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a bit fascinated with her, like most humans seem to be, and she's got no history for him to fix on. If he can trust any Djinn, he'll trust her. But he'll never truly trust me."

This felt so intimate that it frightened me. He came here to face his fears, face his history, and there was a lot of that to get through - more than I'd ever be able to understand. He could read my life at a glance, if he chose, and that more than anything else made me feel disadvantaged.

David put his arm around me, and I leaned against him. We both stared at the fire for a long time before he said, "My birth mother was like you. Strong, like you. Beautiful. Willful, which gave my father plenty of heartaches; it was a time when women were more constrained by society, or at least had fewer choices in how to misbehave. She taught me many things, but one of the things she gave me was a love of learning, and that was rare then. Not even the sons of kings were learned; it wasn't considered manly."

I closed my eyes and breathed in the night, the peace. Maybe this wasn't real, but it had a kind of solemnity to it that we couldn't get out there, in the daily whirl of life.

"Tell me about her," I said, and snuggled closer to his warmth. "Tell me everything."

And he did.

Chapter Eight

When I actually did wake up, we were still driving, and I wasn't sure that I hadn't dreamed the whole thing until David looked over at me. He had an expression, open and vulnerable, unlike any he'd ever really shown me before. I'd never even realized how armored he was before, until the armor was removed.

"I wanted to tell you all that," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't before, but there never seemed to be time. Always something happening with you. And it usually involves explosions."

"That's an exaggeration," I replied with great dignity. "Things hardly ever explode. They burn, they shake, and occasionally they break, but explosions aren't my thing."

"Point taken." He gave me an assessing look, and took the next exit. "You need a break."

"Buster, you need to learn how to take them, too. If you intend - "

"To live like a human, yes, I know. I'll start tomorrow. First thing. For tonight, I just want to get you safely home."

Home. I imagined the soft bed, imagined waking up with him, and imagined that it would be like that every day for the rest of my life.

It seemed too precious to be true.

The truck stop where we pulled off the freeway was one of those open-all-night places that specialized in everything, from deli sandwiches to wind chimes. After investigating the facilities, which were scrupulously clean, I browsed the snack aisles and stocked up on road food, looked over the DVDs, rummaged through the books, thought about purchasing those wind chimes, and finally ended up with nothing but a bag of chips and a cold soft drink at the register. No sign of David. I wondered where he'd gone off to; maybe he was still in the car.

I collected my purchases and went outside. No, the Mustang was empty. I went back inside, strolled the aisles, saw nobody I recognized. Somewhere inside, a slight tightening started in the vicinity of my stomach. I walked faster, looked harder.

Nothing.

"Excuse me," I said to the guy behind the counter. "I came in with a guy, a little taller than you, brownish hair, kind of long - "

"He left," the guy said. "Said he'd be right back. I figured he'd just gone out to the car or something. He's not out there?"

I checked again. No sign of David anywhere. I waited out in the darkness, indecisive, and paced. Manolo Blahniks weren't meant to be paced in, but I wasn't taking off my shoes on the stained concrete of Moe's All-Niter, either.

I finally stopped and said, "David?" Just in case he was there and watching, though why he'd do that I couldn't imagine.

Someone answered me, but it wasn't David. "He's gone," said a little girl, standing in the shadows at the edge of the building. She didn't move, but she emerged from the darkness, as though the lights had brightened around her, and I saw that it was Venna. Venna was one of the most puzzling Djinn I'd ever met, and that was saying a lot; she was the only one I'd ever

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