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on the spur of the moment, and I didn't care; the words didn't matter. I understood why David had asked this of me now; I understood so much more than I'd ever thought I would. It wasn't just words.

It was a vow. And vows among the Djinn were law, immutable as physics. I could feel the forces gathering, as the words progressed; I could see the shimmer spreading through the aetheric.

The minister had gotten to the heart of the matter. "Do you, David, take this woman as your only true lover, now and for her lifetime, forsaking all others, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, in hardship and in joy?"

I saw the aetheric flare hot gold, so much power gathering, more than I'd ever seen, and David opened his mouth to reply. . . .

"No," said a new voice, before he could reply. "He doesn't."

Ashan had crashed our wedding.

Chapter Fourteen

The power on the aetheric went wild, currents flowing around us like whirlpools, lashing and foaming in distress. David and I turned together and saw Ashan standing behind us. From the forbidding expression on his face, I was guessing he hadn't brought us any wedding gifts, or at least none that wouldn't explode.

"I can't allow this folly," Ashan said. "Maybe you truly believe this is right, but we can't take the chance. You expose us all to slavery, David, not just yourself. No."

The minister looked justifiably bewildered, and not just by the sudden popping in of supernatural guests. I was thinking his brain had skipped right over that part. The human race was absolutely stellar at plausible deniability. "But I haven't asked for any objections, " he said faintly. "We don't do that anymore. Really, this is most - "

Ashan ignored him. Ignored me, too. He was focused only on David, and if David was a glorious bright star, burning with potential, Ashan was his polar opposite: leached of color; pale as an undertaker; grim as impending death. He was even wearing black - a severe suit, with a black tie paired with a white shirt. His idea of formal attire, I guessed. It might have even passed, if it hadn't been for the bitter expression and the cold, cold fire in his teal-blue eyes.

"You have no place here," David said. I felt the power of the Earth rising up in him, rich and thick and irresistible; Ashan was a Conduit, yes, but this was David's territory, David's home ground, in a sense. Ashan was an intruder, uninvited and unwelcome. "Leave us."

Ashan slowly shook his head. "I don't come for myself," he said. "I come for all of us, to ask. Don't do this, David. Don't destroy us again, for your personal satisfaction."

I'd expected assault, not a plea, and especially not a plea that had the ring of sincerity to it.

David didn't respond. He gazed at Ashan, fire in his eyes, but he didn't lash out.

Ashan said, even more quietly, "I also didn't come alone." He didn't move, not even his gaze, but I felt the shocking flare on the aetheric, and suddenly there was a presence beside him. It was human in shape, but not human at all - a wild power, barely contained by flesh. His skin was hot red, shifting with patterns of color, and his eyes were the pure white of the hottest flame. I'd never seen him take human form before, but I knew him.

The Fire Oracle had left his protected home in a crypt in Seacasket. I hadn't even known he could.

With a whisper rather than a flare, another presence shaped itself out of the air on Ashan's other side. Milk-glass skin, a vessel containing fog and ice. The Air Oracle was only barely human as well, and androgynous in form. Two of them. The Air Oracle had no fixed abode that I knew of, but still, it took a major event for it to manifest so publicly.

I knew, without even asking, that it had never happened before. Not in all the history of the Djinn.

Another surge of power, this one familiar, so bitterly and sweetly familiar. My daughter, Imara - human and far more than human, beautiful and unreachable and remote. She looked sad, but sure of herself - a mirror of my face and form, but with a totally individual core she'd inherited from both me and her father.

She was standing with the others, against us.

David closed his eyes, and I knew it hurt him as much