Still. “I feel like a fool,” I said, as she opened the door of her car.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” she said. “You do look exotic, but kind of fabulous at it. Besides, you’re riding in a sweet vintage Mustang. Enjoy the experience.”
I had no idea what that should mean. I understood the automobile was a vehicle for transportation, but the other subtleties escaped me. I folded myself awkwardly into the machine’s passenger’s seat, fumbling with the safety belts she told me must be worn.
Joanne activated the machine, which rumbled unpleasantly, and the reek of burning metal made me feel trapped and claustrophobic. The windows rolled down, thankfully. I close my eyes as she drove and let the wind play over my skin and in my hair. It had a seductive pleasure to it, this sense of touch. Capable of so many different tones and colors.
“Doing okay?” she asked. I opened my eyes and nodded. The car was moving fast, too fast for me to focus on anything in particular, unless it was at a fair distance. Driving looked complicated. I felt an unexpected stab of nervousness; there was so much I had never done and wasn’t sure I could learn. Humans seemed to overcome barriers as easily as breathing. I wasn’t sure I had the instinct.
Joanne made no further comment. It wasn’t a long drive, wherever she was taking me. We followed the coastline for a while, and the sight of the rolling, sparkling sea made me long to stop this rattling human contraption and take a seat on the sand, watching the surf roll. The Mother is there, I thought. In the water. In the ground. In the air.I had avoided thinking of how cut off I’d become from the pulse of the Earth, but the sight of that vast, moving ocean brought back the sense of isolation. I could walk her surface, but never know her, not in the way I had once. I was no longer her child; I was far, far less.
I was both glad and disappointed when the road turned away from the sea, and I lost sight of it among cars, streets, and the concrete canyons of the human-built city.
Joanne pulled the car to a covered area in front of a large, towering structure, and stepped out without turning off the engine. A uniformed man handed her a slip of paper, got into the driver’s seat, and looked at me in surprise. I stared back.
“Hey.” That was Joanne, opening my passenger’s-side door. “That’s the valet. We’re getting out here.”
I felt a fool again, and more of one when I realized how many people—strangers—seemed drawn to stare at me once I was out of the vehicle. Many people, men and women alike. I was doing nothing to merit their attention, but still they stared. Most looked quickly away when I glared at them.
Joanne led me inside of the building, and artificially cool, dry air closed around my skin, making me suddenly grateful for the jacket. How did humans cope with such drastic changes? It seemed insane. Why would they not simply accept the temperature as it came?
We went through a narrow hallway, which opened into a huge, soaring open room that lifted toward heaven. I stopped and stared. I knew humans built on a vast scale, but knowing and seeing seemed to be quite different things.
Concentric, gently flowing levels rose, stacked one atop the other, and it took me a moment to realize that each of the squares of metal evenly spaced on each level was, in fact, a door. Doors to rooms. So many separations between humans. It was a bit baffling how it all fit together.
There was a large central column in the center of the atrium, which housed banks of glass-faced rooms. No, not rooms: elevators, devices to move people between floors. Joanne led me into one, pressed a button, and leaned against the wood paneling to give me an interested look. My feet sank deep into richly woven carpets, and around us, music played, as soft as the whisper of the aetheric.
“You’re handling it well,” she said. “Being out in public for the first time.”
Was I? I felt awkward, anxious, and freakish. I decided to stare out into the atrium as the elevator surged upward, carrying us into the air, far up. I pressed close to the glass, fascinated, and was disappointed when we slowed and stopped near the top of the building. The perspective change reminded me of looking down as a Djinn. Of flying. Of the aetheric.
“Coming?” Joanne asked me as she exited the elevator. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I followed. We walked around the sinuous curve of the level, open to the atrium below, and Joanne paused next to one of the metal doors to knock. Apart from the number engraved on it, the door was identical to every other.
It swung open, and I faced another human, one also known to me, at least by appearance. His name was Lewis, and he was also a Warden. A favorite of Jonathan’s, as I remembered. I had never met him, but I had seen him before, on the aetheric.
I looked him over anew with human eyes. We were almost of a height, but that was where our resemblance ended. His hair was a dark chestnut brown, shot through with strands of red and gold. His skin was tanned dark, and his eyes were rich brown, very deep and secret. The current fashion among human men, I thought, was to shave their facial hair; he had clearly not bothered for at least a day or more.
His clothes were plain—a dark shirt, denim pants, blocky, hard-leather boots.
And there was no mistaking the sense of power that clung to him like smoke and shadows.
“Come in,” Lewis said, and stood aside to let me enter. I did, followed by Joanne, and found that the room was small but well-appointed, much like Joanne’s home. A bed took up most of the space. A couch near the window held two other occupants. One was David, looking more purely human than ever.
I did not know the other person. He was male, of a darker, more coppery skin than Lewis, and he had black, smooth, close-cropped hair. He had shaved, I noticed. He wore a loose shirt and dark trousers, nothing remarkable.
“Right,” Lewis said. “Cassiel, have a seat. You know who I am?”
He pointed to a chair at the desk. Joanne settled herself on the couch next to David, and Lewis took a seat on the edge of the bed, facing me.
I slowly lowered myself into the chair. “Lewis,” I said. “Leader of the Wardens.”
He and Joanne exchanged a quick glance. “For now,” he said. “You never know how long those kind of things will last in times like these. You’re Cassiel. Until recently, you were a Djinn.”
I nodded.
“And now you need the help of the Wardens to draw the energy you need to stay alive.”
Nothing to do but nod again, no matter how much I resented it. I had the feeling that Lewis’s dark eyes did not miss my reluctance.
Instead of asking me another question, he looked at David. “What’s her story?” he asked.
David took his time composing his answer, but he didn’t look at me for permission, or apology. “Cassiel has always been on Ashan’s side,” he said. “A True Djinn, very old. Not exactly an ally to mankind in the past. I can’t tell you much about her. Among the Djinn she’s known as being stern, unforgiving, and arrogant, but Ashan cutting her off from the other Djinn seems to have mellowed her. A little.”
Mellowed?I glowered at him. Of all he had said, that was the most offensive.
“Will she keep her promises?” Lewis asked.
“Don’t ask him,” I said. “Ask me. They would be my promises.”
They all looked at me. David gave me a trace of a smile. “She’s right,” he said. “But if you don’t mind me saying it, Cassiel’s never been one to lie. She wouldn’t deceive you. It would be”—his eyebrows quirked; such a human gesture—“undignified.”
I couldn’t disagree with it. I fixed Lewis with a long, challenging look, and got a half-bitter smile from him in response. “You don’t exactly come begging, do you?” he said. “Hungry?”
For a moment, I thought he meant hungry for food, but then I knew what he was offering. I didn’t look at Joanne or David. I held his stare. “Very,” I said evenly.