graveyard intimately, had no need to watch his feet as he whispered greetings to those whose tombs he’d slept beneath. A few more steps would have him hidden below them again.
'Alban?' The unfamiliar voice was curious and friendly. Alban went still for the briefest instant, resisting the urge to allow stone to sweep him and hide him from prying inquiries. But that would be suicide, where facing his questioner would be nothing more than a brief delay. He turned, wondering who knew his name when he didn’t recognize the voice.
A priest with an untamed white beard stood a few yards away, his solemn expression and dark cassock suggesting he’d just left the mourners who were dispersing from the church’s front walkways. 'It is Alban, isn’t it? I must have startled you. I’m sorry. I’ve never had the opportunity to say hello before.'
'Before?' Even to his own ears, the word grated dangerously, though less from threat than surprise.
The priest’s beard shifted with a wry, hopeful smile. 'You’re a subtle creature, for all your size. This has been my parish for years. I’ve…caught a glimpse of you, now and then.' He nodded toward the hidden door, and Alban looked that way as well, half expecting it to stand open, as if it had somehow betrayed him. 'From the days when you slept beneath our church. My name is Ramsey. I spoke with Margrit Knight about you once. She promised me that I was right to believe you were one of God’s creations.'
A chuckle rumbled from Alban’s chest before he could stop it. 'And not from your imagination born?'
Ramsey’s eyebrows wobbled up. 'Or anywhere more dire. I’ve been watching for you, since January. I hoped to tell you that you still have a home here. Maybe not as discreet as that hidden room, but the church is a sanctuary, and you’re welcome to use it whenever you need.'
Surprise struck Alban silent, too many questions coming to mind for any of them to be spoken. 'I would love to hear your story,' Ramsey said a bit wistfully. 'Miss Knight made it clear it wasn’t hers to tell, but perhaps someday you might want to share it with an old man who loves this church and its secrets. Not tonight,' he added more briskly. 'You look like a stoned ox just now. I imagine you’re not used to being noticed.'
'Or accepted.' Alban rumbled, and Ramsey dipped his head in acknowledgment.
'God is much more creative than I am. Why should I refuse what he’s seen fit to give life to? Someday,' he repeated. 'Perhaps someday…I should get back to my parishioners. Good night, Alban.' He strode away as though the conversation had invigorated him, for all that most of it had been on his side. Alban remained where he was for long moments, staring after him in pleased astonishment before reminding himself of his purpose.
The time to dally had been eaten away. He turned from the hidden doorway reluctantly, searching the scattering crowd for a glimpse of Margrit. He found her embracing an older woman, and when he might have taken a step toward her for a brief greeting, Janx arrived at their sides, his outrageous flirtation visible across the distance.
Rueful annoyance pulled Alban’s mouth out of shape. Janx would be most displeased to find him there, and Alban didn’t relish a confrontation with the dragonlord. There would be time later, he promised himself; they would have time later. Sufficiently convinced of it, he slipped back around the gates, casting one last regretful glance toward his onetime retreat.
Tony Pulcella emerged from the hidden door, a briefcase in hand.
An unexpected breeze in the evening air chilled Margrit’s skin, and with it her throat constricted. Panic bloomed within her, adrenaline spurting through her system. She wanted to run, to fling herself at the djinn, knock him away from her mother-anything, so long as it was action. But she had only one weapon on hand, and terror wouldn’t leave her mind clear enough to remember whether its use might save or condemn Rebecca. Tremors were all Margrit could allow herself, a tiny outlet for outrage and fear. 'Let her go.'
'Or you’ll attack?' The djinn moved subtly, closer to Rebecca. 'I think not.'
Her mother gasped, a tiny cry of dread and pain. Margrit recognized the sound too well, though it’d been her throat, not her heart, that a djinn had sought. Tears had scalded Malik’s hand, making him pull away, but Margrit could not recall whether he’d released her before salt water had stung him. There was no way to act, nothing more to offer than a shaky promise: 'It’ll be okay, Mom.'
Daisani shifted at Margrit’s side, touching the curve of her back in reassurance. Margrit swallowed hard, trying to keep herself in place, and caught a hard glance shared between vampire and dragonlord. Janx shook his head, a jerking of motion that, had it not been so graceless, she might have imagined it. Daisani’s answering nod was equally short and harsh, an acceptance that Janx disavowed responsibility.
