Unseen

Chapter 4

DARWIN THE IGUANA was indeed waiting when we came out from the back of the room, which brightened Isabel’s darkened spirits a great deal. Mabel watched us with a frown. After consultation with Isabel, we decided that an iguana was too large, but that a bearded dragon was an acceptable substitute.

Ibby wasn’t interested in snakes as companions.

I called Luis, who answered on the first ring, sounding worried. “Could you bring the truck?” I asked. “We have things to carry.”

“Everybody all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “I bought Isabel a pet.”

There was an interestingly long silence, and finally he said, “Is it poisonous?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“That’s ... surprising, somehow, from you. All right. You can explain it all to me later.”

I gave him the address, and Isabel and I spent the hour until he arrived quite happily encountering wildlife, in the gentle glow of Mabel’s benign residual Earth powers. Esmeralda was, I thought, in the best possible place; Mabel was protective of all her charges, including a girl who might be tempted all too easily to dangerous aggression. If Mabel was uncomfortable with the exhibition aspect of Esmeralda’s situation, it was clear that Es reveled in it; she enjoyed seeing the discomfort and horror on people’s faces.

Although I believed that perhaps Esmeralda had gotten a bit more for her five-dollar charge than she’d bargained for, with Isabel.

Mabel gave us all of the care instructions and a supply of food for the bearded dragon, whose name Isabel immediately decided was Spike. Spike was tame enough to ride home sitting on Isabel’s lap in the sun, dozing happily with his head resting on her palm.

Luis, however, kept casting it, and me, nervous looks. “This wasn’t just a shopping trip,” he said. Ibby had also succumbed to the warmth of the sun, and was asleep with her head tipped against my arm. She showed no sign of hearing.

“I had to show her something,” I said. “I had to convince her. It seemed the only way.”

“Scared straight?”

I considered the phrase. “Perhaps,” I said. “And perhaps I just introduced her to a future ally, in which case we will have much more to think about later on. But for now I think Ibby will go to the school without a fight.”

“Good,” he said. “I just got another call from Bearheart, and she’s not kidding about the deadline. How you want to do this? I’m not too keen on putting her in an airplane, and Marion says it’s too late to meet at the rendezvous at Area 51.”

“Driving is better,” I agreed. “Besides, I doubt they would allow Spike on the plane.”

The school that Warden Bearheart had established was in Normandie, Wyoming. That was as close to effectively the middle of nowhere as it seemed possible to be in modern-day terms. The drive was long and tiring, not the least because I could not possibly take my attention off the world around us for long; our enemies were still shadows in the night, but they stalked us, and there would be only split seconds between life and death for all of us if our vigilance failed.

Despite all that, I found that there was little I loved more than being on the Victory, with the road disappearing beneath the wheels. Wind battered me, sun broiled me, we were visited by torrential rains that drove us to shelter for almost a full day, and yet something inside of me found this vagabond life fiercely beautiful. The snow came next, falling in steady white curtains and veiling everything in thick drifts.

I suspect Luis and Isabel, in the truck, found the long trip merely very tiring.

When we finally arrived in Wyoming, I thought it a beautiful place, stark and lovely as only the most deadly things can be. Thick with snow, it seemed especially ancient, and implied that humanity was a recent, not very welcome visitor. I liked its character. It suited me well.

Outside of Cheyenne, Luis received a phone call; I saw him drop back and flash his lights, which was the signal to pull over to the side of the road. That wasn’t difficult, despite the banked snow; we saw very little in the way of traffic on this road. I braced the motorcycle on its kickstand and walked back toward Luis’s truck, watching the shadows around us for any hint of hostile action. Nothing more menacing than a rabbit was nearby—not that I would underestimate the rabbit.

Luis rolled down the truck’s window as I approached; he covered the speaker of the phone and said, “FBI.” I nodded, because that spoke volumes in the three simple letters. The FBI had been working with the Wardens to try to take down several of Pearl’s compounds across the country, but we’d heard little in the past few days about any success—or failure. Luis mostly listened, but from time to time he would look to me, or Ibby (who was again sleeping, with Spike’s plastic case on her lap to get full benefit of the heater), and I was not feeling overly confident based on what I saw in his eyes. He finally said, “Yeah, sorry about that, but we’re traveling. Nowhere near Albuquerque right now. Won’t be back for at least a few more days.” He paused to listen, and smiled grimly. “Well, you can try to trace us if you want, but you’re tracking Earth Wardens. Whatever that GPS chip shows you, we ain’t there, man. And I’m not telling you where we’re going. I’ll call you when we’re headed back. Best I can do. Okay. I’ll hit you back.”

He shut down the call and tossed the phone on the dashboard of the truck.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The FBI agents would like us to inform them of our every movement.”

“Preferably they’d like us to not move at all. But, yeah, failing that, they want us on a leash. Very sad for them. Maybe we should send them a gift basket.” He drummed his fingernails on the steering wheel, looking out at the road ahead. “Thing is, they wanted us back bad for something in particular.”

“What?”

“Don’t know, and I don’t like it. They’re pretty damn cagey about details on the phone. They want a face-to-face briefing—now, they say, but since that ain’t gonna happen, as soon as we get back.”

What he didn’t say was this was bound to not be a good thing; the FBI turned to us only when problems became far too bad for their agents to handle alone. It meant the situation was already messy, and would probably only get worse the longer we delayed.

