Yep, being squeezed like a baby in a birth canal was not my idea of fun, but there I went into the bottle, and I felt the world tilt as Kevin grabbed it up. Seen close through the glass, his fingers were huge and grimy and definitely nothing I ever wanted to have pawing my skin, substantial or insubstantial.
And then he twisted the stopper home.
Lights out.
I dreamed again. I guess that was what Djinn did in bottles… dreamed. Sure as hell wasn’t anything else to do. To make matters even more strange, this one wasn’t even my dream.
It was David’s.
He was pacing restlessly in a strange square glass room I didn’t recognize, coat swirling like smoke around him from the violence of his turns. His hands were clenched behind his back, and his whole body vibrated with tension. As I watched, his legs began to blur and become mist; he hissed out something in a language I didn’t know and exerted a pulse of will that I could feel even in my drifting, dreaming state.
His legs went solid again.
He threw himself violently against the glass, pressing hard, so hard I felt the effort like a distant earthquake. Outside of the glass, there was a giant-sized world, distorted into warped shapes and weird colors. People moving around out there, giant blobs of color and form. One of them caught my attention— neon yellow outfit. Rahel?
David was inside a bottle. Unlike me, he wasn’t sealed in, but for some reason he couldn’t get out, either.
Where David was pushing, the thick glass vibrated. I felt the energy building in waves as the thick surface began to whipsaw violently, rippling. David pushed harder. The glass bowed out in a bubble, went from clear to milk white, distorted…
David collapsed to his knees. The glass snapped back into shape with a ringing, singing pop of energy. Clear and perfect.
“Let me go,” he said hoarsely. He was exhausted. Reflected light glittered on his copper-brushed hair, pale gold skin, bright-penny eyes. “Please, let me go to her. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
No sense of arrival, but suddenly Jonathan was sitting in the far corner. He was still dressed in casual human-normal clothes, but there was nothing normal or human about the power behind his eyes, or the cell-deep weariness. He looked infinitely worse than last I’d seen him.
David climbed back to his feet and turned to face him. “I have to go, Jonathan, now.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Jonathan said. His voice was thin, tired, and hoarse. “This is the only safe place right now. Going out there is useless. And you know I’m right, so don’t give me that look.”
David’s eyebrows knitted together in an angry line. “What look?”
“That look. The you-don’t-understand look. Hell, I understand, I’ve been in love, too. But the survival of the Free Djinn comes first, it has to. We’re talking about losing everything. You want to end up dead, or worse?”
“Of course not.”
“Then quit fucking around and try to understand that everything doesn’t revolve around your heartaches.”
David took a step forward, fists clenched and face tense. “Oh, I understand, believe me. I’ve played chess with you too many times not to. But I’m not going to let you use her as a sacrifice pawn, Jonathan. Something’s happened to her. She’s been taken.”
“I know.” Jonathan propped his head against the glass wall with no evidence of comfort. “Patrick arranged it. Look, I know you don’t approve, but she needed to learn the ropes. It was the best thing.”
“Fuck!” David kicked the wall hard enough to draw a humming sound out of the hard surface. “You incredible bastard. You arrogant son of a—”
“—bitch,” Jonathan supplied, and closed his eyes. “You’ve called me that before, you know. And trust me, in this particular case, flattery will not get you a free pass out of here. She needs this if you want her to survive. Don’t be stupid. She’s perfectly safe with Lewis… magically speaking, anyway.”
“Stupid?” David repeated, and turned slowly to face him. Oh God. The look on his face… He lunged across the space, braced himself on stiff arms, face-to-face with Jonathan. “You think it’s Lewis that has her?”
Jonathan’s eyes flashed open. Just a second of doubt in those old, tired, very powerful eyes. He didn’t answer.
“It’s Yvette,” David whispered. “Don’t you understand? I don’t know how, but she’s got Joanne. You know what she’ll do.”
Jonathan might have flinched—barely—but whatever impulse he had toward concern shut down fast. “Better her than you.”