“Sylvia wishes to keep her.” Luis, I recalled, had been afraid of that. It seemed he was right.
“Not going to happen.” Luis brushed the girl’s hair back from her face, and I saw the shadow of his brother in him, gentle and devoted. “Sylvia’s okay, but she doesn’t love the kid like I do. Ibby needs love.”
“And Sylvia can’t protect her,” I said. “You can.”
He straightened, looking at me directly, and I looked back. For a moment, neither of us moved or spoke, and then Luis pointed vaguely down the hall. “I should get ready. For the viewing. Listen, if you don’t want to go—”
“I’ll go,” I said. “But we should find someone to watch over Isabel, at least from a distance. Are there any Wardens at all available?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Probably will have to be one of those other guys, the Ma’at. There are three or four of them still in town.” He made an after you motion, and we closed Isabel’s door behind us.
The Muñoz Funeral Home was a long structure, with muted lights and deep carpets and quiet music. We were met at the door by an older man, balding, with small round spectacles perched on his nose. He wore a black suit, like the one Luis had on, and he seemed professionally sad. His doleful expression never changed as he shook Sylvia’s hand, then Luis’s, then mine.
I had, at Luis’s prompting, changed my clothes from pale to dark—a pair of black slacks, a shimmering black shirt, and a fitted jacket. It seemed a fruitless use of power, but I was cautiously pleased with the results of my transformation. I still couldn’t willingly alter the structure of my own form, but clothing seemed easier than it had been.
Perhaps—just perhaps—I was learning to use my powers more effectively. My appearance seemed to raise no alarms with the funeral director, at any rate, and I followed Sylvia and Luis down a long hallway, past open and closed doorways. The air smelled strongly of flowers and burning candles.
The funeral director opened a set of doors and preceded us into the room. It was smaller than I had expected, unpleasantly so, and I found myself slowing as I approached the threshold.
Six rows of plain black folding chairs, a cluster of padded armchairs near the back, a table, a book, a pen. Flowers.
The long, sleek forms of open coffins.
I stopped.
Luis and Sylvia kept walking, right to the front, and Luis stayed near Angela’s mother as she sobbed, leaning over the casket in which I knew her daughter must lie.
I could not go forward. There is no need, the Djinn part of me said. Their essences are gone from the shells. This is human ritual. You have no part of it.
The human part of me didn’t want to grieve again, and I knew that it would, once I took that last step.
I turned away, walking quickly. Other tragedies were unfolding here, families shattered, bonds broken, promises unkept. I am not human. I have no part of this. No part.
I was almost running when I reached the front door.
I stood in the stillness of the evening, watching the last rays of the sun fade behind mountains, and breathing in convulsive gasps.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” someone said from behind me. I turned. I’d heard—sensed—no approach, neither human nor Djinn, and for a moment I saw nothing except shadows.
Then he stepped forward into the fading light. I had not known him in human form, but I recognized the Djinn essence of him immediately. He was a brilliant flame on the aetheric, a burst that exploded out in all directions and immediately hushed itself into utter stillness.
His name was Jonathan, and he was dead.
I fell to my knees. I didn’t mean to do so, but surprise and awe made it inevitable. I’m imagining this, I thought. Jonathan is dead and gone.
“Yeah, you keep on telling yourself that, Cassie. Can I call you Cassie? Ah, hell, I’m going to, so get used to it,” he said. He looked very, very human at the moment—tall, lean, comfortable in the skin he wore. His hair glinted silver, and his eyes—his eyes were as dark as the hidden moon. “Guys like me don’t exactly die. We sort of—get promoted.”
Jonathan had held the reins to power for all the Djinn for thousands of years. I had not loved him, but I had respected him—if nothing else, because he had commanded respect from Ashan, and Ashan had never been stupid enough to directly challenge him. There was comfort in Jonathan, and there was also dangerous intensity, cleverly concealed by his all-too-human manner.
But he was dead. He had to be dead. We had all felt it. His passing had shattered the entire Djinn world into pieces.
“I don’t—” My voice sounded very odd. “I don’t understand. You can’t be here—”
He flipped that away with a casual gesture. “Yeah, not staying, just passing through. Got things to do. So. How’s the world? Never mind, I know the answer. Always teetering on the verge of disaster, right?” He studied me for a second, and extended his hand. “Get up, I don’t like people on their knees.”
When I accepted the touch of his hand, it felt real. Warm and human. I held it for a moment too long before I dropped it. “Everyone believes you dead.”
“Good. Meant that, actually. It was time for me to move on, and there was no way to do it without giving up my spot in the great organizational tree of life. Like I said, I’m just passing through, so I’ve got no stake in things anymore. But I thought I’d drop in to say hello.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he echoed, and his eyebrows quirked up. “Yeah, I see your point; we weren’t exactly close. I was the boss, and I was too human for your taste. We call that irony, by the way, down here in the dirt.” He let that sink in for a moment, then smiled. “You realized what you’ve been given yet?”
“Given,” I repeated, and I heard flat anger in my voice. “What have I been given?” Everything I s” E"1e had once possessed had been ripped away from me. I’d been given nothing.
From his thin-edged smile, he knew what I was thinking. “You’ve been given a chance.”
“Chance. What chance? I have been cast out, crippled, forced into human skin. I’m hunted and despised. What chance is this?”
“Something most Djinn never get,” said Jonathan, who had been born in mortal flesh only a few thousand years ago, and yet seemed far older than I. “A chance to learn something completely new. A chance to shed your old life and form yourself in a different body, a different shape, a different direction. You’re a blank slate, Cassiel, that’s your chance.” He didn’t blink, and I saw the flicker of stars in his eyes, endless galaxies of them, an eternity of possibilities. “Or just a chance to screw it all up, all over again. Anyway. You’re here for a reason.”
“I’m here because Ashan cast me out.”
He shook his head. “Something bigger than Ashan is in play, Peaches. You’ll figure it out. You always did have logic on your side, even if you were as cold as space. You have a battle ahead of you. Just thought I’d shake your hand while I could, and tell you good luck.”
Something rippled in the sky above us, like heat above a road, and Jonathan looked up sharply. His human body flared into light, pure white light, and I sensed the flash of steel-sharp wings as I covered my eyes.
I could see him even through closed lids and concealing fingers—a man-shaped bonfire, coursing with energies I couldn’t touch, couldn’t even identify.
Jonathan had gone far beyond the Djinn, into something that was legend even to us.