not life.â
Djinn were very hard to kill, but David was fragile. When he made me a Djinn, heâd fractured something vital inside of him into two pieces, one of which heâd given me to keep me alive. Even when Iâd been granted the gift of humanity again, that root-deep fracture had remained. And then heâd gotten in the way of an Ifrit, who drained him nearly to death.
And now he was hanging onto the fragile thread between life and that kind of living death, of losing himself. If he stayed outside of his bottle for too long, or used too much power, heâd become an Ifrit, a thing of ice and shadow. A thing bent only on feeding on others.
As if heâd followed my thought, his hand on my back went still. I felt a shudder run through him, and his eyes dimmed just a little.
âDavid?â I sat up. He eased back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
âI shouldnât have done this to you,â he said. âI should never have done any of this to you. You deserveââ
âDonât do this to yourself. None of it is your fault.â
He closed his eyes. He looked suddenly very, very tired. Human. âI didnât hurt you, did I?â
âNo! God, no.â I put my hand on his chest, then my head. My hair spilled dark over his skin. âWell, not any more than I wanted you to, anyway.â
âIâm afraid I will,â he said. His voice sounded distant, worn smooth by exhaustion. âNo, I know I will; I can sense it.â His eyes opened, and the last embers of copper flared in orange swirls. âYou canât let me. I mean it, Jo. You have to have defenses against me. You have to learn . . .â
The fire was cooling under his skin, the light in him going out. âI have to go now,â he said. âI love you.â
I kissed him, quickly, lovingly, and said, âI love you, too. Go back in the bottle now.â
I felt the sudden indrawn breath of his passing, sank suddenly down in the welter of disordered sheets, and when I opened my eyes again he was gone. Nothing left but an indentation in the pillows.
I turned over, slid open the nightstand drawer, and took his bottle out of its protective zippered case lined with gray foam.
I started to put the stopper in, but then hesitated. At some very deep level, he was still part of me, drawing on the magic I possessed; putting the stopper in the bottle meant cutting that connection, and although he hadnât said so, I suspected that the more I could give him, the better. Iâd have opened my magical veins if it could have made him better. Hell, I wasnât in the Wardens anymore; I wasnât directing the weather or saving lives. I was just a poverty-level member of the vast, unwashed paid labor force.
I needed him for completely different reasons these days than making miracles happen for other people.
I sank back on the pillows with a sigh. I didnât actually know if he was recovering, or, if he was, how quickly; Iâd need the opinion of another Djinn to find out, but then, none of the Djinn had been around to visit since Iâd left the Wardens. They were staying clear. I figured Jonathan had something to do with it. The last thing heâd said to me, in a flat, angry monotone, had been, You broke him, you fix him. The unspoken or else had been daunting.
Jonathan hadnât dropped by since Iâd returned to Florida, but with the kinds of powers he possessed, he hardly needed to. He was probably back in his house, watching me through his big plate-glass picture window and sipping magically imported beer.
Probably watching me right now.
I rolled over on my back, flipped the bird at the ceiling.
âHope you enjoyed the show,â I said. âNo encores.â
No reaction. Which was no doubt for the best.
I fell asleep with the bottle beside me, to the steady, pounding whisper of the surf down on the beach.
Â
I catapulted out of bed two