listened as Jinx was transferred down the ladder from the first man to another. After a series of heavy footsteps down the ladder, the room dropped into darkness once more, save for the skyfire lantern.

Aurora peeked around the barrel enough to see the woman. She was medium height, but plump, with womanly curves. Her sandy brown skin had an otherworldly gleam in the skyfire’s light.

The man called Brax cracked his knuckles and answered, “Found her lurking about outside, fiddling with the plants you use to hide this place.”

“Is that so?” Silence hung in the air after the woman’s question; a dangerous intensity wove through the room. Her voice was layered and deep, but precise and crisp. She took one slow step forward, then another, until she was face-to-face with Jinx. Then she tilted her head to the side, her long dark hair sliding over her shoulder, and said, “Now who, exactly, are you?”

Aurora saw Jinx smile in the glow of the skyfire, utterly fearless in the face of whoever it was they had stumbled upon. Jinx shrugged casually and replied, “No one you need concern yourself with. I mean you no harm. I just … have a fondness for plants.”