Shards — Melissa Stone

After the defeat of Draco and the brief encounter with the mysterious red haired woman, the sehashi gathered in Dionne's basement to touch bases with each other. Not only did the two teams need to properly introduce themselves, but there was the matter of Knight's team to deal with.
Now that the talismans had been revealed and the seal on the Ssu-Ling's prison broken, they wondered what would happen now, if they would be seeing the Ssu-Ling.
Laira believed that they wouldn't be as they would be weak from all their time trapped in their prison. She wanted them to focus on learning to use the talismans as weapons, thinking that it would only be a matter of time before they came under attack from that red haired sehashi. Unlike the last two enemies they'd faced, this one they knew was here and they knew she was coming. It was simply a matter of time.