Undone

The next day, I left Joa

The trousers were long, slim, and white, fitting well enough around the contours of my body. She had found me ankle-high boots of a soft white leather, and a white silk shirt under a pale pink jacket, tailored close. My hair remained unusual, but I decided that I liked its fine, drifting, puffball wildness. It suited me. It’s like a bag of feathers, Joa

Still. “I feel like a fool,” I said, as she opened the door of her car.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” she said. “You do look exotic, but kind of fabulous at it. Besides, you’re riding in a sweet vintage Mustang. Enjoy the experience.”

I had no idea what that should mean. I understood the automobile was a vehicle for transportation, but the other subtleties escaped me. I folded myself awkwardly into the machine’s passenger’s seat, fumbling with the safety belts she told me must be worn.

Joa

“Doing okay?” she asked. I opened my eyes and nodded. The car was moving fast, too fast for me to focus on anything in particular, unless it was at a fair distance. Driving looked complicated. I felt an unexpected stab of nervousness; there was so much I had never done and wasn’t sure I could learn. Humans seemed to overcome barriers as easily as breathing. I wasn’t sure I had the instinct.

Joa

I was both glad and disappointed when the road turned away from the sea, and I lost sight of it among cars, streets, and the concrete canyons of the human-built city.

Joa

“Hey.” That was Joa

I felt a fool again, and more of one when I realized how many people—strangers—seemed drawn to stare at me once I was out of the vehicle. Many people, men and women alike. I was doing nothing to merit their attention, but still they stared. Most looked quickly away when I glared at them.

Joa

We went through a narrow hallway, which opened into a huge, soaring open room that lifted toward heaven. I stopped and stared. I knew humans built on a vast scale, but knowing and seeing seemed to be quite different things.

Concentric, gently flowing levels rose, stacked one atop the other, and it took me a moment to realize that each of the squares of metal evenly spaced on each level was, in fact, a door. Doors to rooms. So many separations between humans. It was a bit baffling how it all fit together.

There was a large central column in the center of the atrium, which housed banks of glass-faced rooms. No, not rooms: elevators, devices to move people between floors. Joa

“You’re handling it well,” she said. “Being out in public for the first time.”

Was I? I felt awkward, anxious, and freakish. I decided to stare out into the atrium as the elevator surged upward, carrying us into the air, far up. I pressed close to the glass, fascinated, and was disappointed when we slowed and stopped near the top of the building. The perspective change reminded me of looking down as a Dji

“Coming?” Joa

It swung open, and I faced another human, one also known to me, at least by appearance. His name was Lewis, and he was also a Warden. A favorite of Jonathan’s, as I remembered. I had never met him, but I had seen him before, on the aetheric.

I looked him over anew with human eyes. We were almost of a height, but that was where our resemblance ended. His hair was a dark chestnut brown, shot through with strands of red and gold. His skin was ta

His clothes were plain—a dark shirt, denim pants, blocky, hard-leather boots.

And there was no mistaking the sense of power that clung to him like smoke and shadows.

“Come in,” Lewis said, and stood aside to let me enter. I did, followed by Joa

I did not know the other person. He was male, of a darker, more coppery skin than Lewis, and he had black, smooth, close-cropped hair. He had shaved, I noticed. He wore a loose shirt and dark trousers, nothing remarkable.

“Right,” Lewis said. “Cassiel, have a seat. You know who I am?”

He pointed to a chair at the desk. Joa

I slowly lowered myself into the chair. “Lewis,” I said. “Leader of the Wardens.”

He and Joa

I nodded.

“And now you need the help of the Wardens to draw the energy you need to stay alive.”

Nothing to do but nod again, no matter how much I resented it. I had the feeling that Lewis’s dark eyes did not miss my reluctance.

Instead of asking me another question, he looked at David. “What’s her story?” he asked.

David took his time composing his answer, but he didn’t look at me for permission, or apology. “Cassiel has always been on Ashan’s side,” he said. “A True Dji