With no further communication, Daisani and Janx moved in tandem, casually placing themselves so that passersby couldn’t easily see the impossible: that the djinn stood with his arm half folded into Rebecca’s back. Daisani broke the silence, his voice so low Margrit strained to hear it from only a step or two away. 'Release her and you may yet survive the night.'
Sneering laughter curled the djinn’s mouth. 'Had the glassmaker made that threat I might heed it.' He threw the jibe at Janx, who tensed and relaxed again so faintly that Margrit looked twice at him. There was nothing in him to read, but certainty made her cool: they were acquainted, the djinn and the dragon. But the djinn didn’t pursue it, turning his attention back to Daisani. 'You voted to stay your hand within our peoples.'
'So did Malik.' Margrit’s voice broke on the accusation and brought the djinn’s gaze to her. His eyes, like Malik’s, were crystalline: amber, the color of sand. Malik’s were aquamarine, both startling, Margrit thought, in a people born of the desert. A heartbeat later she understood; they were the colors of their world, sky and sand. Maybe a few djinn had jewel-green eyes, the color of an oasis.
'Malik.' The djinn drew out the name as if it tasted of mud. 'Malik was wise in voting conservatively, but his choices did not necessarily reflect the will of our people. He does not, as yet, hold the rank to speak for us.'
'Margrit.' Rebecca’s voice faded with pained exhaustion. 'Margrit, I love you, sweetheart.'
'Mom-' Margrit jolted forward, but Daisani lifted a hand to stop her, such confidence in the gesture that she froze.
'I will be fascinated to hear the details of that admission,' Daisani breathed. 'But now you have a choice. Let Rebecca Knight go, and survive, or die with her within the circle.'
'Circle?' Disdain broke over the djinn’s face. 'I see no salt water to make a cage with.'
Daisani whispered, 'Look down.'
A thin river of blood glistened around the djinn’s feet, around Rebecca, wet ring on the stones. The scent of copper rose up and made Margrit gag, now that she knew to breathe for it. She wiped her hand across her mouth convulsively, her gaze jerking to Daisani.
He lifted his right hand to tidily fold a torn coat, a torn sleeve, to reveal a still-weeping crimson gash down the length of his arm. It closed bit by bit, visibly healing even in the brief moment Margrit took to understand.
The djinn grasped its portent before Margrit did. He howled in pure outrage and lashed his free hand toward Daisani. Scarlet flashed in the air, surge of power that for an instant turned the djinn to mist.
Another breeze stirred Margrit’s hair, and then Rebecca was outside the circle, free of the djinn, caught in Daisani’s arms. For a few bewildering seconds, Margrit felt as though she’d come upon two lovers who were otherwise hidden from sight.
They might have been gargoyles caught by sunlight, so sculpted and motionless did they seem. Rebecca was slightly taller, but Daisani held her weight, her hands on his chest as she leaned into him. Margrit could see the pulse in her mother’s throat, and how near to Daisani’s mouth that fluttering beat was. His attention, though, was on Rebecca’s eyes, and all Margrit could read in their locked gazes was an intensity that embarrassed and enthralled her. She strained for a memory she didn’t have, as though trying hard enough could call up Alban’s recollections of Hajnal, or perhaps of Sarah Hopkins. As though her own regal mother, standing so close to Eliseo Daisani, had somehow taken on a leading role in a tragedy played out over centuries. Margrit’s throat and heart tightened, fear of losing her mother tangling with a weightier loss of years, so heavy she could barely comprehend it.
Daisani drew breath to speak, breaking the stillness. Rebecca put a fingertip against his lips, a sharp, smooth movement. Daisani froze again, the pair standing together for another impossibly long moment with an intimacy that made Margrit look away in discomfort.
Her gaze found Janx, who watched Rebecca and Daisani with avarice, unfathomable calculations visible in his jade eyes. His expression was harder to look upon than theirs were. Margrit dragged her attention back to her mother, as much to escape Janx’s solitude as from morbid curiosity.
It was Rebecca who disengaged from Daisani’s grasp, gently, as if she suspected the man who held her
