Was he more like a monster than she was?
What kind of joke was that?!
Zheng Qing gritted his teeth, half furious and half laughing. "What do you mean by that?"
"You don't know?" Nikita blinked, a trace of realization appearing in her scarlet eyes. "Well, that figures... See for yourself."
With a casual gesture, she conjured a bright water mirror before the young wizard.
The smooth water mirror did not tremble in the slightest beneath the malicious gazes surrounding it.
Then Zheng Qing saw a pair of red eyes in the mirror, no less demonic than a banshee's—if anything, compared with Nikita's, his eyes seemed darker and clearer.
He stared blankly at those eyes in the water mirror, seeming somewhat dazed for a moment.
Nikita raised her hand instead. Zheng Qing's tail was still looped around her wrist. Tilting her head back, she looked at her hand, spread her fingers, then slowly curled them into a small fist as white as jade.
"Well?" the banshee asked softly again. "Now, are you interested in joining my team?"
"So I can eat wizards with you?" Zheng Qing snapped out of his reflection and looked at Nikita with a cold smile. He refused without hesitation. "Sorry, but that suggestion makes me a little sick."
As he spoke, though he looked completely resigned, he frantically visualized his rune gun in his mind—from its stock to its barrel, from the runes on its body to the alchemical array on its trigger. Just a little more, and the barrel would emerge from his forehead.
The wizard stared intently at the banshee, considering where to fire his first shot.
Her left eye or her right?
Or perhaps that pretty little mouth of hers.
Nikita ignored Zheng Qing's exceptionally rude stare. She merely kept her head raised,