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<body><h2 align="center">Thin Air-Rachel Caine</h2><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img.fb2gratis.com/covers/167/166160_thin_air.jpg"></p>
<image l:href="#pic_1.jpg"/>
<h4 align="center">
<p> Rachel Caine</p>
<empty-line/>
<p> Thin Air</p>
</h4>
<section>
<p> Book six of The Weather Warden Series, 2007</p>
</section>
<section>
<p align="right"><i>
<p> To all the great people who have been so enthusiastic about the adventures of Joa
</i></p>
<p> So far, anyway.</p>
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<p id="_Toc185440002">
<strong> The Author Wishes to Thank: </strong></p>
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<p> Joe Bonamassa</p>
<p> (www.jbonamassa.com)</p>
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<p> Josefine Corsten and Sondra Lehman, without whom this book would not have been possible</p>
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<p> The wi
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<p> Janice Smith (1st place), Telaryn, Amanda M. Hayes, Rhienelleth, Carrie Miller, Mysticmoose, CKocher, Tainry, Writerfangirl, Navah Wolfe, Kaylana-Nicole, Laura Roman, Seeksadventure, Je
<empty-line/>
<p> My friends (especially P. N. Elrod, Kelley, Marla, Claire, Becky, Katie, and Becky!) and my family (especially my husband, Cat)</p>
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<p> Grateful thanks to Do
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<p> Speaking of fearless, kudos to my fearless agents, Lucie
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<p> And most especially, thanks to my editor, Liz Scheier, for her tremendous faith in me</p>
</section>
<section>
<h4 align="center">
<p> PREVIOUSLY…</p>
</h4>
<p> I was lying on something cold and wet, and I was naked and shivering. Afraid. Something was very, very wrong with me.</p>
<p> I reflexively curled in on myself, protecting as much of my body as I could, as awareness of the world washed over me in hot, pulsing waves.</p>
<p> Biting, frigid wind. Ice-cold sleet trailing languid fingers over my bare skin. I forced my eyes open and saw my arm lying on the ground in front of me, hand outstretched, and my skin was a pallid, blue-tinged white, red at the fingertips. Frostbite.</p>
<p> I ached all over, so fiercely that I felt tears well up in my eyes. And I felt <i>empty</i>, cored and thrown out like an old orange peel.</p>
<p> I forced myself to look beyond my own hand and saw that I was lying in a mound of cold, slimy leaf litter. Overhead, bare trees swayed and scratched the sky, and what little could be seen between the skeletal branches was gray, flocked with low clouds. The air tasted thin in my mouth.</p>
<p> I tried to think where I was, how I’d gotten here, but it was a blank. Worse, it terrified me to even try to think of it. I shuddered with more than the cold, gasping, and squeezed my eyes shut again.</p>
<p> <i>Get up</i>, I told myself. <i>Up.</i> I’d die if I stayed here, naked and freezing. But when I tried to uncurl myself from the embryonic position I’d assumed, I couldn’t get anything to work right. My muscles jittered and spasmed and protested wildly, and the best I managed was to roll myself up to my hands and knees and not quite fall flat on my face again.</p>
<p> I heard a voice yelling somewhere off in the woods. Sticks cracking as something large moved through the underbrush. <i>Run!</i> something told me, and I was immediately drenched in cold terror. I lunged up to my feet, biting back a shriek of agony as muscles trembled and threatened to tear. I fell against the rough bark of a tree and clung to it as cramps rippled through my back and legs, like giant hands giving me the worst massage in the world. I saw sparks and stars, bit my lip until I tasted blood. My hair was blowing wildly in the wind where it wasn’t stuck to my damp, cold skin or matted with mud and leaves.</p>