“We could split up,” I said. “I could go to the FBI. You could go on to the school.”

He shook his head even before I’d finished. “Not a chance. We stay together.”

I smiled a little, and held my hair back from my face as the icy wind thrashed it around in a pink-tinted storm. “Jealous?” I asked.

“As hell. You bet. I’m not letting any filthy feds get their hands all over your ... assets.” He grinned outright. “And we don’t break up the team. Clara?”

“Clara,” I said. “We go on, then.”

“All night if we have to, but according to the GPS, we don’t have more than a couple more hours to go,” Luis said. “You good for that?”

“Always.” I turned to walk back to the motorcycle. Luis leaned out the window and gave me a sharp whistle. I looked over my shoulder.

“We should have dinner later,” he called. “Something hot. And in my room, while she’s asleep.”

“Maybe,” I said, although that wasn’t what I felt rushing through my body at that moment. No, that was definitely a yes.

I put my helmet back on and kicked the engine to life and got us back on the road.

Warden Bearheart’s patrols picked us up almost a hundred miles outside of the location of the school; I first became aware of them as a disturbance in the aetheric, and when I checked I saw a vivid glow on that plane of existence that could only be a first-class Warden at the height of his powers. Male, most certainly, and by the signature of those powers, he was gifted with Weather. There were two others with him, in the traditional Warden triad of Earth and Fire, though neither could match him for strength.

They challenged us outright, on the road, by slamming a wall of air and snow into our faces and forcing us to slow down, then stop. Luis could drive through the gale-force winds, but not easily; on a motorcycle, I was much more vulnerable. If I’d sensed it as a threat, I would have fought, and fought hard, but we had both expected the Wardens to have perimeter security.

Just not quite so far out from their actual location. I approved of the security initiative.

I parked the bike and dismounted, walking over to Luis as he climbed down from the truck. Ibby was awake, and climbing curiously around the cab of the vehicle to look at the view. She rolled down the window and said, “Tío Luis, be careful!” I noticed she left me out of her warning.

Luis turned his head, shoulder-length hair streaming like a black flag in the freezing wind, and said, “Stay inside the truck, Ib. I mean it.” He’d put on a thick parka, and now jerked the fur-lined hood up over his head.

She nodded and rolled up the window, small face gone very serious. She clutched Spike’s plastic container to her chest in anxiety.

I looked ahead of us to see three Wardens emerging from thin air. One of them, probably the Earth Warden, had a respectable cloaking technique. They stood motionless in a group, seeming very competent indeed; the man in the middle was the young Weather Warden, and he seemed hardly old enough to shave. The other two were women, one only a little older than he was, the other a grandmotherly gray-haired elder who wielded Earth.

“Yo!” Luis shouted into the wind. “Can we turn down the fan a little? I’m getting frozen stiff here!”

The wind slacked and then faded to a cold, thin breeze. The fact the Warden didn’t kill the breeze completely told me something about him—despite his power, he had relatively little training. Although he wasn’t in her class, someone like the strongest of the Wardens—say, Joanne Baldwin—would have been able to pull gale-force winds from stillness and stop them on a breath; he still required some starting point, and made it easier by continuing the flow of air molecules, albeit in a minor way. It was a weakness, though not one many would recognize.

I didn’t need to tell Luis about this. I knew he would see it as well, should we require it.

“Thanks,” Luis said, smiling. He held up his hand, palm out, and the other Wardens did the same. On each, the stylized sun symbol of their organization glowed, visible only in Oversight. I didn’t bother to identify myself. They wouldn’t mistake me for anyone else. “Friends?”

“We hoped you’d be coming,” the grandmotherly woman said, stepping forward. She had a sweet, crinkled face and a cloud of soft white hair, and she radiated a soothing presence that made it difficult to keep my customary wariness in place. I knew it was a manifestation of her power, but even so, it was a powerful, subtle force. “Nice to meet you. I’m Janice Worthing. This here’s my friend Ben, and that’s Shasa.” Shasa was the younger woman, who was darker-skinned and sharper-featured. She radiated mistrust in equal proportion to Janice Worthing’s peace. “Stop glaring, Shasa—they’ve been invited.”

“Not by me,” Shasa muttered. She seemed to save her special dislike for me. I returned the favor by fixing her with a steady stare, of the sort that made the most powerful of Djinn flinch.

She didn’t. In fact, she intensified her glare.

Warden Worthing evidently decided not to push for better relations between us; she stepped forward, still smiling and communicating that soothing, warm reassurance, and shook hands with Luis. Coincidentally, that brought her closer to the truck, and Isabel, who was still staring through the window. “Well, hello, sweetheart,” Janice said, and gave Ibby a smile that warmed even me. “You’re a pretty one! You must be Isabel. I’m Janice.”

Ibby put Spike’s container down, opened the truck door, and jumped down, staring up at Janice with blank concentration for a moment. She finally said, “You can’t make me like you, you know. I’m stronger than that.”

Janice blinked. “I never had any intention of making you do anything, Isabel.”

“Oh. You don’t know you’re doing it?”

“Doing what?”

“You make people feel safe, even when it’s not true.” Isabel studied her curiously. “I guess that’s a good thing, though. There were lots of times I wanted to feel safe when I really wasn’t. It would have been nicer.”

Janice bent down and gravely offered her hand. “I hope you always feel safe with me.”

