How many surprises does this day hold? My aunt being not who she is. Candice letting on more than she said she knows. Nina being my aunt's spy. My magic teacher actually sympathising with the lost causes. What next? Is Jinx going to say that he actually is super-talented at pyronetics? (Which he currently isn't.)

I take in the sight. My magic teacher, with his forest-green hair and thick glasses, his tall build and slender fingers. Cocking his head to the side as he approaches my aunt—or false aunt, I should say—and Nina.

They're completely taken aback by his sudden appearance, and this time it's so real that I feel sure that it's not an act.

A sudden sense of elation rushes through me. He could help us. He has magic; maybe we do stand a chance.

My fingers clench Jinx's, trying to ignore the fact that we are literally holding hands.

"What on earth is going on here?" he asks in his quiet, stern voice.

"We've got Aliumites trying to take over Ether," says my false aunt, glee shaking her tone.

His face hardens, and I have a horrible notion that he's not going to help us. That he's going to side with my false aunt and Nina and that we're all going to be goners. But then he says this.

"They have a right to."

Candice's hand grasps mine even tighter and I think that she's stopped the blood flow in it. She's trembling. I give her hand a squeeze to let her know that I'm with her.

"Wha—what?" my false aunt stammers, all traces of glee gone. "How—how can you think like that, Mr. Horace?"

And now I remember.

The magic teacher, although not the head of Ether, is the most powerful person in Ether.

Nina's actually, truly frightened now. Her shaking's so visible that I can see it like an aspen in a windstorm.

This is our chance.

My magic teacher turns to me. "How are you, Elara?" he asks in that same concerned voice he used at our last meeting, like nothing had ever happened since then.

"I'm—I'm good," I stutter.

"Amazing. Let me deal with them."

"No!" I shout, which draws a gasp. The first time I've ever shouted in my life. "Let me. I'm the sign. It's supposed to be our battle, not yours."

At this, my false aunt decides that enough is totally enough. Nina takes a shaky breath, and connects her eyes to my false aunt's. Telepathy. The deadly weapon of the Etherians.

The beam of light shoots out of both their eyes, and I'm too slow to stop it.

It's headed towards me.

In that split second, I know what Head Pyra meant about them having to kill me. By making me the sign, it was equal to condemning me to being killed in order to get them back to Ether. So I don't resist it.

Everything goes black.