"I have never known so many powerfully gifted fledglings," Darius said.

"Honey, you have no idea how gifted I am," she said breathily, leaning toward him and laughing softly.

Yeah, I thought as I sat there chewing the inside of my cheek practically raw and worrying while Aphrodite flirted outrageously and a little nauseatingly with Darius, he and everyone else--except for Aphrodite and Stevie Rae--really have no idea about what's really going on with us. Hell, not that the three of us actually knew exactly what was going on, much less what we were going to do when we had to cast a circle minus one of the five elements. I remembered what had happened when Aphrodite had tried to invoke earth in her dorm room, and I knew it would be more than obvious to anyone watching that she no longer had her earth affinity. And how were we going to explain that?

Damien and the Twins would probably get pissed at me all over again for keeping this new thing from them. Great.

What I needed was a major distraction during the circle casting so no one would notice the lack-of-an-earth-affinity detail. Okay, no. What I really needed was a vacation. Or an extra-strength Advil.

I pawed around in my purse, looking for the Advil and couldn't find any--of course, drugs don't work on fledglings very well, so it probably wouldn't help my headache anyway. Didn't look like I was going to get the distraction, either. What it looked like I was going to get was typical for me--more trouble and stress and probably a nice dose of raging diarrhea.

Darius didn't have any trouble finding the Street Cats building. It was a cozy- looking square brick building with big front windows crowded with cat stuff. I made a mental note to pick up a little something for Nala from their gift shop. My cat was grumpy enough without her thinking that I'd been cheating on her (translation: I would smell like a zillion other cats) and hadn't even brought her a present.

Darius held the door open for Aphrodite and me, and we entered the brightly lit shop area of the building. Yes, all three of us had on sunglasses, but the lights still bothered our eyes. I glanced at newly re-human Aphrodite. Well, they bothered at least two sets of our eyes.

"Welcome to Street Cats. Is this your first visit?"

I looked from Aphrodite to the--

Nun?!

I blinked in surprise and felt the urge to rub my eyes. The nun smiled up at me from her seat behind the front counter, deep brown eyes looking alive and sparkly in a pale face that was obviously old but surprisingly smooth and framed by a white-cuffed, black nun-hat thing.

"Young lady?" she prompted me, her smile not fading.

"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, yes. This is the first time I've been to Street Cats," I said not brilliantly. My mind was racing. What was a nun doing here? Then from my side vision, I glimpsed another black-robed figure flit by and realized there were more nuns in the hallway off the gift shop. Nuns? Was there a whole flock of them here? Wouldn't they totally freak when they found out vampyre fledglings wanted to do charity work for Street Cats?

"Well, excellent. We always welcome first-time visitors. What is it Street Cats can do for you?"

"I didn't know the Benedictine sisters were involved with Street Cats," Aphrodite surprised me by saying.

"Why, yes. We've been running Street Cats for the past two years. Cats are very spiritual creatures, don't you think?"

Aphrodite snorted. "Spiritual? They've been killed for being witches' familiars and in league with the devil. If a black one walks across their path, people think it's bad luck. Is that what you mean by spiritual?" I wanted to smack her for how disrespectful she sounded, but the nun wasn't ruffled at all. "Don't you think that is because cats have always been so closely associated with women? Especially those considered wise women by the general public? So, naturally, in a predominately male-dominated society, a certain type of people would see sinister things in them."

I felt Aphrodite's little start of surprise. "Yes, that's what I think. I'm surprised you think so, too, though," she said honestly. I noticed Darius had stopped pretending to shop and was listening to their exchange with obvious interest.

"Young lady, just because I have a wimple over my head, it doesn't mean it has kept me from thinking or having a mind of my own. And I can guarantee you I have had many more run-ins with male domination than have you." Her smile made her words less harsh than they might have been.

"Wimple! That's what it's called," I heard my stupid mouth blurt, and then felt my cheeks burn as they turned bright red.

"Yes, that is exactly what it is called."