Ibby looked to her uncle for permission, then reached out and took the woman’s hand with great formality. I saw a visible relaxation in her—something that surprised me because I had not really understood until that moment that deep down, Ibby had never let go of her fear, her worry, her wariness. I had not been able to give her that sense of safety, and it hurt me in an unexpected way.

It hurt even more when Janice opened her arms, and Isabel hugged her. The old Ibby, the one I had first met, was a hugging sort of child, willing to give her love unreservedly; this one, the one we had taken out of Pearl’s hands, was much more guarded. The burning sensation inside me was, I realized, jealousy. I had wanted to bring that trust out in her, but I had wanted her to feel safe with me.

Janice’s bright blue eyes met mine over the top of Ibby’s dark head, and I saw understanding in them, and pity.

Irritated even more, I turned away to slap dirt from my leathers. I wanted no pity, no understanding. I didn’t even understand what I did want. It made me irritable.

“Guess we’re not going to have a problem after all, Shasa,” Luis said, and gave her his famously seductive grin. “Sorry. I know you were looking forward to a bare-knuckle throw-down. Must get pretty dull out here.”

She smiled back, but there was nothing seductive about it. It was pure malice. “Next time,” she said, and kissed her fingers at him. Ben turned and looked at her, eyebrows raised; she gave him a dark, burning look and stalked away. There was a black SUV parked just at the bend of the road that became visible as she walked toward it. Shasa, I realized, was the one with the talent for disguise, not Janice. Unusual in a Fire Warden.

Ben finally came forward, to me, and offered his hand. “Hey,” he said. “Ben Samms. Pleased to meet you, ah—” He fumbled for my name.

“Cassiel,” I supplied, and we shook. “Yes, I was a Djinn once, before you ask.”

His face took on a faintly pink tinge, as if he was surprised I’d anticipated the question, and he glanced over at Luis, who was watching us with an expression of mild interest. “Warden Rocha.” Ben nodded, and got a nod in turn. “Hey. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of good things.”

“Thanks,” Luis said. “Nice gale you blew up on us. Took some skill, man.”

“Thanks. I’ve been working at it.”

Janice and Isabel were no longer hugging, but Ibby held on to the older woman’s hand, looking happier than I had seen her in some time. Another stab of jealousy, followed by guilt, found its mark inside me, and twisted. “We should get going,” Janice said. “Isabel, you want to ride with us, or with your uncle?”

“With you,” Ibby said. “Can I bring Spike with me? He needs to stay warm.”

“Spike?” Janice said, raising her eyebrows at Luis.

“Lizard,” he said, and held out his palms to indicate the short span equating to Spike’s size. “He’s okay.”

“Oh, certainly. All right, you get Spike,” Janice said. Ibby climbed up into the truck, got Spike’s container and supplies, and ran to the black SUV. I saw the flash of pain go across Luis’s face, but it was only a flash, and then he smiled.

“Right, let’s get moving, then,” he said. “Cass? Time to mount up.”

I was grateful to get back on my motorcycle. Things seemed simple there, stripped to bare essentials. While I was moving, slipping like a shadow through the world, I didn’t feel so vulnerable to a child’s smile, or an old woman’s pity.

Or Luis’s pain, which, like mine, had an edge of jealousy and guilt to it.

We passed through increasing layers of Warden security, some of it Djinn-provided, to reach the school itself, which lay in a snowy, shadowed valley surrounded by dramatic forested hills. A small frozen stream wandered its way through, gleaming silver in the light, and came within fifty feet of the fence that surrounded the school.

It was the fence that made me think of a prison. Twenty feet high, built of strong metal links fringed with icicles and topped with razor wire, it hardly seemed reassuring, but I also understood the need; it was as much to protect the children from those who might wish to harm them as it was to keep them contained, though the children might not see it that way. I wondered how Ibby would interpret it, and was suddenly glad that she was riding under the calming influence of Janice Worthing. That might prevent any unpleasantness, at least for now.

The fence opened for our little convoy of vehicles—not a gate, but an accordion-like folding of the metal that I was certain was done by Janice, or another Earth Warden. As the last car (Luis’s) passed through, the fence repaired itself seamlessly.

Luis opened a communication channel in my ear. Mira, he whispered, I hope they don’t go and lose all their Earth Wardens at one time. That would be awkward.

Especially if one of them was you, I replied soberly. I hoped that Marion Bearheart had thought all this through; I did not know her well enough to feel confidence in her decisions. Not that I really had confidence in anyone when it came to my safety or the safety of those I loved. A human saying had always struck me as apt: Trust, but verify. It might seem paranoid to some, but it made excellent sense to me.

At least they kept the interior of the compound refreshingly free of snow. I supposed that would be light work for a Weather Warden, creating a microclimate just large enough to protect those within from the winter weather. It felt warmer, though not by any stretch warm.

I had only just dismounted my bike, feeling every cold mile of the road in my bones and aching flesh, when the front door of the school opened and a woman rolled down the ramp in a wheelchair, picking up speed and braking with a flair that landed her perfectly in front of us. Bearheart. I knew she had been injured during the Djinn rebellion, but I hadn’t known how badly; it was plain, when I looked at her in Oversight, that she would never walk again. No matter the skill of the healer, there were some things that could not be fixed in the human body once shattered. In a way, she had that in common with Esmeralda, the Snake Girl.

