I hadn’t really stopped to think about it, but in a situation like this, even with a hundred people gathered in a small area, you were bound to run into tasks that needed to be managed, messages that had to be relayed, logistics that must be worked out. “He’s lucky to have you. Handy that he and Dani are brothers, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose,” she said absently. “But let’s go. He’s waiting.”
And of course the great and mighty Zahrias doesn’t like to be kept waiting. I didn’t say anything, though, but only told Dutchie this wouldn’t take long, then stepped out into the hall and shut the door behind me. The corridor was empty except for the two of us, and once again I wondered why Evony wasn’t being included in this convo with the djinn leader.
Sunshine streamed through the windows, glittering off the snow-frosted trees and shrubs outside. It looked like a fairyland out on the resort’s grounds, and I wished I had the time to go out and enjoy them, take Dutchie with me, now that the sun had reappeared.
That wasn’t going to happen, though. I dutifully followed Lauren back to the same conference room where I’d spoken with Zahrias the night before. Today there was no decanter of wine, but a pot of heavenly-smelling coffee, and a plate heaped with what looked like fresh-baked muffins, blueberry and corn and carrot spice.
He was standing by the fire again, however, and gave the same off-hand nod toward Lauren, effectively dismissing her. She shut the door, and he said,
“Have you broken your fast?”
“No.” My stomach rumbled a little, despite my protestations earlier that I really wasn’t that hungry. I hoped that the sound of the wood crackling away in the hearth was loud enough to hide the embarrassing noise.
“Then have some coffee, and eat.”
I couldn’t help my eyes narrowing, just a little. Why was he being so nice? But I needed to eat, and I needed the coffee even more, so I went to the table and poured some of the steaming-hot brew into a sturdy dark green mug, then added my usual amounts of cream and sugar. All of the muffins looked delicious, but I decided on one of the corn ones — flecked with green chiles and cheddar cheese — and set it on a small plate that was sitting next to the muffin basket.
“Your plans for today?” Zahrias asked, after I’d taken a cautious sip of my coffee. I needed the caffeine badly, but I didn’t want to burn my mouth.
“I was about to go back to Santa Fe, check on the house, and then head out to Los Alamos,” I replied. “Thank you for the hospitality, but it doesn’t seem as if you can help me, so there’s no point in staying.”
“You are determined in this?”
Why did he keep pushing? Did he really think I was going to change my mind? After setting my coffee mug down next to the plate with the muffin on it, I said, “Of course I am.”
“Even if I were to offer you an alternative?”
That question made me straighten up and give him a very direct look. This morning he was dressed more or less as he had been the night before, in the silken robe and loose pants, although I noticed he wore none of the flashy rose gold jewelry, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail rather than hanging loose on his shoulders.
“Alternative?” I asked, not sure I liked the sound of the word.
“Last night you met one of my people — Aldair.”
“Ye-es,” I said slowly. Where was Zahrias going with this? The image of the other djinn, the sharp, penetrating blue of his eyes, flashed through my mind. “We more or less bumped into each other as I was leaving the dining room.”
“His is a sad case. He was one of those whose Chosen went to Los Alamos to investigate and did not return.”
A little shiver began to work its way down my spine, even though the fire was quite hot. “That’s too bad,” I said, my tone possibly a bit too casual.
“It has been difficult for him, and for the three others who lost their partners.” For the first time, Zahrias bent to take up his own mug of coffee; I was surprised to see that it wasn’t black, the way Jace drank it, but doctored to a shade lighter than my own. “But then he saw you last night and realized who you were.”
“And?” I asked, even though I had a suspicion where all this might be going. No wonder I’d been so uneasy after meeting Aldair.
“He would like you to be his Chosen.”
Just like that. My mouth was dry, so I retrieved my coffee as well and swallowed as large a mouthful as I could without burning my tongue. Tone flat, I said, “Isn’t he sort of forgetting that I already have a djinn partner?”
“A partner who is a captive.”
“A partner I intend to rescue,” I shot back.
Zahrias’ eyebrows lifted. “And how precisely do you intend to do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
His only response was a thin smile. “I think you would be far better off if you accepted Aldair’s offer.”
And maybe if Aldair wanted me so badly, he could have asked me himself, instead of having Zahrias act as his pimp. Right then, anger began to flicker through me, bright and terrible as the fire in the hearth only a few feet away.
“Oh, really?” I asked, hands planted on my hips as I shot Zahrias a narrow-eyed glare. Voice tight, I went on, “Just like that? Abandon the man I love and let the Los Alamos people do what they want with him — torture him, or…or do experiments on him — or execute him?” I paused to gather myself. Ignoring the deepening scowl on Zahrias’ features, I went on, “Jace is one of your own people. Don’t you care what happens to him?”
“What I might personally think or feel is of no import. Because of the device you described, we cannot attempt our own rescue of him.” Zahrias’ black eyes glittered, and it was as if I could see flames of dark orange and red gleaming within them, echoing his inner fury, raging against his impotence. “It seems that the machine does far worse than merely rob us of our powers, but also weakens us to the point of uselessness. What do you expect us to do to combat that?”
