Undone

My once-Dji

My hand slipped down his arm to grab his hand. He flinched, then nodded, tight-lipped. “Do it,” he said.

“Together,” I replied.

Compared with the white-hot geyser of Lewis Orwell’s abilities, Ma

It was trust I required, and trust I received, as Ma

I shaped his power into a sharp edge, something that gleamed like the blade of a knife on the aetheric. I forced the edges finer, finer still, until it was thin as a whisper, and strong as steel.

Then I threw out my arms and cut through the barrier holding us pe

I formed a second sharp-edged plane and slammed it down five feet from the first, through force and metal. The metal fence, chopped at two points, fell in the middle to form an exit, a break in the attack large enough for us to escape.

Except that Ma

Ma

The beasts streamed around me, hot and bellowing, and thundered through the narrow gap. When the last bawling animal was free, Ma

“Go!” I shouted. He plunged through.

I did not think I could keep the barriers in place while moving, but I tried, walking slowly and calmly with my arms outstretched to either side. My fingertips brushed the slick, cool surface of the walls I’d put in place. I felt them shudder.

I felt them shatter when I was still in the middle.

The storm closed around me and shattered me, too.

I came back to consciousness with my eyes full of cloudless blue sky, tasting dust and metal. When I took a breath, it was thick with the smell of cattle.

It was the stench that convinced me. Ah, then. Not dead, unless the humans are correct about hell.

For a moment, as pain washed over me, I wished I’d been granted that mercy, but instead, a face loomed close, blocking out the sun. I expected Ma

“Hey!” Ma

I felt strangely . . . light. Empty. I held out my hand to him, and it trembled with the effort.

He looked at it, then past my shaking fingers to focus on my face.

“You saved my life,” he said. There was something odd in his voice. “You really did.”

I had no strength left to voice my needs. Part of me was already fraying at the edges, and I was afraid, the way I’d been afraid as Ashan ripped me from the world of the Dji

This time, I was falling into darkness. No one, not even the Dji

Ma

The flow of power seemed intolerably slow. It was all I could do not to rip and tear at his control to get at that life-giving flow, but I forced myself to stay down, stay still, be passive.

And in time, the panic lessened, and the emptiness receded. Well before I was complete, though, Ma

“It’s enough,” I told him, in response to his silent question. He helped me to my feet. I looked down at myself and grimaced, because in my haste to reach him I had crawled through filth. I did not have it to spare, but I used a pulse of power to clean myself.

Ma

“No,” I said somberly. “I believe it’s pride.”

Ma

This had not felt like an attack from another Warden, though I supposed that was possible. While it had been full of power and energy, there had been a formless sense about it, too. I supposed that it could have been a Dji

A new thought, and one not entirely comforting. I didn’t like having faceless, nameless enemies.

We drove back to town in silence; Ma

Instead of taking me to my apartment, or back to our office, he took me to his home. Isabel was in the front yard, playing some elaborate and complicated game involving three dolls, a large number of scattered building blocks, and a much-abused cardboard box large enough to hide in.

“Papa!” She threw the dolls in the dirt and ran to wrap herself around Ma

There seemed to be conflict in his expression—delight warring with dread. He shook his head. “I see Uncle Luis is here,” he said. “Right?”

“Right!” Isabel bubbled, and laughed. She stared at me over Ma

“Cassiel,” I said reflexively. “Not Cassie.”

Ma

“But she does! She’s white like snow, and her hair’s fluffy. How come she doesn’t look like everybody else?”

“Ibby!”

I summoned up the will to laugh a little. “Don’t. She’s right. I do look odd to her eyes.” And to my own. Definitely to my own . . .

“Hey, bro.” The screen door to the house opened with a creak of hinges, and the man who stood there was a bit shorter than Ma

Flames.

I had seen his picture, on the mantel.

“You look like hell, man,” he said, and held out a sweating brown bottle to Ma

“You could say that.” Ma