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"Djinn," Christopher said helpfully

"So let round state of the djinn The lowest ical energy, it will evolve to a higher-order djinn, just like an excited electron ju to the farther orbit?"

"Yes" Christopher smiled "It will be what its true nature houl when the ain?"

"No" Christopher shook his head "Higher-orbit djinn ic"

"Does this make sense to you?" Barabas asked

"Sort of We don’t really knohy ghouls are ghouls But we do know from folklore that they were relatively rare in ancient ti The other types of djinn were houls but no djinn We also know that some djinn tended to interbreed with hue of the huenes somewhere deep inside They have the djinn blood but very little ic wave, they would transfor else That’s probably e haven’t figured out what causes ghoulism There is probably soe, but it’s not a disease It’s a genetic predisposition"

Christopher smiled at me

"It would explain why they devour corpses," Barabas said "Human remains, especially after a supernatural event, have a lot of residual ic"

"They’re probably instinctively driven to it to try to get enough ic to transforhoul soic to evolve into its true form, he wouldn’t ‘fall back’ the way an electron does?"

"No, because once it’s transforic fro them past that threshold that is the proble my father had told houl enough energy to evolve?"

Christopher pondered it, got up, and began looking through the boxes A minute crawled by, then another He pulled an old book out, flipped through it, and placed it in front of me Hmm Alchemical symbols Looked like standard Renaissance nonsenseI flipped the page A circle, within the circle the syle pointing up A creature writhed in the center, caught in flames Above it blood poured from a cup held by a disereen flames Blah-blah-blahSpirit of box, salt of vitriol

Barabas was looking over my shoulder "Can you understand any of this?"

"Yes, it’s basic alchemy They used methanol and boric acid to reen" A plan tried to cobble itself together in my head I could actually do this if all else failed

"So you don’t know about electrons but you understand medieval chemistry?"

"Electrons don’t help me survive" I sreat"

He hugged esture and so not like him Christopher didn’t like to be touched He’d spent tooslowly in his own filth Any physical contact had to be initiated very carefully, but here he was hugging me, so I held still and smiled at him For a few moments we sat on the floor next to each other with Christopher gently hugging my shoulders

Someone knocked on the door Barabas opened it Julie stood in the doorway Her face said she was clearly put upon and no adult could ever understand the full extent of her suffering

"Mahon cae, but she won’t let hih the door," she recited in a monotone voice "Could you please coht of the Order are here to see you and Curran can’t talk to them because he has to stand in the hallway and e don’t break the door down and kill each other"

Why ht and the wizard sitting inskills andparty

"It’s too bad we’rea cleric," I said