Bearheart met my eyes with her dark, glittering ones, and said, “No need to pity me, Djinn,” she said. “I’m satisfied I came out a winner. Plenty of my friends didn’t—on both sides.”

“I wasn’t pitying you,” I said. “I was wondering how much of a disadvantage you’d pose for us in a fight.”

She laughed. “Don’t make me roll over your foot. I’m heavier than I look, and I can build up a lot of momentum.”

She was also one of the most powerful Earth Wardens I had ever seen in person, and I had certainly seen many thousands. Physically, she was in her late-middle age, with thick black hair worn long, threaded through with liberal silver. Her skin was a warm copper, her features sharp, and I noticed a sudden resemblance to the Fire Warden girl on the road, Shasa. There was something of the same commanding nose on both.

I took a guess. “Your—niece is impressive.”

That took her a bit by surprise, but she nodded. “Shasa is my brother’s kid. Bad temper, but a damn good Warden. Funny, most people think she’s mine.”

“I am not most people,” I said gravely.

“Indeed you’re not. I’m not sure you’re people at all, actually. You’re something else.”

There was a great deal too much comprehension in her expression to please me, and I nodded toward Janice Worthing, who had gotten out of the SUV with Isabel. “Do you trust that one with Isabel?”

“I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting Isabel just yet, but I’m sure there’s not a child in the world I wouldn’t trust with Janice Worthing. She’s the best there is.” Bearheart fell silent a moment, watching me. “Unless you know something I need to know. Something other than what’s in the official record?”

I shook my head. There was, in fact, nothing to incite my suspicions about anything I’d seen so far in this place. The Wardens had done a competent job of intercepting us and escorting us in, and I suspected my general distrust was a reflection of my own feelings. Until Isabel had turned her adoration on someone else, I hadn’t realized how important the regard of the child was to me.

Without her, I felt ... less.

“I’ll want to go over what you know,” Bearheart said, clearly not convinced with my silent affirmation. “My office, one hour. Bring Warden Rocha once he’s convinced we’re not organizing a sweatshop and letting them run with scissors.” A smile flickered over her lips, but it was thin and not very amused. “Not that I blame him. Wardens don’t have the greatest track record when it comes down to dealing with our own kids. And yes, I’ve been part of that problem from time to time, to my regret. But we no longer have the luxury of worrying about each other’s possible future bad behavior. We have far too much actual bad behavior.”

With that, she pressed a control on her wheelchair and sped off to talk to Luis, meet Isabel, and generally do her duty. It said a great deal about her, I thought, that she turned her back on me so readily. Either she had underestimated me badly, or she had taken my measure exactly.

I wondered which it was.

When no one seemed to be watching me, I strolled around the side of the school, allowing the impressions to roll in. First, it appeared that the fence, though imposing, did not much reflect the quality of accommodations inside. The building itself was large, built of an outer facing of wood but, I sensed, with a core of cement and steel worthy of a military bunker. There were no bars on the windows, and the side doors I passed seemed unguarded. They also proved to be unlocked, I found, because as I was passing the north side one opened and a girl of about ten came running out, almost barreling directly into me. She backpedaled to a swift, scrambling halt, and ran into the boy who was chasing her. He was about her age, but taller, and he wrapped his hands protectively around her shoulders and moved her behind him as he demanded, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

He was a Fire Warden; that much seemed obvious. I could both see and sense the energy forming around his fingers. He was ready to stand and fight. I honored that.

“My name is Cassiel,” I said. “I am a guest. And you?”

My polite tone must have reassured him, because he hesitated, then shook the fire off his fingers and nodded to me. Like Ibby, he was adult beyond his years. “Mike,” he said. “Mike Holloway. We heard about you already.”

Everyone had, it seemed. I wondered exactly what they had heard.

The girl, irritated, shoved Mike’s protective grip away and said, “I’m Gillian.” She raised her chin, almost daring me to do ... what? Declare myself the villain, attack, froth at the mouth like a rabid vole?

I smiled. “Gillian,” I said, and bowed slightly. “I am sorry I alarmed you.”

“You don’t scare me,” Gillian shot back. “I don’t scare that easy. Right, Mike?”

“Right,” he said. I could tell he really wanted to put his arm around her, but had good enough sense to know that she wouldn’t welcome it. “Gillian is badass. It’s the hair. Redheads are always badass.”

Gillian did, indeed, have fiery red hair, of a brilliance that put me in mind of bright new bronze. She had it pulled back in a small queue at the back of her neck, tied up with some complicated arrangement of rubber bands that looked as if they’d be impossible to untangle without yanking out entire hanks. Gillian was a Weather Warden, and I could tell that beneath the surface bravado she was terrified of me.

Whether she was terrified because I was simply a stranger or because she knew that I’d once been a Djinn, it was obvious to me, as it must have been to Mike. She could raise her chin and pretend, but there was no doubt that I held some kind of very real terror for her.

I liked her for nevertheless standing her ground and glaring defiance.

“You a new teacher?” Mike asked me.

“Perhaps,” I said. “For a short time. I don’t know yet. I’ll be speaking with Warden Bearheart in a moment.”

“Well ...” He eyed me doubtfully. “We need teachers who aren’t afraid of us. You know—of what we can do.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Mike grinned suddenly. “But you haven’t seen what we can do yet.”

