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I stretched ht unravel and break and be swept away I tasted blood and felt y poured out onto the wind, screa I tried to do what I&039;d done a thousand times before, and alter the te friction and lift and heat and wind

For the first time I failed

I felt David break first with a bright, hot, shattering pop, and the black drag onforce, knocking ain and saw David let go of the Warden

Who fell, screa I could do Nothing

I screaht of his body crushing on pave in an arc as his skull shattered

I felt his life snap like his bones

David froze in e, body transfor from the fire of the Djinn to the black coal shadows of the Ifrit

"Oh God" It wasn&039;t stopping I felt every bit of energy being sucked out of me; the life, the heat, the baby oh God not the baby you can&039;t David

I felt everything around just suspend In some odd way, I kept on outside of ti a Djinn, or at least what I re and co apart under the strain I wasn&039;t healed

Time had stopped Pain hadn&039;t

Someone had intervened

I heard the scrape of shoes on the asphalt behindfor breath, and saw Jonathan walking toward h a flash-frozen world People were locked in asp

He and I were the only things

Unlike most Djinn, Jonathan-the most powerful of the short hair A runner&039;s build, all angles and strength

Black eyes, and a face that could be friendly or iht Just another guy

And yet, he was so far from human he made David look like the boy next door

"You have to help an I should have known that the sound of ht up to ainst the rail so hard that my back bent painfully over open air

"You&039;re lucky," he said in a whiskey-rough growl, "that I&039;ood mood"

And then he looked over my shoulder at the frozen, twisted shape of David, stopped inruin of the Warden&039;s body on the pavement below Jonathan&039;s face lost all semblance of humanity, all expression

There was a sense, evenaround him

Even the as utterly silent, as if afraid to draw his attention

"Jonathan-" I began hoarsely

"Joanne," he interrupted, and it was a low purr, full of darkness and menace, "you just don&039;t seem to listen I told you to fix David Doesn&039;t look fixed to htened convulsively around ed for breath "In fact, he looks one hell of a lot worse than the last ti that I&039;m very disappointed"

There was absolutely no h it was cloaked behind a good-looking face and eyes that had all of the charm and warmth of black holes

"I don&039;t have time for this crap," he said, and turned those eyes back topoints in black Ready to break free Ready to rip apart e, the city, the world He was that powerful I could feel it rising off of him like heat froa hiht now This isn&039;t so, do you understand that?"

Because he was in theDjinn had disappeared, but the aftereffects of their battle lingered like burned cordite on the raw air If this was happening all over the world

"I don&039;t kno to help him," I croaked "I&039;ve tried I just don&039;t understand how to do it"

I felt his grip on hs against mine, bent over me in a parody of a dance

"Well, then, you&039;re no good to me, are you?"

"Wait" I tried to s Prettyto hurt so, so badly, if I survived it "You-you must be able to-"

"If I could fix him, don&039;t you think I already would have? Do you think this is so him suffer?" No, I didn&039;t think that I could see the furious pain in Jonathan&039;s eyes "He&039;s your slave I can&039;t touch him until you set him free"

David The bottle Jonathan couldn&039;t interfere Those were the rules I could only i in his way

I tried to s, but his grip was too tight I could barely choke out the words around the burning pain in my throat "I can&039;t You knoell as I do that if I let hio now-"

He knew David would be beyond anyone&039;s control once I released hiht be able to help hiht not be possible

"Help me help him," I whispered

Oh, he didn&039;t like that idea, not at all I&039;d never scored high on the list of Jonathan&039;s favorite people, for a lot of reasons-first, I was hu point; second, my relationship with David, and David&039;s tenacious co order of Jonathan&039;s universe And as Jonathan was, in Djinn terod, that wasn&039;t really a good thing

It was also very hard to mistake the fact that Jonathan cared for David A lot

In deep and eternal ways that stretched back to the days of theirIt didn&039;t make for a comfortable three-sided relationship

"Help you?" he repeated "Oh, I think I&039;ve helped you just about as much as you deserve, sweetheart As in, you&039;re still breathing"

"Not very well," I croaked, and flailed a helpless hand towardthroat

Whichthat wasn&039;t quite a so of me, but he didn&039;t step back I slowly braced ht, careful to make no sudden movements-not that I could in any way hurt hiether, chest to chest He didn&039;t care about my personal space

He stared at me from that very inti indeed black, shot through with sparks like stars, galaxies burning and dying and being born Once upon a time, far in the past, he&039;d been human and a Warden, with the three powers of Earth, Fire, and Weather like those Lewis possessed these days I didn&039;t know much about his human life, only his death; it had caused the Earth herself to wake and grieve Jonathan had beenDavid, who&039;d been dragged along with hih those fires of creation, had come out sublinitude greater than that, perilously close to godhood

He was losing that, to Ashan How in the hell Ashan had the big brass ones to decide he could win in a toe-to-toe dogfight with Jonathan was beyond me, but the fact was, even if Jonathan kicked the crap out of him and all his Djinn followers, it was a war to make the Earth tre would be sacred

Jonathan looked into me It hurt, and I flinched and trembled and wanted desperately to hide in so froainst it, either His hands came up and rested onwarmth The heat of his skin on mine confused me, made me feel odd and diseo, and besides, I wasn&039;t sure my body would even listen to any such co weak?" he askedsick? A little off these days?"