“Nothing,” I said, my tone far gentler than I’d intended it to be. Zahrias — and all the djinn — probably had no experience with that sort of powerlessness. So how could I expect them to put themselves so terribly in harm’s way, with no hope of success? “Which is why I have to be the one to save him, and Natila, too. I can’t stay here and leave them to their fate. Maybe it’s easy for Aldair to forget the person he lost. But I can’t — I can’t transfer my affections like that. I need to get Jace back.”
For the longest moment, Zahrias said nothing, only stared at me, brows lowered, mouth pressed into a thin line. He did look very forbidding, and I swallowed, knowing that, although the Los Alamos survivors might have the means to take his djinn powers away, here in Taos I was in his territory, where he possessed his full strength, and he could do whatever he liked.
Up to and including smiting an impudent mortal, if she annoyed him enough.
But then he shook his head. “I had not expected this.”
“Not expected what?”
“For you to have loved Jasreel like this, so much so that you are willing to risk your own life in an endeavor that could very well end badly for you both.”
“Don’t the Chosen here love their djinn the same way?” I inquired, genuinely curious. “Doesn’t Lauren love your own brother enough to sacrifice herself for him?”
At the mention of his brother, Zahrias’ face grew clouded again, but he smoothed the expression away almost as soon as it appeared. “As for that, I suppose you would have to ask her. They do seem to care for one another, but it is not a relationship that has been…tested…as yours has.”
I decided it was probably better to let that go for now. “Well, if this is a test, then I want to make sure I pass it. And that means going to Los Alamos. I realize there isn’t much you can do to help, but — ”
“I can do a little.” He moved away from me and stood by the window, and for the first time I could see shimmers o
f dark, dark blood red in his black hair as the sunlight caught it. “At least I can make your return journey go more smoothly. You have seen how the streets here in Taos have been cleared of snow?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering where he was going with this. “I figured you had some of the Chosen out plowing the roads.”
A small smile as he turned back toward me. “No. The djinn of the air have blown the snow away, and those of us with the gift of fire have melted the ice from the walkways, so all can walk safely.”
Well, that was handy. But even as I visualized all those djinn out on snow-clearing duty, a suspicion began to grow in my mind. “So, wait — you could’ve cleared the highway for me? Made it so I didn’t have to crawl here for hours and hours and almost get stuck in the snow?”
“Yes,” he replied, then added, “Although I did help you out of that one tight spot in Truchas, did I not?”
That answered one question…but not my others. Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t get it. Why make me go through all that?”
Another one of those tight little smiles, almost mocking, but not quite. “I wanted to see how serious you were about rescuing Jasreel.”
Right then, I wished I had the courage to knee a djinn in the nuts. But I didn’t, so I only gave Zahrias the sourest look I could muster, then finally helped myself to the muffin I’d selected. Even with elemental intervention, I still had a long drive back to Santa Fe.
Any hope that I could go back to my room in stealth and retrieve my bag, and then fetch Evony from her own borrowed suite, was dashed before I was even halfway to my destination. From nowhere, seemingly — and maybe it was from nowhere, since an elemental could probably come and go from this plane as he pleased — Aldair appeared in the corridor, arms crossed. To my surprise, today he wasn’t wearing the gaudy djinn garb of brocade robe and flowing pants, but a dark sweater and jeans and hiking boots. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he was just a regular mortal like me, one of the Chosen…except for the ghostly wind that seemed to move in the hallway and blow against my loose hair.
So, an air elemental, like Jace.
Since I couldn’t really go around Aldair, I stopped where I was and gave him an inquiring look.
“You are leaving.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
Those laser-bright blue eyes seemed to bore into me. “Without even considering my request.”
Seriously? I didn’t have time for this. One chance encounter where we’d exchanged fewer than a dozen words certainly didn’t give this djinn the right to think he had a claim on me. “A request delivered through your leader instead of coming to me directly.”
His head tilted slightly. “Would it have made a difference?”
“No, but it would have been a little more considerate.”
“I don’t understand. You are a Chosen without a partner, and I am a djinn who has lost his. It makes perfect sense for you to stay here with me.”
Right then I began to appreciate even more the way Jace had handled our relationship. Yes, some might argue that he should have told me the truth much earlier, but at the same time, he’d given the two of us a chance to grow into one another, to appreciate the other person for who he or she was, and not what. This Aldair was acting as if one Chosen was as good as another, as long as she was to his taste.
Hands on my hips, I said, “Actually, it doesn’t make sense, for two reasons. First, because Jace is still alive, only captured, and so we’re still very much together. And two,” I added, hurrying because I didn’t want this confrontation to go on any longer than it absolutely had to, “contrary to what you might think, we mortals aren’t interchangeable pieces. You can’t expect us to transfer our affections in the blink of an eye. It doesn’t work that way. So, if you’ll let me pass — ”
He didn’t seem inclined to do that at all. Arms still crossed, he regarded me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, as if all my arguments had meant very little to him. “I don’t think I’m done speaking with you, Jessica.”
