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I laughed

David called another Djinn to take his place in the fragile power structure that held us above the waves, and flashed across the hold toward me As he did, Lewis blocked hied with pain "Don’t touch her" David looked like he was considering touching Lewis, in a very hostile nited a sht in the palave e and red in his eyes, od

Next to him, a faint mist formed in the air It didn’t bother to take hu that came with it, oppressive as the ocean depths, and just as cold

The Air Oracle She - or he? - was the Djinn equivalent of an archangel, both supremely powerful and unknowable Even as Conduit for the Djinn, David couldn’t order an Oracle; he could only petition

He’d obviously petitioned, and now the Air Oracle was here, looking at istered in the world at all There was co on between David and the Oracle It wasn’t civil, from the look on David’s face

This was a perfect moment to see just what I could do with all this power

As I su boil inside , the Air Oracle’s attention focused on me with a snap, and I was driven to my knees

The Oracle seemed surprised that I hadn’t been driven into tiny little fragoing to get a lot ht, and save hi ata h the aetheric connection between us

It blew me out of my body I fell, stunned, and waited for the end The Air Oracle was no friend of hue of a pond to her

But she didn’t act

She just left

David bent and took hed less than ive me," he said "It’s better if you sleep" Before I could even think about protesting, all the light winked out, and I was drifting away into warm, dark, safe eternity

When I woke up, it was because David could no longer afford even the s to keep me unconscious

I swam up out of the thick darkness to the sound of alarale-driven shriek of wind The air smelled of metal and salt and fear

Heavenly, that smell

I openedbolt split the sky abovein the darkness

It lit up low, thick, black clouds that fired rain down like arrows from the battle in a white padded chair that was

It slid hard to starboard, and I jerked and rolled off and toMy bare soles hit cold, ood, and I shivered I was soaked to the skin How had I gotten here? And why? And what the hell was going on?

Nothing good, obviously The deck was thick with uniforerous out here, but that didn’t see anybody; I wondered why they hadn’t taken refuge inside, but soe finally kicked in, and I knew

Either the crew understood that there was an excellent chance that this ship was going down, or there was soerous than the storood news for nized my best friend, because I’d rarely seen her look this -

well, bedraggled Drowned-rat wet, pale, and shivering with cold "God, I thought you’d never wake up Coed me off in some random direction No one had told her that I was prone to irrational bursts of killing fury, I supposed Good That would et to the lifeboat - "

My senses were coht I saw the thick red strea in

The stor he’d pulled out of the spear, was al

Cherise’s words were lost in a fresh blast of wind, a gust so flat and hard that it slaainst the ht have tried to help her Instead, I just clung to a le

I saw one of the heavy lounge chairs topple right over the railing and disappear as the ship lurched to starboard again We were heeling around, getting ha waves like a punch-drunk boxer

The ship was still stuck in one spot, anchored by the suction co fro stronger, not weaker

The Djinn were losing the fight

"Hang on!" Cherise screa us with spray like nails "We have to get off the ship, now !" How exactly that was going to be accomplished I had no idea, but I nodded In the brief lull between lashing waves, we staggered to the next handhold Along the e ran into -wet Cynthia Clark, who surely hadn’t been this miserable since she’d made that epic disaster nized Cho Chu Wing, one of our Weather Wardens Cho was a tiny little thing, skinny as a restaurant greeter She’d ether; her black hair was pegged back in a tight ball, and only rando to her dae, and beneath it she seemed to be drier than any of the rest of us She waved us frantically toward the bow of the ship As we slipped and fought our way through blinding spray and stinging, whipping rain, we gathered Weather Wardens in ones and twos, until there was a tight knot of theby team in a scrum

I stood apart from them Remote, even in the et a bubble!" Cho screa us clear water for a hundred feet in every direction!"

That wasn’t as hard as it ht seem; it was basically wave cancellation, which is a funda thatYou need to find the specific frequency of the wave and cancel it out, and y elsewhere Nory could destabilize everything, and whip up a whole mess of side proble stew of uncontrolled energy, another fewplace would hardly matter

"Tornado!" so black ar in like scythes There were bulbous eruptions for into cones For tornadoes have a lazy look, almost tentative; they bob and weave and seeth consolidated

I’d never taken tiance before So beautiful So deadly

Cho was shouting so at me She wanted ave it to the tornado, and laughed as it gobbled up power like a greedy shark

Cho aveinto another Warden, who putfor Djinn

My pet tornado collapsed - no great surprise, they alere fragile constructs, by the very nature of the physics that drove the her violently from one side to the other, eased to merely heavy instead of psychotic I felt the waves’ pounding rhyth as adrenaline faded

"You can’t stop it," I told Cho, as taking advantage of the breathing space to stare into the heart of the storm "Everybody dances with the devil" I knew the stor that Bad Bob had i and cruelty, and a particular kind of insanity I could feel it gathering itself, studying us Planning