I did not look like either a tourist or a pilgrim.
I looked like trouble.
A priest was taking the air outside the chapel doors, smiling and shaking hands with those entering; he faltered when he saw me, but quickly recovered. He was a man of middle age, neat and trim, only a slight softening of his jawline and a slight drooping of his eyes to disclose that he might be older than he seemed. He radiated energy and a kind of satisfaction that I supposed doubled for purity. I neither liked nor disliked him, but I suspect he disliked me, immediately and without reservation.
He recognized an eldritch spirit when he saw one. No surprise, given the overlapping of sacred ground here; he must have seen the Djinn often, even if he didn’t fully comprehend what he was encountering. He gave me a slight nod, but didn’t offer his hand.
I didn’t deeply care.
Inside, the chapel rose up to a dizzying height, walls angling in. It was a warm, glowing color that was not quite gold, not quite orange, but something between, with a sheen like living skin. It was a small room dominated by the massive window at the far end that looked out on the majestic vista of the canyon it overlooked. As I studied the view, an eagle glided by in silent grace, wheeled, and began a descent toward its prey. All around me, tourists milled, the penitent prayed, but all were hushed and still in the presence of what felt . . . more than human.
Because it was.
Seated at the far end of a pew near the back was the Oracle. Human eyes skipped over her, but mine focused, and as I watched, she opened her eyes—of no color my mind would recognize—and stared directly at me. No expression on her lovely, still face. Like her Warden mother Joanne Baldwin, the Earth Oracle had a beautiful form, but where Joanne’s was animated by a humor and a kind of ruthless determination, Imara was . . . illuminated. She had a kind of peace to her that had its roots in the rocks beneath us, the very spirit of the Earth.
Imara’s long, dark hair fell soft and straight around her shoulders, framing her pale face, and she wore a shifting red dress—robe?—that never quite fell into a final shape. It was as if the Oracle dressed in deep red sand, fine as silk, that whispered around her in a constantly moving curtain.
She extended one graceful pale hand and patted the wooden pew next to her.
For a long moment I didn’t move, and then, reluctantly, I made my way to the pew and took a seat a bit farther than she had indicated. I bowed my head toward the power in this place. The Djinn understand God in ways that humans do not, but we are not connected to Him by the same strands; all things interweave, but we are the warp, not the weft, of the cloth. Imara, in her role as the Oracle, might have a deeper understanding. She was a nexus at which things crossed. Perhaps she sensed and saw things here I could not.
“Cassiel,” Imara said. She sounded relaxed and a bit amused. “Don’t be so worried. I won’t bite your head off.”
Imara had grown much more assured in her role since last I’d seen her. She had, I think, struggled with the complexities of channeling such power, standing in such an awesomely important spot. Now, unexpectedly—and quite different from what Rashid had led me to expect—she treated me almost as a human.
Almost as her mother would, and had.
“Oracle,” I said. Around us, the mortals in the room pursued their own blinkered interests. No one seemed to note us at all, not even my sudden absence from their world after standing out so vividly in the crowd. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“How could I not see you? You don’t exactly blend in.” That sounded very much like her mother—acidic, funny, yet somehow failing to offend. “I am glad you came to me. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you as much last time, but things were . . . difficult for me.” She started to continue, then stopped and shook her head. Sand shifted and moved on her robes, revealing tiny, pale strips of skin beneath. “Ashan is really angry at you, you know. Much more angry than anybody’s ever seen him.”
My mouth twisted involuntarily. “I’m aware.”
“I’ll bet. He’s ordered all the Djinn he’s got power over to avoid you, and ignore you if you find them. Losing Gallan hurt him. Badly.”
I understood that, although I loathed it; Ashan had set me on this murderous path, and now he wouldn’t even offer me help. But from his perspective, it was simple logic. I had involved Gallan, and Pearl had destroyed him. Ashan couldn’t afford such losses.
“And what of David?” I asked, and risked a glance into those odd, changing eyes. The power in them was so intense that it seemed I was looking into the heart of a nuclear fire, where colors had no meaning anymore. “Can he help me? More to the point, will he?”
“Dad,” Imara said, and sighed. She looked away, toward the windows, although I wasn’t sure what she was truly seeing. “My father’s in a difficult position, like you. I don’t know if it’s one he can hold for long; being a leader isn’t—it’s not in his nature. He prefers taking care of those close to him. And I’m not certain that some of the New Djinn truly feel they owe him loyalty. It’s hard to know which of them he—or you—could trust.”
“What about Rashid?” I asked. “Can I trust him?”
Imara’s lips moved into a brief, dark smile. “He’s as Djinn as you were,” she said. “More than I ever was. He’ll do as the Djinn do.”
“So the answer is no.”
“The answer is the same for any ally you consider. There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you’re no longer pursuing the same goals.”
“That’s not extremely helpful.” I sounded petulant, I realized. I, who had been alive and a power on the Earth long before this Oracle had even existed as a possibility, was being schooled by this girl. An extraordinarily powerful girl, perhaps. One with awesome powers. But . . . still. “Pearl has a plan. She is using the children of Wardens to carry it out. I saw—” My voice faltered unexpectedly, and I forced it to continue. “I saw Isabel Rocha on the way here, to you. She—”
“I know,” Imara said, very gently. Her hand touched mine, and it was warm and soothing. “I feel her. I feel them all.”
“All the children?”
“All the people on this planet,” she said, and now the smile was sad. “All those who live, suffer, feel joy, die. Choosing only one out of so many is almost impossible. I’m not that good yet. But I felt what you felt. I know how angry you are. How guilty you are.”
She didn’t tell me not to be angry, not to be guilty. Doubtless, even had she wished to, she knew it wouldn’t at all matter.
“You came for something,” Imara said then, and her tone had turned eerily like her mother’s, like Joanne Baldwin’s, with an edge of irony. “It wasn’t just for the warm and fuzzies, Cassiel. Tell me.” The human term seemed odd, coming from an Oracle, but I supposed that was understandable. Imara was a very odd choice for an Oracle.
I shook myself, trying to regain the focus, the purpose I’d had in coming here. There was something so distracting about her, about the subtle and seductive peace she radiated. About the feeling that here, in this place, I could lay down all my fears and guilt and burdens.
It was illusion. Two steps from her, I would feel it all again. If I didn’t, there would be something wrong with me. The kind of peace that Imara represented here, in this place, was for Djinn.
Not for me. Not anymore.
“Rashid told me you have a list,” I said. “A roster of human children born with latent powers—the ability to someday become Wardens.”
She nodded slowly, but her expression had turned pensive and a little doubtful. “There is a record,” she said. “But it’s not in a form you can use.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—” Imara seemed to search for words, then turned on the pew to drape one arm on the back. Sand shivered and whispered into falls of drifting silky waves around her. “I mean it’s written in the fabric of the world. I can see it. There is no written list as you would understand it.”