Nova Flux glowed, and the thing in the dark wanted to eat her for it. Her skin threw green light into the forest whether she wished it or not. She wanted to control that light, to bend it into magic and become the first sorceress of her kind. Right now she only wanted it to stop shining, because the light was a beacon, and something large and hungry followed it. She pressed her back against a tall tree with radiant branches. Her fishnets burned neon green in the dark. Her blue bikini glowed too. She pinched her arm and begged the glow to fade. It flared brighter instead. Somewhere behind her, a heavy paw crushed dead leaves. Her pet cat floated to her shoulder, its rainbow light rippling fast. The cat purred, low and worried. "I know," Nova whispered. "I can't turn it off." She had never learned. The magic slept under her skin, and fear only woke the wrong part of it. A branch snapped. Yellow eyes opened between the trees, wide as her hands. The predator stepped forward, drawn straight to her shine. "Well, that's a bad look for you." A tall figure dropped from the glowing branches above. Green hair, white painted face, a clown grinning through the dark. Jax. He landed between Nova and the eyes, shirtless and calm. She had met him once, a trickster who claimed he could teach her nothing and prove it loudly. She did not trust him. "You again," Nova said. "You said my magic was hopeless." "I said you fight it." Jax kept his eyes on the predator. "You're trying to snuff the light. Don't. Throw it." "Throw it where?" "At its face." He shoved her forward. "Now." The beast lunged. Nova stopped fighting the glow. She stopped pinching, stopped begging, and instead pushed, the way you push a held breath out. The light poured from her hands in one hard flash. Green fire lit the whole forest white. The predator screamed and reeled back, blind. It crashed through the branches and fled into the dark. The paws faded. The eyes did not return. Nova stood shaking, her hands still smoking green. The cat licked her cheek. She had not hidden her light. She had used it. For the first time, the magic had answered her. "There," Jax said, wiping his glasses. "You didn't want to hide. You wanted to burn." He grinned wider. "But you can't aim, and you gave off enough light to wake the whole forest. Everything hungry within a mile just saw dinner." Nova looked past the trees. In the far dark, more eyes were opening, one pair, then four, then too many to count. Her flash had saved her from one predator and called every other one. "Teach me to aim," she said. "Fast." Jax stopped smiling.