Kevin blinked, and some of the insane Djinn shine drained out of him. “Uh—what’s he doing?”
“You’re asking me?” I asked. “No idea!”
“He’s listening,” David said. “Talk.” He offered me a hand up as he rolled to his feet. He was favoring his side again, and I hoped that wasn’t fresh blood. “Say something.”
“Me?” I asked.
“No, he can’t hear us,” David said. “Either of us. It’s as if—human voices don’t register within the range of his ears. That’s the best I can explain it.”
“But he can hear me?” Kevin asked. He was helping Cherise to her feet. She was dusting herself off, shaken but not hurt. Behind her, that dark crack promised escape—to her mind—and she kept looking toward it. “What about Cher?”
“Maybe,” David said. “I don’t know. Jo could be heard, but she was a special case. I’m not sure about Cherise.”
“Guess that makes you our spokesmodel, Boy Wonder,” Cher said. “Go on. Get us out.”
“Uh, I think we came for a reason first.”
“Screw that. We need to go.” For the first time since I’d met her, Cherise sounded like a petulant child, sulky and stubborn and used to having her own way. “Now, Kev!”
Kevin frowned at her, like he was having the same thoughts I was. “Chill, we’re fine. Look, it’s not even that hot in here anymore.”
“Compared to what, the inside of a nuclear furnace?”
Kevin looked at me and David, clearly wondering when, as the supposed authority figures in the room, we’d step in. David held up his hands. “She already tried to kill me,” he said. “You’re on your own.”
I sighed, walked over to Cherise, and put my arm around her. She jerked in surprise but let me do it. “You really need to calm down, Cher,” I said. She gave me a furious look, and I saw that the panic and instability in her was reaching critical levels. “Cher. Deep breaths.”
“I need out!” she wailed, and tried to turn toward the wall.
I wasn’t about to let her get us all killed, and I didn’t think. I just dropped my arm from her shoulders, pulled my fist back, and hit her with a perfect right hook to the jaw.
She went down like a bowling pin. I caught her before she hit the ground and eased her flat. “Kev,” I said. “Put her out. Now.” Because I’d hit like a girl, just dazed her plenty, and she wasn’t going to be at all thrilled when she shook it off. Kevin wasn’t an Earth Warden, but he had David’s power, and that meant he had everything he needed to do as I asked.
If he could access it.
Kevin crouched down and put his hand tentatively on her forehead. Cherise tried fitfully to bat it away. “Sorry,” he said, and I saw a spark of fire catch green in his eyes as he channeled power. It probably was spectacular on the aetheric level, but here, with my human eyes, I could only see the faintest glow around his fingers.
Cherise went limp, breathing heavily. I checked her pulse—strong and steady—and gave a solid thumbs-up to Kevin, who looked deeply relieved. “Don’t make me do that again,” he said. “It feels really weird. What if I get it wrong? What if I put her into a coma or something?”
“She’d still be alive,” David said. “She won’t be if she unleashes more power in here. The Oracle won’t let it happen again. He’ll just destroy her.”
Kevin swallowed hard, looking at the serene, floating figure, wreathed in flames. “Yeah? What about me?”
“He sees you as Djinn. He expects it from you.”
“I—” Kevin stared at David now, with the same kind of alarm he’d given to the figure of the Oracle. “What?”
David tried again, with strained patience. He was leaning against the wall now, and the hand holding his side was subtly trembling. I stepped up next to him to take some of his weight. Also subtly. Or not. “You’re the only one here who can talk to him, using the powers that I used to have. So do it. Explain it to him. Oracles see everything, but their context can be far different from ours. He needs to understand what all of it means to us. To humanity.” David had never put himself on that side of the us before, except in relation to me. I stared at him in involuntary reaction. He shrugged. “I am one of you, for however long it lasts. It’s—weirdly restful.”
“You’re in pain!”
“Yes, but it’s a different kind of pain than I’m used to enduring. That’s something.”
That made about as little sense to me as talking with the Oracle would have, so I shut up. Kevin didn’t need side chatter. He was looking sweaty and scared and well aware of the stakes at play here, in this burning furnace of a room.
“Hi,” he said to the Oracle. “Okay, I have no idea how to do this, but I’ll try. . . .”
“Power,” David said. “Use it.”
Kevin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, I saw a faint green shimmer in his eyes. Sort of like the Hulk, getting a little bit angry. “Hello,” he said in a stronger voice. “Can you hear me?”
The Oracle didn’t make any sign he did. More serene, though extremely fierce, hovering ensued, and the green glare in Kevin’s eyes brightened steadily, like someone was turning up a dimmer switch in the back of his head. Eerie.
“Hear me,” he said, when his eyes were utterly Djinn. It wasn’t loud, but it was . . . profoundly powerful.
The Oracle still hovered, but now features manifested on its face. Eyes opened, and they were the same green as Kevin’s.
“I hear,” the Oracle said. “Speak.”
But that was the last thing Kevin said, at least that I could plainly hear; his lips didn’t move, but the intense stare between the two of them continued.
It occurred to me, after a few long seconds, that it felt just a little hotter in the room.
No, I was wrong. It felt like it was getting steadily hotter, fast. Like a blower had come on, venting heat back into the room.
“Not good,” David said. “Get low.”
“Why?”
“Cool air sinks?”
Oh. I’d forgotten even the most basic physics now, thanks to the extreme state of death I was expecting to happen any second. I helped him down to his knees, then got face-first on the floor along with him.
Kevin was still standing. And now, flames were whipping around the floating lotus-position Oracle, flaring up and twisting in a miniature whirlwind—but never blocking the connection between his stare and Kevin’s. As I watched, the flames stretched out, circling around Kevin.
Binding the two of them together.
Kevin took a step closer. Then another one.
“Kevin, don’t touch him!” I yelled. “You can’t—he’ll kill you!” Because at his core, Kevin was still human. Still a Warden. And we didn’t belong here.
Kevin stopped inches away. The fire was now blazing so hot around them that it was white- hot, like a curtain of flaming diamonds. Even with my face pressed low against the hot stone floor, every breath I gasped in was torturous and searing.
And then, with a tremendous burst of heat and light that seemed to char the entire world, Kevin collapsed. He did it in stages: knees went first, then he folded backward and caught himself with one outstretched arm. The arm failed, and he hit the floor, faceup.
The heat in the room suddenly dialed itself down. Way down, until it felt icy. That probably only meant that it was down to survivable temperature, but the relief was overwhelming enough to make me sob. I felt David shiver from the sudden chill, next to me.
When I tried to get up he said, “No, don’t move.” His voice was hoarse. “Stay down. This isn’t yours to do. Trust me.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. He stood up, swaying on his feet, his face a dirty, pale color that didn’t look at all right.
“David!” I started to get up to join him, but he didn’t pause.
He walked into the center of the room, where the Oracle had turned into a blazing white-hot ball, and before I could stop him . . .