“Oh, yes, you are.” Zahrias’ voice, and I never thought I’d ever be so happy to see the djinn leader. I hadn’t even noticed where he’d come from, only that he was suddenly there, standing a few paces away, his arms crossed and an irritated glint in his dark eyes. “Jasreel’s Chosen has offered what I believe are very cogent arguments. You will let her go. You will let her leave so she can rescue her lover.”
At the word “lover,” Aldair’s eyes went almost to slits, his heavy lashes hiding the fierce blue of his eyes. But it appeared that he didn’t want to get into an actual argument with Zahrias, because he let out a rumbling sound of disgust and then blinked out of existence, leaving the two of us alone in the corridor.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Aldair can be rather stubborn. But he will lick his wounds for a while, and eventually, if he still wants a mortal, he can make another choice from those still alive in Albuquerque, or even farther south. There are probably one or two likely candidates.”
Meaning someone young and attractive, I supposed. It seemed that the djinn were just about as shallow as humans when it came to that sort of thing. Now was certainly not the time to remark on their taste in partners, though, so I only said, “Well, I hope he finds someone.” Because then he can forget about chasing after me….
“That, I suppose, is up to him. Safe travels, Jessica Monroe.”
And then, like Aldair, Zahrias disappeared as well, and I was alone in the hallway. Handy trick, although it must wreak havoc on a person’s notions of privacy, being able to blink in and out wherever and whenever you wanted. I wondered how the djinn culture had evolved to deal with it.
That was something I’d have to discover at another time, however. For now it was enough to finally go fetch Evony, and release Dutchie from her durance vile in my hotel room.
Time to go home…if only for a short while.
As Zahrias had promised, the High Road was cleared of snow and ice, although the drifts were piled up on either side of the highway to almost shoulder height. Evony looked at the bare asphalt with disbelieving eyes and demanded, “You mean they could’ve done this for us all along?”
“Yes,” I said, and I couldn’t even find it in me to be angry. Well, not much. Right then it was enough to be cruising along at a steady forty-five miles an hour, and to see the sun sparkling off all that lovely fresh snow. Of course, it was mostly lovely because it wasn’t slowing us down, but still.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, then pursed her mouth. “Thank God Natila wasn’t so…arbitrary.”
“What is she like?” I asked, using the present tense on purpose. Already I’d caught myself using the word “was” when I thought of Jace, and I needed to stop doing that. He was alive. He was still present, not past.
Anyway, Evony hadn’t said all that much about Natila, not after she’d described how the djinn woman had come into her life, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to learn a bit more. It would help to pass the time, although now, with these magically cleared roads stretching ahead of us, I knew we’d be back in Santa Fe before noon.
“She’s….” Evony seemed to pause and consider for a moment as she stared out the window. The trees outside were still sugar-frosted with snow, although a brisk wind blowing down off the Sangre de Cristo mountains was sending fine flurries everywhere as the snow shook itself from the branches of the pines and firs. “She’s fun, I guess. Back at the casino, she would make jokes about having to take baths with bottled water and eating out of cans and all that. Made everything seem not quite so hard.” Another silence as Evony kept her gaze fixed on the window, although I could see her throat working, as if she’d had to swallow back some unexpected tears. “But now I just feel mad at her.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised. That was about the last thing I would have expected Evony to say.
“Well, even though she told me the truth about herself pretty early on, she could’ve done it even earlier
than that. We could’ve had running water from the beginning, and better food. And there wasn’t really any reason for us to be hanging around Española all that time. I don’t know what the hell she was thinking, especially now that I know where we could have been staying in Taos.”
On the surface, those all seemed like valid complaints. However, just like Jace, Natila must have had a reason for lingering in Evony’s hometown, although at the moment I couldn’t figure out what that might be.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her as much, but another glance at the hard lines of Evony’s profile, the way her fingers were clutched tightly around the small backpack she held in her lap, told me that probably wasn’t such a good idea. For all I knew, she was using that anger as a shield, a way to protect herself from worrying too much. If she thought she was angry with Natila, then she wouldn’t have the mental energy to grieve and fret.
“Well,” I began, then hesitated, trying to think of the best way to phrase my remark so I wouldn’t upset Evony, “it sounds as if she was trying to do her best to cushion things for you. I don’t think she meant to make things harder.”
“Maybe.” She let out a breath, then shook her head. “It’s just…you think you’ve survived the end of the world, and then you think you’ve finally found the perfect person for you…and then they aren’t who they said they were, and….” The sentence trailed off there, but I knew what she meant. Far more than I really wanted to, actually.
But because that was obvious to both of us, I didn’t bother saying anything else. Instead, I drove as quickly as I could, which still wasn’t quite up to the speed limit, despite what the djinn had done to clear the roads. Here and there were still patches of ice from the snow melting off the slopes above, not a lot, but enough that I didn’t want to take the curves with too much abandon.
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