I had not known it was such hard work.
Manny couldn’t speak in the aetheric, but he didn’t need to. I was pulled along like a child’s doll as he arrowed up into the higher plane, leveled out, and looked down on the Earth. It was a dizzying view, all opalescent colors, sparks, whispers. In the aetheric Manny looked startling—younger than in his physical form, slimmer, and almost completely covered with the shifting ghosts of tattoos. I didn’t know what they symbolized, but clearly they were important to him.
His aura was a pale blue, tinged and sparked with yellow and gold. Not as powerful as others I had seen, but powerful enough for the work he was doing.
He pointed, and I nodded, bracing myself for the fall. When it came, it was shockingly fast. The ground rushed toward us, and the snap of energy whipped us to a hovering stop above a landscape alive with a twisting line of fire. Not real fire, but energy, stored deep beneath the planet’s skin. Building toward explosion.
Had I still been Djinn, I would have simply admired the violence of it, the beauty of the incredible forces at work. But Djinn weren’t at risk from such things, and so had nothing to fear. We did not build. We rarely died.
Humans were not so fortunate. For the first time, I found myself wondering about the fates of those milling thousands in their homes, towns, and cities, oblivious to the explosive danger under their feet.
I found myself caring.
I wasn’t sure whether I found that intriguing or annoying.
Bleeding off the energy through surrounding rock was a delicate, slow process, but gradually the fault’s energy faded from a throbbing, urgent red to a pale gold, stable and calm. It would present a constant threat, but with regular maintenance from the Earth Wardens, it would only threaten, not destroy.
When Manny released his grip on me, it was like a giant steel spring snapped tight, and I spun out of control away from him, hurtling through the aetheric, through the oil-slick layers of color. The descent was sickening. Terrifying.If I had been able to scream, I would have; how was it humans traveled this way, dragged down by their anchoring bodies?
I slammed back into flesh with a spasmodic jerk that nearly toppled the armchair. Across from me, Manny Rocha barely flinched as he settled into the human world again.
He opened his eyes to look at me, and there was a glow in his eyes that took me by surprise. Power, yes, and something else.
Rapture.
It faded quickly, as if he didn’t want me to see it in him. “You okay?” he asked. I shook my head. My mouth was dry, my stomach empty and growling. Worse than that, though, I felt . . . exhausted. Drained again. I felt a soul-deep stab of frustration. I can’t live this way, off of the scraps of others. I am Djinn!
Ashan had made me a beggar, and in that moment, I hated him for it so bitterly that I felt tears in my eyes. Now I would weep like a human, too. How much more humiliation could I bear?
Manny’s hands closed on my shoulders. I drew in a startled breath, and my pale fingers circled his wrists. I had intended it to be defense, to throw off his touch, but the sense of his skin on mine stilled my panic.
“I need—” I couldn’t speak. I’d taken so much this morning, and yet it was already spent. I felt on the verge of collapse, horribly exposed.
Manny understood. “Promise you won’t take more than I give?”
I nodded.
It was trust, simple and raw, and I did not deserve it.
It took a wrenching, painful effort, but I took what was offered, and nothing more.
Perhaps I could learn to deserve it.
Chapter 4
WE HAD WORKEDonly a half day at reducing the stress in the fault, but Manny decreed that I needed rest.
“I’m fine,” I told him sharply, as he gathered up his keys on the way to the door.
“Yeah, you’re fine now,” he said, “but you’re going to need some sleep. Trust me on this, Cassiel. Wardens go through this when we first start out. It’s natural to have to build up your endurance.”
Not for a Djinn,I thought but did not say. None of this was natural for a Djinn, after all.
Manny had locked the office door behind us and we were on our way to the elevators when a stranger stepped out to block our path. Clearly one of my kind, to my eyes; he was wreathed in golden smoke, barely in his skin, and his eyes were the color of clear emeralds.
Not a stranger, after all. Gallan.He didn’t so much as glance at Manny; his stare stayed on me. I came to a halt and reflexively put a hand out for Manny to stay behind me.
“What do you want?” I asked. Gallan—tall in this form, long-legged, with long, dark hair worn loose—seemed to find me amusing in my fragile human form. He leaned against the wall, with his arms folded, still blocking our path.
“I came to see if it was true.” His eyebrows slowly lifted. “Apparently, it is. How did you anger him so, Cassiel?”
There was only one him, for us. Gallan was, at times, a friend and ally, but first and foremost, he was a Djinn. An OldDjinn, one of Ashan’s, and I could no longer trust him. “It’s not your business.” I meant it as a warning. He couldn’t have taken it any other way, but something about it amused him.
“Have you seen any others? Since—” His gesture was graceful, vague, and yet all inclusive. Since this happened.The event being, of course, too embarrassing and humiliating to mention directly.
“No,” I said sharply. I had, but there was no reason to tell him. “Leave, Gallan. I don’t want company.”
“You never do.” He smiled slowly. “Until you do. Tell me that it is completely done between us, and I won’t trouble you again.”
I felt my pale cheeks heating—a human response. Pulse beating faster. I didn’t know if it was fright or something else. Something just as primitive.
“Leave.”
“Tell me again.” His eyes took on a brilliant gleam, sharp enough to cut.
“Leave.”
“Again.” He took a step toward me, and I felt the heat of him, the smoke, the fire. “Once more and it’s done, Cassiel. Once more and you’ll never see me again.”
The word locked in my throat. Threes are powerful to us, compelling. I could dismiss him, and he would go.
I could not say it.
Another step brought him even closer to me, close enough to raise a hand that trailed light a Crai6" t the edges of my vision. He stroked my cheek, and I shuddered.
Gallan leaned closer, so close he eclipsed the world, and those eyes were as hungry as gravity.
“Do what he wants,” he whispered, barely a breath in my ear, “and come home, Cassiel. Come home.”
He melted away into mist. I caught my breath on a cry—rage, loss; I wasn’t certain what emotion tore a hole through me, except that it was violent and painful.
Manny put a hand on my elbow. “Who the hell was that?”
I barked out a sound that was not quite a laugh. “A friend.” I got a look of utter disbelief in return. “A very old friend.”
The human world seemed so limited and lifeless, after the glitter in Gallan’s eyes. I felt sick and faint and lost. It must have shown, because Manny’s grip tightened on my arm.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
Days passed, and Manny was right: I did build up endurance over time. Soon the clumsy process of entering and exiting the aetheric felt natural to me, and I learned to ration my own resources until I could stay with Manny until he, not I, tired.
“I couldn’t do this before,” he admitted to me one afternoon, after a long day of working with a team of Fire Wardens to help contain a major conflagration across the border in Arizona. “Work all day like this, I mean. You help a lot. You’re learning fast.”
It was surprisingly touching, receiving even such a casual compliment. I nodded carefully, wiping my forehead free of a light beading of sweat. We were outside at the fire, not in the office, and we stood at the boundary of the area in a section deemed safe. I had not seen the Fire Wardens, but that was because (Manny assured me) they were in the thick of the blaze, fighting it from within. That seemed a grim risk to take, but this time, at least, they were successful. The flames were dying.