“We haven’t seen what she can do, either,” Gillian put in. She punched Mike in the shoulder, hard enough that he winced. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

With that, they escaped back inside through the still-open door and banged it shut between us. I eyed it thoughtfully. There were no handles to enter, but obviously it was unlocked from the inside. A fire exit.

Interesting.

I completed my perambulation, and arrived back at the front to find Marion Bearheart and Luis standing in the shade of the porch, talking. She waved to me impatiently, and wheeled herself inside.

I paused next to Luis, who said, “Do I sound paranoid if I say I don’t like all this?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I don’t like it, either.”

“Excellent. Glad I’m not the only one.” He gave me a quick, furtive kiss as I moved around him toward the door, for which I rewarded him with a wide-eyed look of surprise and then, considering, backed him up against the wall and kissed him long and thoroughly. Which I felt was highly appropriate, given that it had been a very long drive and I could see no conceivable way that we would have a night of unfettered passion within the confines of this school.

After going still with utter shock, he finally joined in with a will, his lips warm and soft and sweet around mine, his hands moving slowly up my back as we kissed. It soothed some wild need in me that I hadn’t actually known was present until it howled for release. Luis finally sighed into my open mouth, ran his tongue around my lips (which made me flare even hotter inside), and drew back to whisper, “We’re keeping the boss lady waiting.”

“No,” Marion said, from the doorway. She had glided up unheard in her chair and was watching us with eyes that I was fairly sure seemed amused, and perhaps a little envious. “You’re reminding the boss lady of what it is we’re supposed to be fighting for. I’m all in favor of kissing breaks. But now you’re keeping me waiting, so move your asses.”

She zipped off, and with a shake of his head and a muttered imprecation in Spanish that I didn’t bother to try to understand, Luis followed.

The interior door slid shut behind me as I stepped in, and I saw our friendly Weather Warden Ben standing off to the side, in a booth that was likely bulletproof as well as fireproof; he touched a series of controls, putting in motion security measures that I was fairly sure would come as a nasty surprise to any intruders. Which, I was also sure, applied to us, since we were not recognized as being part of the group as yet.

“Don’t worry,” Marion called back over her shoulder as she disappeared through another doorway. “You’ll get DNA-keyed when we’re done talking. All the doors will open for you, unless I override it.”

The fact that someone still held the final power of life and death did not reassure me, even if it was someone so theoretically benign as Marion. “Explain the security, please.”

“No,” she said, very calmly but just as firmly. “I don’t discuss the security arrangements with anyone but those on duty. Only I know all of the safeguards, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“And if something happens to you?” Luis asked.

“My friend, if something happens to me, you’ve got much bigger issues than how many gunports there are in the walls.” She cast a quick look back at us. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve made provisions for information to be available if you need it, but my goal is that you never do. Clear?”

“Clear,” Luis said. “But I don’t like it.”

“Nobody said you had to. This is why I’d rather you’d handed the girl over at the rendezvous and stepped aside; everybody involved wants to overrule everyone else for the good of the kids. We have a chain of command here, and you’re going to obey it or leave.”

That was blunt, and it had the ring of absolute authority. I exchanged looks with Luis, shrugged, and followed Marion.

I spared a quick look for the entry hall, which was warmly furnished in wood paneling and comfortable chairs and sofas, but with a faintly new feel to it. This building hadn’t been standing for long, or if it had, it had been repurposed and redecorated.

I noticed there were no windows in the entry hall, and a quick check on the aetheric told me that it was less a room than a fortress. Anyone entering this far could be sealed here, in a room thick with concrete and reinforced with steel, and safely dispatched from a distance.

However, the alarms didn’t sound, and the steel fire doors didn’t drop to seal us in. We passed through, into what was a meeting room of some kind, with a large oval-shaped table and several matching chairs. And windows, although reinforced with wire and aetheric security. All seemed quite new, again. Marion rolled herself up to a gap where a chair would have gone, and indicated two others for us to take across from her. There was a bowl of fruit, and Luis reached in and grabbed an apple, which he tossed to me, then picked out a banana for himself, which he peeled while Marion fixed us with a silent, assessing gaze. Luis didn’t seem bothered by her regard in the slightest. He seemed more concerned with the brown spots on the fruit.

I followed his example, took a quick, crunchy bite of the apple, and chewed the sweet, tough fiber with gusto.

Marion snorted. “Yeah, you’re cool, you two—I get it. Lucky for me, I’ve been cracking tougher nuts than you my whole career, children, so let’s drop the drama. Thank you for bringing the girl. It’s going to save everyone a lot of trauma, not least little Isabel.”

“Ibby,” I said. “She prefers to be called Ibby.”

“I’ll make sure everyone knows. We want her to feel safe here, and at home.” There was a manila folder sitting on the table in front of her, and Marion opened it and glanced inside. There were photographs; one was of Isabel, gap-toothed and smiling eagerly. The other was a family photo of Manny, Angela, and Isabel. I recognized the picture, because Luis carried one in his wallet and there was another framed on the mantel inside his house.

It was the last photo they had taken together before Manny and Angela had been gunned down.

