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Oversight- hadn't been equipped to view the spectra on which the Djinn radiated.

Speaking of which, the plane stretched on, unbroken to the limits of perception, and it was . . . beautiful. Even more beautiful than before. Where, as a living breathing girl, I'd seen things in Kirlian outlines of reds and greens and blues and golds, in Djinn-sight the aetheric was deeper, richer, and more complex. Layers of colors, swirling together like oil on water. Outlines were both more and less distinct-still familiar, but more difficult to recognize because of their depth. I wasn't seeing the skin of things anymore. I was seeing the skin, the muscles, the bones, the organs. The very heart of life.

Humans displayed as flickering ghosts, pale and transparent; some glowed hotter than others, and those, I understood, were probably Wardens. People with power over the various elements. Hundreds of thousands of them crowded the place in confusing eddies, drifting and pulsing, combining, melting into each other, giving and taking. I was watching the entire flow of life on the spiritual plane.

It was breathtaking. Humbling.

Circling in and around them were the multilayered fogs of Djinn. I couldn't really focus on them-they tended to disappear when I tried to zoom in-but I had the unnerving sensation of them being everywhere. Jeez, I breathed, virtually speaking. How many of them-us-are there?

He didn't answer me, which was odd; I couldn't see his face, of course, but I had the sense somehow that his attention had shifted away from me. Watching . . . focused somewhere else.

What the hell is that? he asked absently.

What?

He stretched out a-hand?-and brushed it through empty air. I didn't see anything. No, wait, I did . . . just the faintest glimmer of light. You know that cold phosphorescence that fish have, in the deepest black of the ocean? A kind of cold light, in tiny little blue specks.

It was like that. An insubstantial fairy glitter of blue, few and far between.

And I felt a sudden rush of tension from him. Can you see that?

Sure. What is it?

I don't know. From the tone behind that, he obviously hadn't run across anything like it before, and it was worrying him. I can't feel it.

I reached out and experimentally tried it, too. Where I touched, there was a phantom coldlight sparkle, just a few tiny lights firing. Huh. I don't feel anything.

Exactly. Energy is being expended, or it wouldn't show up as light. Yet we don't feel it.

That's ... I tried a half dozen thoughts on for size and discarded most . . . interesting?

Yes. Interesting-bad, I presumed, from his tone. He did something I didn't quite see, created a clear bubble of energy. Inside of it, some of those coldlight sparkles twinkled like fireflies. He studied it, moving closer. Shit!

The fireflies had flown through the globe like it didn't even exist. David pulled back, took me with him, to a healthy distance. The sparkles faded into darkness.

Are they still there? I asked.

Don't know. He didn't seem inclined to check, either. That shouldn't happen.

What?

Any of that.

Oh. I waited for inspiration. Nothing arrived. What now?

We leave, he said, and I felt a sudden hard tug that, if I'd still been flesh, would have tipped me off balance. As it was, it felt like the fog that made me up flew apart and settled back together.

Had I thought we were moving fast before? No. We dropped out of the sky, heading straight back down at supersonic jet speeds, and I couldn't control a squeak of alarm. Not that impact with anything would hurt me, in my present state, but instincts are hard to overcome.

David braked us with professional ease, and we drifted the last two feet down to the bed.

This was where being a Djinn really differed from my experience as a human. I'd walked the aetheric before-lots-as a Warden, but I'd always had a body to anchor myself to. The Djinn didn't have that. Their-our-bodies are made of potential energy, so it required a state change to enter the real world again.

It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to do that. I understood how; that was knowledge that seemed to come as standard equipment with entering the Djinn lifestyle. What I didn't quite have yet was the muscle memory, the instinctive control. Like a baby learning