I got another frown for that one. “I hope that’s what they are.”
“Instead of…?”
“Something else. I just get nervous when the universe doesn’t obey its own laws.”
“Welcome to my world,” I said. “Having kind of a weird life experience these days.”
I hadn’t been out of the room except to travel the aetheric—and that somewhat queasy trip to the Drake Hotel—since we’d checked in; the elegance came as a shock. First, the carpet—a blue-and-gold riot of French Provincialism. Next, the genuine Louis-the-whatever gilt tables with chunky glass vases of silk flowers.
No, I definitely hadn’t dressed to fit the room.
I stopped in the full force of a patch of sunlight in the lobby window and let my skin soak up the energy. I hadn’t realized I needed it until it reached inside and stilled me in a way that only David’s touch had been able to achieve.
David didn’t speak for a moment, just stood with me in that hot golden patch of warmth. When I looked over at him, his eyes were closed, his face rapt in a kind of worship. I took his hand. He looked over at me, smiled, and pushed the down button on the panel for the elevator.
“Why does that feel so good?” I asked. “And don’t tell me it’s because we’ve been shut in a room for days.”
“Like calls to like,” he said. “You’re made of fire now.”
“So I’m going to feel like this every time I pass an open flame? Great. Firegasm.”
“Remember that focus thing we were talking about? Learn to practice it.”
The elevator dinged and yawned open. Nobody inside. We entered and David touched the button for l.
“You haven’t told me where we’re heading.”
“No,” he agreed.
“And you’re not going to?”
“Right.”
“So much for the partnership.”
He was still facing the control panel, deliberating not looking at me. “I’m responsible for your safety, Jo. You have to let me make the decisions about what’s too dangerous.”
“What’s dangerous about letting me know where we’re going?”
“Nothing. But you need to keep in mind that whatever Lewis is going to talk about, it’s to do with the mortal world. You need to be very, very careful right now about keeping separate from it.”
“So whatever Lewis wants, we’re going to say no, unless it has to do with the Djinn.”
“Yes.”
“Does he know about that? Because if he does, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t bother wasting the—”
The elevator hadn’t stopped, and I was sure it had been empty when we’d gotten inside, but all of a sudden a third voice behind me said, “Ah, there you are.”
I yelped and went south until I collided with an elevator wall; my body threatened to break up into mist, but I held it together. There was another Djinn in the elevator with us, leaning casually against the back wall. I knew her instantly, if nothing else for her neon-bright wardrobe. Today’s was a kind of electric eye-popping blue: flared pants, low-cut vest with no shirt beneath, beautifully tailored jacket. Blue was a good color on her. It accented the rich dark-chocolate shade of her skin. Her elegantly tiny shoulder-length braids were plaited with matching neon blue beads, which clicked like dry bones when she tilted her head.
Rahel had always known how to accessorize.
Djinn, I was coming to understand, had a flare for the dramatic, so popping in unannounced wasn’t necessarily threatening. Rahel had done this to me before, in the days when I still had a pulse and a human lifespan. The first time I’d met her, she’d blipped into existence in the passenger seat of my car, which had been doing seventy at the time. I’d barely kept it on the road.
She’d enjoyed the joke then, and she was clearly enjoying it now. She crossed her arms, leaned back against the elevator wall, and took in the reaction with a smile.
Unlike me, David didn’t seem surprised at her sudden appearance. He slowly turned to face her, and his expression was a closed book. “Rahel.”
“David.”
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but…”
“Business,” she said crisply.
“Yours or mine?”
“Both. Neither.” Not really an answer. “You know whose business it is. Don’t you?”
No answer from David. Rahel hadn’t paid the slightest attention to me, but now her vivid gold-shimmering eyes wandered my direction and narrowed with something that might have been amusement, or annoyance, or disgust. “Snow White,” she said. “Love the perm.”