“When exactly did the girl show her first signs of talent?” Marion asked. Luis took a bite of banana and shook his head. “Did her mother or father ever indicate they thought she might be manifesting any—”

“Nothing,” Luis said bluntly. “Ibby was a normal kid, normal and sweet and perfect, right up until the moment she got snatched out of her grandmother’s house. What they did to her made her like this ... It’s not normal.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Yeah? You aware that they took these kids in for weird tests every day? That the ones that failed got thrown out to live like little animals or die? That Ibby was one of the ones they decided to keep, and when they realized they couldn’t make her believe we didn’t love her they got inside her head and made her think I was dead and Cass had killed me? They showed it to her, Marion. Showed me burning to death, to a kid her age who’d already seen both her parents die.” Luis tossed his half-eaten banana on the table and sat back, crossing his arms. “Jesus, what’s normal about her now? She wanted to protect herself. She wanted revenge. So she not only let them jump-start her powers; she worked at it—she wanted it. She was scared to death. And what you get out of that is one hell of a strong Warden, untrained, way too young to handle that power.”

Marion let him finish without saying a word, then looked down at her folder before she said, “I’m sorry that she’s endured so much. I wish I could say it would get easier for her, but the simple fact is that it won’t. There are only three paths from this point: She controls her powers; we shut down her powers; or she becomes a rogue.” What Marion kindly didn’t say was that there was a fourth option: death. Luis and I were already acutely aware of it.

“She’s not turning rogue,” Luis said. “She’s got control.”

“Luis, be sensible. She’s six years old. No one, anywhere, has control at that age, especially of the kinds of powers she’s manifesting. It’d be one thing if she’d stopped using them immediately after leaving Pearl’s control, but that’s not what’s happened, is it? She’s used her powers steadily since leaving the Ranch.”

“Under our supervision, yeah. What else were we supposed to do? Pretend like she didn’t have them? She wanted to act like a Warden, like her dad would have wanted. I’m not going to tell the kid she can’t help when she can save lives.”

“And so you brought her in direct contact—into conflict—with children with whom she trained at the Ranch. Do you think that was a good idea?”

Luis didn’t answer, partly because he was getting angry and partly because—I felt—he knew she was right. I stepped in. “With respect, Warden, there are few who could effectively counter these children. Is that not why you’ve set up this school? To handle the most dangerous yet most promising of them?”

She smiled, but didn’t raise her gaze to meet mine. “Do you think we have that simple an agenda?”

“Surely you are not using them for another purpose.” That gave me a very unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach that would rapidly build to fury. “These children have been used enough.”

This time she looked up, and her eyes were calm and direct. “I am not planning on indoctrinating them in any way,” she said, “other than by teaching them to properly use and judge their own strength and powers. But eventually they will be used, Cassiel, or they will be destroyed—make no mistake. Perhaps you’re not aware how dire the Wardens’ situation has become. There are things stirring beyond Pearl, and we have lost many, many more Wardens and Djinn than we could afford. So eventually these kids will have to fight. It’s my job to ensure that they fight well, and for the right side.” When Luis started to speak, she cut him off. “Don’t think I feel good about that, boy, because I don’t. These are children. They’re our own, and they should be loved and protected, and they’ve already been injured. But they may well be the only hope we have left, in the end.”

Marion’s words were bleak, and I sensed the conviction underlying them. “The Wardens who followed Joanne Baldwin and the leader of the New Djinn, David,” I said. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody does, at the moment. They’ve been out of touch for a long time, and it doesn’t look good. We have to consider the strong possibility that they may not come back, and that’s an enormous blow. Possibly a killing one.”

That was a sobering thought—that the best and brightest, not just of the Wardens but of the Djinn as well, could already have been lost, somewhere far out to sea. “How many are left?”

“Wardens? Besides those here, about fifty, scattered across the United States, Canada, and South America. Maybe another two hundred in Europe and across Asia. Not so many, comes down to it, and most of them are scared out of their minds, and were second-rank talents to begin with.” She smiled slightly, but very grimly. “Present company excluded, of course. I had to fight some pretty heavy battles with Lewis to keep you two here.” Lewis being the head of the Wardens’ organization, and without question the most powerful Warden of them all.

“Yeah, in the middle of you describing how we’re all going to die, I’m going to worry about not getting flattered,” Luis said. “Seriously, that’s all? What about Djinn?”

“The ones who follow Ashan won’t communicate at all, so we have no idea of their strength, or if they’d lift a finger to help us anyway. David’s followers are working with us, and they’re all that’s held things together this long—but there aren’t many who can be truly relied upon. They’re Djinn. You can’t assume they’ll be willing to do it forever, or even into the next moment.” A glance at me. “No offense.”

“I take none,” I said. “Because you’re correct. Djinn will have little patience for the problems of Wardens, in the end. You’ve done little enough the past few thousand years to earn our trust, or our respect. Were I still Djinn, I would ignore you just as Ashan has done.”

That might have been too much honesty, considering the look that Luis gave me. I shrugged. It was the truth.

“What about Ibby?” Luis said. “I want to know what you’re going to do to help her. And I’d better hear everything, not just the sunny-side-up version—”

He would have continued, but there was a sudden shift in the mood of the room, something subtle but unmistakable. Marion shifted her weight in her wheelchair, staring behind her at the doorway, which banged open without so much as a courtesy knock.

“You’d better come,” Ben said. The young Warden looked out of breath, and his aura almost sizzled with alarm. “It’s Isabel. It’s started.”

We passed through a series of doors that I was certain were as secure as might be found in any prison, but I scarcely noticed, and I knew they made no impression on Luis. Nothing did—not the number of rooms, nor the number of people we passed. The only thing he was focused on was Isabel.

I confess, I was not much different.

