Total Eclipse

“I won’t break it, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” I snapped. I felt that I hardly knew this man anymore, even though I’d spent half of my life thinking of him, loving him just enough to be able to not let go. “I want my husband, and I want to leave.”

“And go where? Do what? Jo, this is the end! There’s nowhere to run! She’s hunting us down, all the Wardens, everywhere. Most of us are already gone, for God’s sake. Did you see them out there? We’re dying! And when we’re gone, everyone else dies. Maybe it’ll take a few more days, maybe a week, but in the end, she won’t let a single human stay alive. I know that. I feel that!” Tears suddenly welled in Lewis’s eyes and spilled down his face, and he just —folded up, as if I’d gut-punched him. No, as if a Djinn had gut-punched him. I realized how tired he was, how shaky, as he sank to his knees on that fine Aubusson carpet. Funny how the wine red color looked like blood, as if he had—like me, back in the plant in Amarillo—already spilled every drop he had to give. “I’ve tried everything. Everything. And they keep coming, killing, destroying. Imara won’t let us near her. The Air Oracle is destroying entire islands out there. The Fire Oracle—”

I knew about the Fire Oracle; I’d seen it in my dream. As angry as I was, his horror and grief struck me, and I sank down to a crouch across from him. He was weeping uncontrollably, the tears of a man stretched too far, asked for too much.

“Listen to me,” I said, and reached out to tilt his chin up. He swiped at his face, angry with himself but still unable to stop. He was one step from a complete breakdown, and I could see it in him. “Listen. I know it seems hopeless. I know you think there’s nothing more we can do. But we can. We must. What’s our choice, to sit here and die when the hammer comes down? Screw that, Lewis. I didn’t fight my way through what I have to give up.”

Consistent, I wasn’t. A few minutes ago my only thought had been to grab David’s bottle and get the hell away from Lewis, from the Wardens, from all this crushing, endless responsibility. But seeing Lewis break . . . That reminded me of something.

It reminded me that no matter what I did, how hard I tried, I could never really be free of the Wardens. I was a Warden, and always would be, until the day I died.

“Give every Warden a bottle,” I said, “starting with the most powerful first. It’s time for the Djinn to be on our side. We already broke the rules; let’s make it count. And dammit, give me David!”

“If you’ll give me Venna,” he said, and tried for a smile. I nodded agreement. He gulped in a deep breath, and seemed to steady himself. “All right. We’ve got Djinn. We’ve got the Wardens I’ve been able to pull together. We’ve got the Ma’at, not that they’re up to a fight of this magnitude. What else?”

“We’ve got Imara.”

He was already shaking his head before I finished the short sentence. “Nobody’s got Imara, and she wants to keep it that way. I told you, I tried. She won’t come, and she won’t talk to us. She won’t give us sanctuary. She’s locked inside her own world, and she’s letting us live or die on our own.”

I pulled Venna’s bottle out of my backpack and held it out to him. “Give me David. Give me David, and I will bring Imara in on our side.”

“How?”

“Just give me the bottle.”

He had it in his pocket. As he passed it over, I felt heat emanating from the glass. David was really, truly pissed off, and I knew that the second I released him I was going to have a very hard time keeping him from breaking Lewis’s neck.

Lewis uncorked Venna’s bottle, and the child stepped out of thin air to stand at his side, hands folded. She looked up at him, innocence itself, and said, “If you give me stupid commands, I’ll kill you.”

“I expected that,” Lewis told her. “For now, help Joanne keep David from killing me. Which he’s about to try to do.”

Venna raised her eyebrows, but it wasn’t in surprise. I was pretty sure that was amusement. Other than that, she gave him absolutely no assurances.

I took a deep breath, cradled the bottle in my left hand, and pulled the cork with my right.

A storm exploded out of the bottle, and the pressure of the room changed so abruptly my ears popped. David materialized in midstride, long coat swirling like smoke, and lunged for Lewis’s throat.

Venna caught his hand about an inch from its target with no apparent effort, and said, “Maybe you should greet your wife first.”

David whirled around, and I saw the look that Lewis had just faced. I’d never imagined David could seem that angry, or that deadly, but his beauty had taken on cold, unmerciful edges, and the glitter in his eyes was the color of blood.

He blinked, and it went away. “Jo?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. In one step I was crushed against him and held tight, so tight I thought he’d accidentally break my back. After a few breathless seconds he eased off and looked down into my face. His eyes widened, and I knew he was seeing what I’d just been through. Hard to hide things from a Djinn, especially one who knew as much about me as he did.

That triggered the rage again. I knew what he was thinking—he’d seen my horror and desperation, seen how close I’d come to being killed out there, and he was blaming it on Lewis. Well, rightly so, but there wasn’t time for it. Before he could lash out again, I grabbed him by the chin and held him still. “No,” I said. “I’m all right. And we need him as much as he needs us.”

The fact that I was so baldly logical about it helped clear the anger out of him, at least for now. He shuddered as it passed, and nodded to me, and I let go. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Although I plan on three days of spa treatments, with mud baths and all-day massages. So probably after that.”

It got a twitch of a smile out of him before he looked at Lewis, and Venna standing so small and delicate beside him. He said, “Ashan?”

Venna looked down. “Gone,” she said. “I grieve that it was necessary, but he was mad with power. He twisted nature. It can’t be done, no matter his motives.”

Venna had described Ashan as her brother, and from the pain that I saw in her, I believed it. What she’d done would be a long time healing, I thought, if it ever did.

“You’re the Conduit.”

“Yes,” she said, just as quietly. “Not by my choice. But I am the logical replacement.”

“Can you reach her?” David asked. I knew by her he meant Mother Earth. Venna slowly shook her head.

“Not while I am bound,” she said. “And once I am free, I become hers. Maybe without Ashan’s anger driving her she will be calmer, but the damage has been done. We have to find a way to speak to her before it’s too late.”

“We’ll do it,” I said. “David and I will go to Imara. She’ll let us in; she has to. And once we’re in, we can reach the Mother through her.”

Venna studied me with eerily calm eyes. “That will kill you, you know. You’re not strong enough.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“When she was sleeping. She’s not sleeping anymore.” The matter-of-fact way she said it made me pause. “You die, and David becomes hers. It’s what will happen. Imara knows. That’s why she kept you away.”

Venna had a turn for prophecy, too, and that chilled me deep. “But she’ll let us in.”

“Yes,” she said. “She’s your child. She’ll let you in.”

“Then we have to try it.” I turned to David, but he didn’t look nearly as convinced. He was looking past me, at Venna.

No . . . not at Venna after all.

At Lewis.

Lewis wouldn’t return the stare; he looked at the floor, deliberately avoiding any kind of contact. I wondered why, until Venna turned to Lewis, adding her stare to David’s. “She will talk to you,” Venna said.

“Lewis?” I blurted. “Why?”

Lewis let out a sigh, and now he did look up, troubled and very tired. “Because I’m the first triple-threat Warden born with that configuration in generations, and I may be the most powerful one since Jonathan walked