It seemed that the existence of the school was a closely guarded secret, even from the few servants that Rima employed. Ostensibly she was the owner of the place and her neighbours knew only that she was a reclusive but wealthy widow who lived alone.

Hidden passages crisscrossed the mansion and tunnels ran deep underneath. Even when they were training outside they were shielded by an illusion of invisibility by Master Shiru. Jin wondered what the reason behind all this secrecy was. Visitors never called upon Rima yet the students were encouraged to tread quietly at all times. Stealth it seemed was the most valued skill that the Masters were drilling into them it came naturally to Jin, afterall it was no different to what she had been taught at Mother Lu's.

"But why must I hide myself even in the dark passages?" she finally asked Master Shiru half way through a private lesson that he was giving her, almost at the end her first week. She had grown more comfortable around these people now and had grown braver.

"To practice your lightbending of course." He dismissed her question but Jin would not be dissuaded.

"But what is it all for?"

"It is the way of the Clan; the Hikari strike with the swiftness, silence and invisibility of light and our enemies fall into the darkness."

"Enemies? Like the Dai Li?"

He looked at her then in surprise and Jin had the sense that he was re-evaluating her.

"The Dai Li? How do you know of this?" His voice betrayed his astonishment.

"I heard someone talking about them and about the Black Hana Family." She treaded carefully, she didn't want him to dismiss her again. She might have been young but she wanted answers to the things that she couldn't connect. She knew there was something more to this, to all of this. The Clan, the secrecy of the lightbenders, the enemies that he mentioned so passingly; what was it all for? She had experience with many kinds of people in her life on the street but she had never come across anything like this before.

He paused as though he was weighing his words carefully.

"What I am about to tell you, I was not going to reveal until you were older, but, perhaps you are ready to hear it now. The other children, they grow up amongst this, they learn it just as they learn how to walk and how to speak. But for you it might be difficult to hear and to adjust to. But you are more able than your age gives you credit, and I feel that you will be able to understand."

Jin sat, riveted, the single candle flickered across Master Shiru's face making his words all the more portentous, all the more eerie.

"As far as you can trace the generations back, the Hikari have been hidden. Though not all of us have been light benders or even benders at all, still we all adhere to the creed of the light. Our abilities make us… skilled at performing certain tasks, tasks that others could not hope to accomplish with our degree of aptitude. Few know of our Clan's existence but there are certain organisations that do and there has been a partnership, if you will, between us and them that goes back centuries. This partnership is sacred and is governed by old laws and we have served each other since the earliest days of Ba Sing Se. Our skills allow us to be quite efficient at… eliminating the enemies of our allies. But just as we have dwindled in numbers, so to did our allies, our… clients and the time came when the Head of our Clan, decided to accept an offer from a new organisation. The Dai Li. Now, the Dai Li had been responsible for the downfall of many of our allies whose activities (much like ours) existed outside of the order that the Dai Li tried to maintain. Many of the elders protested his decision but the Head was adamant. The times had changed, he said, and the Hikari had to change with the times. If we wanted to survive than our only option was to ally with the Dai Li and their new leader; a man named Long Feng. It was twenty-one years ago that Long Feng sought us out. He had a job for us, a job that required the kind of delicacy and precision that only we could offer. And the Head made a deal with Long Feng. We were to eliminate the Earth King so that Long Feng would be announced Regent over the new King who was only four years old at the time.

Jin gasped, the knot in her stomach that had been growing throughout these revelations twisted uncomfortably, these people who had been so nice to her, who had taken her in and wanted her for their own were killers, murderers and worse they wanted her to be like them.

"Yes, and we carried out our side of the bargain but Long Feng had no honour. He did not abide by the old rules that our other clients observed and no sooner had we completed our task than he turned on us and betrayed us. His Dai Li agents hunted us mercilessly for almost fifteen years and eventually he found us. One dreadful night he closed in on the house of Head of the Clan and his family, the Black Hana. None were left alive."

"But then, why don't you take your revenge against the Dai Li?" asked Jin in a quiet voice, if these people were killers why not eliminate their great threat?

"Because then the deaths of our people would be for nothing. Long Feng thought that he had wiped us out completely. We were a secret once more. Once more we were hidden, just as it always should have been. We should never have accepted Long Feng's offer. We should have remained true to the old laws and the old ways. If we struck back at the Dai Li, they would know that there were still, some of us left and we would be hunted once more. The Black Hana people sacrificed their lives to hide us again. We will not betray their legacy."

Then, as if he had noticed her uneasiness Master Shiru continued but along a slightly different track, "Jin, we are not bad people. Morality is fickle but honour is certain. We harbour no hatred toward those that we kill. We only cater to the needs of our clients. You will come to understand our ways. Now, think no more upon this, we must get back to your training."

Jin nodded obediently but inside she was already making up her mind. She would not stay here. She was no killer and they would never make her one. She was going back to Mother Lu's. A life of theft was better than a life of murder.