Marion’s wheelchair was capable of great bursts of speed, and she quickly outdistanced us, shouting as she went, “Make a hole! Make a hole, people!” There must have been bodies in the way for her to make that outcry, but by the time we reached the blockage it was gone, withdrawn into the corners of the rooms. I had a blurred impression of children whispering, of older Wardens comforting them, and then Marion’s electric engine was slowing, bringing her chair to a gliding halt. Luis and I caught up only seconds later, but Marion blocked our way into the room—perhaps deliberately.

The room we saw through the doorway was small but comfortable—a twin bed, a small dresser and mirror, a chest in the corner, a television set, games, toys. It was a child’s room, but impersonal as yet, without a stamp of personality on it. Isabel’s new home. Spike’s tiny desert in its plastic container sat on one of the tables, and the lizard was watching all the furor in the room with perky, unemotional interest.

Ibby lay on the floor next to the bed, curled into a ball with her dark hair covering her face. Her whole body was shuddering, and she was sobbing wildly. Next to her sat Janice. The grandmotherly woman was trying to comfort Ibby, but each time she tried to touch her, Isabel flinched and screamed, and the terror in it ripped through me like hooks through flesh.

I didn’t think. I grabbed the handlebars of Marion’s wheelchair and hauled it out of my way, rushed in, and gathered Ibby into my arms, rocking her.

She screamed again, fighting me. I caught my breath, feeling that scream break something inside of me with a harsh, glassy snap—not a bone but something more vital, more ephemeral.

Had I been born human, it would have been a broken heart.

“Hush,” I whispered, and held her tight, rocking her. “Hush, Ibby. I’m here. Nothing will hurt you now. Hush.”

She collapsed against me like a wet doll, gasping for breath in damp hitches. “It hurts,” she whispered, a bare breath of sound. “It hurts inside and I can’t make it stop, Cassie. Please make it stop!”

I felt cold, and looked across at Janice, whose creased face was set in lines of grim sadness. I turned my attention to Ibby, using Oversight, mapping out the aetheric emanations of her body and spirit.

She was burning so brightly that it seemed to sear my inner eyes. I couldn’t distinguish colors, only an out-of-control conflagration of power that held a bloody core of violent crimson.

Something was wrong, very wrong. I’d seen her in pain before, but not like this.

“Hush,” I whispered again, and kissed her forehead. It burned, too, with an unnatural kind of fever. “Hush, my love, you’re safe now. I won’t let anything harm you.”

She cried for what seemed like an eternity, but eventually I felt the heat begin to cool inside her, and her tormented little body stilled in my arms, falling into a dazed sleep. It wasn’t healthy, not in any way. I looked up, and saw that Luis was crouched next to me, staring at Ibby with a ghostly pallor on his face. Marion, beyond him, looked grim, as did Janice. I saw Janice shake her head in response to a silent question from the wheelchair-bound Warden.

Janice reached for Ibby. I hesitated. “Let me have her,” she said quietly. “She’ll be all right for a while now. She’ll sleep. I can do her some good.”

I sensed nothing from the woman but a sad pity, and I finally allowed her to take Ibby from my arms. The absence of her warm weight hurt in ways I couldn’t define, and I had to fight the urge to cry out.

Luis put his hand on my shoulder, feeling what I felt, and looked at Marion. “What the hell happened to her?”

She exchanged another look with Janice as the older woman put Ibby in bed and drew the covers up around her chin. “We’d better talk,” Marion said. “This way.”

She led us back through the rooms and hallways, moving slowly this time, stopping to flash reassuring smiles at anxious children and Wardens. “Everything’s fine,” she said, again and again.

I knew she was lying, but there was no point in challenging her here, in front of those she was protecting.

She dropped the reassurance as soon as the doors were shut and we were locked into the conference room once again. Luis didn’t hesitate. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded again, and, instead of sitting as she indicated, loomed over her to force her to look straight up. “What did you do to her?”

She did, without a trace of discomfort. “You may have noticed,” she said, “that these days, most people are taller than I am. Please sit. I know you’re upset, but that won’t help the situation.”

He was angry, but he wasn’t insensitive (although I was tempted to be); he pulled out a chair from the table and sat down across from her, straddling it backward and crossing his arms over the top. I followed his lead, sitting a little farther away, just in case I needed for any reason to serve as backup.

Not that it would come to a fight, I hoped.

“Now,” Luis said. “What did you do to Ibby?”

Marion sighed. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Your niece, like all the children in this facility, has had the channels that carry power forced open—nerves that weren’t developed and mature enough to carry the kind of signals that Warden powers generate. It’s very rare for a young potential Warden to manifest anything before the age of puberty, because that level of development is all-important. These children—” She paused and shook her head. “I don’t like putting it this way, but it was a kind of clinical, cold rape, and it has consequences. What we will do here is try to repair the damage that’s been done, because the nerves themselves are still immature and raw, and the power they’re channeling is far too great. We have to contain it while the damage is healing. In your niece’s case, we’ll put in limiters to control her power flows. She won’t be of any immediate use to anyone, not until she’s healed enough to handle things on her own.”

Luis was silent—shaken, I could feel that. He’d just been told, very bluntly, what he already knew, but in a way that brought it home to him in visceral terms. He didn’t know what to say, except, “That doesn’t answer my question. What just happened to her now?”

