Rachel Caine - Unknown

Imara had grown much more assured in her role since last I’d seen her. She had, I think, struggled with the complexities of channeling such power, standing in such an awesomely important spot. Now, unexpectedly—and quite different from what Rashid had led me to expect—she treated me almost as a human.

Almost as her mother would, and had.

“Oracle,” I said. Around us, the mortals in the room pursued their own blinkered interests. No one seemed to note us at all, not even my sudden absence from their world after standing out so vividly in the crowd. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“How could I not see you? You don’t exactly blend in.” That sounded very much like her mother—acidic, funny, yet somehow failing to offend. “I am glad you came to me. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you as much last time, but things were . . . difficult for me.” She started to continue, then stopped and shook her head. Sand shifted and moved on her robes, revealing tiny, pale strips of skin beneath. “Ashan is really angry at you, you know. Much more angry than anybody’s ever seen him.”

My mouth twisted involuntarily. “I’m aware.”

“I’ll bet. He’s ordered all the Djinn he’s got power over to avoid you, and ignore you if you find them. Losing Gallan hurt him. Badly.”

I understood that, although I loathed it; Ashan had set me on this murderous path, and now he wouldn’t even offer me help. But from his perspective, it was simple logic. I had involved Gallan, and Pearl had destroyed him. Ashan couldn’t afford such losses.

“And what of David?” I asked, and risked a glance into those odd, changing eyes. The power in them was so intense that it seemed I was looking into the heart of a nuclear fire, where colors had no meaning anymore. “Can he help me? More to the point, will he?”

“Dad,” Imara said, and sighed. She looked away, toward the windows, although I wasn’t sure what she was truly seeing. “My father’s in a difficult position, like you. I don’t know if it’s one he can hold for long; being a leader isn’t—it’s not in his nature. He prefers taking care of those close to him. And I’m not certain that some of the New Djinn truly feel they owe him loyalty. It’s hard to know which of them he—or you—could trust.”

“What about Rashid?” I asked. “Can I trust him?”

Imara’s lips moved into a brief, dark smile. “He’s as Djinn as you were,” she said. “More than I ever was. He’ll do as the Djinn do.”

“So the answer is no.”

“The answer is the same for any ally you consider. There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you’re no longer pursuing the same goals.”

“That’s not extremely helpful.” I sounded petulant, I realized. I, who had been alive and a power on the Earth long before this Oracle had even existed as a possibility, was being schooled by this girl. An extraordinarily powerful girl, perhaps. One with awesome powers. But . . . still. “Pearl has a plan. She is using the children of Wardens to carry it out. I saw—” My voice faltered unexpectedly, and I forced it to continue. “I saw Isabel Rocha on the way here, to you. She—”

“I know,” Imara said, very gently. Her hand touched mine, and it was warm and soothing. “I feel her. I feel them all.”

“All the children?”

“All the people on this planet,” she said, and now the smile was sad. “All those who live, suffer, feel joy, die. Choosing only one out of so many is almost impossible. I’m not that good yet. But I felt what you felt. I know how angry you are. How guilty you are.”

She didn’t tell me not to be angry, not to be guilty. Doubtless, even had she wished to, she knew it wouldn’t at all matter.

“You came for something,” Imara said then, and her tone had turned eerily like her mother’s, like Joanne Baldwin’s, with an edge of irony. “It wasn’t just for the warm and fuzzies, Cassiel. Tell me.” The human term seemed odd, coming from an Oracle, but I supposed that was understandable. Imara was a very odd choice for an Oracle.

I shook myself, trying to regain the focus, the purpose I’d had in coming here. There was something so distracting about her, about the subtle and seductive peace she radiated. About the feeling that here, in this place, I could lay down all my fears and guilt and burdens.

It was illusion. Two steps from her, I would feel it all again. If I didn’t, there would be something wrong with me. The kind of peace that Imara represented here, in this place, was for Djinn.

Not for me. Not anymore.

“Rashid told me you have a list,” I said. “A roster of human children born with latent powers—the ability to someday become Wardens.”

She nodded slowly, but her expression had turned pensive and a little doubtful. “There is a record,” she said. “But it’s not in a form you can use.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—” Imara seemed to search for words, then turned on the pew to drape one arm on the back. Sand shivered and whispered into falls of drifting silky waves around her. “I mean it’s written in the fabric of the world. I can see it. There is no written list as you would understand it.”

“Can you make one?”

Imara blinked. I’d surprised an Oracle. That seemed—unusual. “I suppose,” she said, and then frowned. “There are risks, you know.”

“Risks?”

“Such a list has to be . . . amendable. Flexible. It must reflect reality, if I create it. It’s not fixed, at a moment in time; it will change as circumstances change. And it will be subject to . . . interference. Do you understand?”

“It’s real-time,” I said. “Yes. I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” Imara stopped, and closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them, she said, “You know the Book of the Ancestors?”

It was a codicil of all things Djinn; it was kept by the Oracles, rarely shown in its physical form. But copies had been made, illegal copies, and the consequences of that had been . . . difficult. Almost catastrophic. In the hands of those not meant to have it, works by the Oracles could easily be lethally dangerous.

I saw where she was going. “If you make the list, it will contain its own power.”

“It remains linked,” she said. “Directly to me. Through me, directly to the fabric of reality. I can’t do it any other way. It’s not as if I can grab a pen and scribble down the names; there are billions of people on the planet, and even if only a fraction of them are born gifted . . . it is not a static list.”

“I understand.” I took a deep breath. “How does Pearl know who these children are, if she doesn’t have this list?”

“Pearl has become like me,” Imara said. “Like an Oracle, although she is not one as we understand it. She is . . . damaged, but she has tapped into something else—a power that is alien to this world, but still a part of it. She is much, much more powerful than a Djinn. She has . . . access to things. We can’t stop her. We can’t block her without direct confrontation, and if we do, she will do to us what she did to Gallan. She could destroy the Oracles.”

Pearl didn’t need a list. She, like Imara, could sense children as their potential powers began to form. She could strike anywhere, anytime. And we had no way to predict her moves.

Imara met my eyes fully again. I shuddered.

“Ashan might be right. The only way to stop her may be to remove the foundation of her power. Remove humans from the world. Do you understand me? Remove humans, and the world will recover. Mourn, yes. Create more Djinn. Create more life to replace what was lost, as she has before. But if you remove the Djinn , if you remove the Oracles, you attack the heart and brain and blood of the Earth. You destroy her. And that is what Pearl intends. She intends to be the murderer of this entire world. This has very little to do with the Wardens. It has to do with you, and her, and Ashan. And the Djinn. And hate.”