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Myron laughed "My dear lady, I can also see into the aetheric, you know And while you are intemperate and occasionally unwise, you lack the necessary ruthless detach boys Even in pursuit of the greater good And besides that, the Djinn would stop you, you knoever, I think you actually believe you ive you the benefit of the doubt and not consider it a lie" The laughter faded out of his eyes and left them chilled and scary "You do not want to lie to me, my dear Really, you do not"

Okay, now I had a creepy bad feeling They knew about the Wardens They knew about Kevin They knew about Jonathan Was there anything these guys didn’t know?

"Your attempt to stop hinarly-looking little e but not yet arrived: slicked-back black hair, rilasses, eyes of no immediate impact behind them "The Wardens need to stay out of this They caused this mess, just as they’ve caused hundreds more in the past thousand years"

"Oh, okay We’ll just pick up our toys and go hoh in his cheeks "You do know about the te ice age? Earthquakes? You do think we should do soht?"

Silence They all looked at ently, "Actually, my dear, no We don’t And that is our difficulty The Wardens long ago exceeded their authority when they began to enslave the Djinn and force the world to their own uses The syste been out of balance, which is why you have to work so hard to keep it going What you’re speaking of is siical result of soeven harder to control it"

"Then how can it be corrected?" I asked

"By letting go," he said "By giving up the illusion of control and allowing the world to right itself That is the only e can find our balance again"

"And howto kill?"

"As ht course a thousand years ago, we’d not be facing this kind of apocalypse now, but they refused to believe More power, they said More poill fix what’s broken But it won’t, and you know that on sos started to fall into place "You’ve been fighting us"

"No," Myron said "We’ve been correcting you We stand on the side of the Mother On the side of balance We are Ma’at"

I stared at the moment, Myron smiled beautifully and nodded at the bartender

"I believe our guest ht require a drink," he said "You favor whiskey, I believe? Although I find a gin and tonic to be quite refreshing at , no idea what it was even as I was saying it, becauseup before me Another world The answer to the difficulties the Wardens had been facing, the reason the da at an enemy the Wardens didn’t even know they had And da at all How the hell could they do anything against us?

Silence reigned until the unifor into hand I sipped Not whiskey Soue

Myron said, "We are the keepers of the balance, Miss Baldwin I trust you have so?"

"I don’t care if you call yourself the Justice League of America, you’re screwed up," I said "Don’t you realize that you’re playing with lives? People are dying out there Millions will die"

"And that is a very natural thing," put in another player "Sentimentality should have no place in an analysis of the environs die It’s the nature of the world You acknowledge that sometimes fires must burn so that the forests may be renewed Surely you apply the same standard to the entire world"

"So now hu to let a fire burn us out? Kill to cure?" I gripped the sweating glass hard in my hands and strove to keep my voice steady "I stand corrected You’re not screwed up; you’re insane"

"We have a long view," Myron adht see in the end Thethe balance, the more violent the correction will be when it comes And even the Wardens understand that you can’t stop everything you identify as a disaster Far frouys, I’ll bet" I took another fast drink The stuff was strong, judging by the nu in the back of my throat; I set the rest of it back down on the floor, but before it touched down another uniforrab it and carry it safely back to the bar

"It was the Wardens who forced things out of alignan to fail the moment that they discovered they could force the Djinn to their service, instead of asking for their cooperation Which brings us to the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in Djinn no longer act for us; they act against us, in constant subtle ways The earth itself struggles to throw off the chains And the Wardens are so oblivious, they sirip around their own throats"

"Wow That’s poetic," I said "So you brought me here to lecture on the evils of the Wardens?"

Myron looked amused So did the rest of them, even Gnarly Guy, who looked like he wasn’t arave Myron passed the unbroken deck of cards to his left and nodded to the table As if he’d given so space for another chair

"No We brought you here to play cards," he said "Join us, Miss Baldwin We could use a bit of fey in this room Don’t worry We’ll play it the normal way, out of courtesy to you"

I shot a look at Quinn, as a statue against the wall; he had a long-distance stare that didn’t seem to see me any men picked up my chair and carried it to the card table

Myron indicated the place with an open hand I tried another pleading look at Quinn It was like pleading with a statue of Stalin

I took the seat, and the new dealer-an elegantly put together little lasses- expertly snapped the seal on the deck, fanned the cards for inspection, shuffled, and began the deal I was about to say that I had nothing but my shoes to bet with, but before I could draw the breath someone-I looked up and saas Quinn-had put a rack of chips down in front of ave him hts in college" I fanned the hand I’d been dealt It sucked, naturally That didn’t matter I was about to teach thesethe scales in your own favor "I’m in"

We played Texas Hold ’E, broke, back down to betting ame Quinn politely carried ation distance; when I lookeddown, he put a hand on my shoulder Not that he pushed, exactly Just put a hand on my shoulder, with authority

I sat Besides,to hurt, and my pride was bruised