“What you just saw is the first signs that her body’s defenses are fighting against what’s been done to her. Once that cycle of feedback begins, it’s very dangerous, both to Ibby and to everyone around her, because in a very real sense, she is fighting herself.” Marion hesitated, then said, “It will get worse, I’m afraid. Much worse.”

Luis swallowed. “How much worse?”

Marion regarded us both steadily and sadly. “These children are like road flares,” she said. “They burn very hot, and very fast, and with very little control. Once their bodies begin acting against them, they burn themselves out quickly. I’m sorry, but the more your niece used her power, the more she damaged her ability to regulate it. ... Think of it as developing a potentially fatal allergy. At the rate she’s going, even if she avoids the obvious mistakes, she’ll still be dead before she reaches puberty. Her body simply can’t sustain the level of power being channeled through it, and with the body’s instinct to fight the damage, it’ll be further and irrevocably destroyed. It will cannibalize itself to keep going, but at a certain point, it won’t be able to survive.”

I felt—hollow. Numbed inside, but distantly aware that I had been injured, possibly dangerously so. Ibby was dying. Slowly, to be sure, but Pearl, my own sister, had twisted her, warped her, and was even now remotely killing the child in slow, cruel stages.

“No,” I said. “No, that can’t be true.”

“You saw what happened just now,” Marion said, not unkindly. “The fact is, this kind of thing will happen more and more frequently—waves of agony racing through her body, unbearable feedback from a system that isn’t capable of channeling it efficiently, shredding her nervous system. The fits will come more frequently the more often she is allowed, or asked, to use her powers, until she simply stays in that state.” Marion looked weary now, and a little sick. “That’s why I asked you to bring her here. It’s the only hope she has. Unfortunately, it does appear that we might have left it too late to allow for any kind of true recovery.”

Luis took my hand. The warm feeling of his flesh on mine steadied me a little, until I looked at his face and saw the same pallid dread there. “Can you save her?” he asked Marion.

She didn’t blink. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s going to take some time before I can even accurately assess the damage already done. I’m only giving you my preliminary impression. If Ibby fights me, it’ll be worse, and she’ll fail much faster. If she works with me, then I think I can prolong her life. I wish I could offer you more hope, but I have to tell you the truth. That’s why it’s important that she stay here, Luis. Without intervention, we stand a very good chance of losing her within the year. Not only that, but there’s a risk she will take many, many other innocents with her.” She paused, and then delivered the worst of it. “Even in the best-case scenario, it’s unlikely she’ll live to see adulthood. I’m sorry.”

I felt the surge of fury and horror from Luis, and he shoved his chair back and rose to stride away, staring out one of the windows with blind intensity. He was on the trembling verge of violence, or of tears; it could go either way. Neither would be useful, not here.

I didn’t even need to look at Luis to know we were in agreement. I said softly, on behalf of both of us, “What can you do for her?”

“There are treatments,” she said. “Janice and I will administer them, as we do with all the children here who are displaying that kind of reaction. It’ll take time, and I can’t promise you it will be painless for her, but we can buy her time. That’s the best I can offer. Time.” She let that fall into silence, then said, “I could use your help. Trained Earth Wardens are precious here.”

Luis and I answered at the same time.

“Yes, absolutely,” he said.

And I said, just as decisively, “No.”

We looked at each other. There was shock and disbelief in his face and, I was certain, in mine as well. “We can’t just abandon her, Cass! What the hell?”

“We can’t save her by staying here,” I said. “It may be too late to save her at all. But what we can do, what we must do, is stop Pearl before any other children are mutilated and destroyed. Staying here may help your guilt, but it’s not productive.”

That turned Luis’s eyes ice-cold. “Not productive? Look, I know you’re not human, but just pretend for a second—”

“Wait,” Marion said, and leaned across the table as if she intended to physically interpose herself between us. “Maybe Cassiel is right. Maybe there are two greater goods here. I’m selfish; I think keeping you here is the better option. But I can’t deny that she’s got a point. Neither can you, Warden Rocha, if you look at it objectively.”

He was in no mood to examine anything objectively, and I had to admit that I wasn’t, either. I was raw and furious over what I’d seen happen to Isabel, and so was he. Our instincts simply ran differently.

He wanted to protect. I wanted to attack.

“Do you even have a plan?” Luis demanded. I stared back at him without replying. “You don’t, do you? You’re going to run off and what? Run around screaming for Pearl to fight fair? Get a grip, Cass. She doesn’t have to fight you. She’s fucking winning.”

“She’ll fight me,” I said. “If she hates me even a fraction as much as I hate her, she won’t be able to pass up the chance to make me suffer.”

“She’s already making you suffer,” Luis shot back. “Unless you just don’t feel it. Is that it?”

I caught my breath, feeling his barb dig deep. “No. I feel it. But I can’t just let it pass. You know that.”

“You can’t go without a fucking plan, Cassiel. It’s stupid. And it’s suicide.”

Marion cleared her throat when neither of us spoke further. “All right,” she said. “Let’s take some time. Cassiel, stay with us for a few days while we decide together what the best course may be. Agreed?”

I was tempted to slam my way out of the room, get on my motorcycle, and ride away to find some way, any way, to avenge Isabel, but something stopped me.

The proud, angry yet vulnerable look on Luis’s face.

“All right,” I said. “Until there is a plan. But I can’t stay here forever.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Marion said.

But Luis was, though he wisely was not asking it out loud.