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through?"

"Not at the moment." Lewis let the bottle roll out of his fingers onto the tabletop, and prodded it gently around in a circle. "Doesn't mean one won't. We need to shut the door and seal it."

"And when you say we, that's a royal I'm-the-biggest-bad-ass-Warden-there-is-and-I-don't-need-any-help sort of we, right?" Because I really didn't much like where this conversational trail of breadcrumbs was leading. There was a witch at the end of it, and an oven, and a really unpleasant fairy tale.

"I mean that I can't do it alone," he said. He sucked in a deep breath and came out with it. "I need a Djinn."

"Hey, fine, just pull one out of backstock and fire it up, there, buddy."

"I freed them. All the ones I had." He shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. I agree with David about the slavery issue, and besides, I wasn't planning on needing one any time soon."

"And yet here you are."

"Yes." He stopped playing with the bottle, folded his hands together, and just looked at me.

"Oh, no, don't even," I said. "I'm nowhere near ready for that kind of thing. Ask Patrick."

"I did."

I shot a hot, disbelieving, wide-eyed look at my so-called mentor in his porn Disney getup. He'd manifested some kind of breakfast while I wasn't looking, but it didn't look anything like a traditional bacon-and-eggs kind of thing; some kind of lumpy-looking yogurt stuff, thin little flaps of something that looked like unfolded blintzes, and a weirdly colored fruit mishmash. Whatever country it was from wasn't anyplace I ever wanted to visit, or at least eat breakfast in.

"Patrick?" I demanded.

He took a bite of fruit surprise with no evidence of discomfort. "Joanne?" He put an entire argument into my name, and I lost. He turned his attention back to Lewis. "She's made progress, but she needs to understand the flows of power. Over time, she could learn, but she doesn't have time. If she's going to make it through this, she has to have a jump start. Such as the one you propose."

"Hey, pardon me, but nobody's jumping me, okay?" I sucked in a couple of deep cleansing breaths, and tried to be reasonable. "Just to be clear, you want me to agree to be your Djinn? Your slave?"

Lewis had the grace to look appalled at the idea. "No! Employee. And only for a short time, maybe an hour or so. When the job's done, I smash the bottle, you're free again."

"And even if I believe you, what makes you think I can do this thing you want done? 'Cause I'm not exactly the most competent Djinn on the block, in case you haven't heard. In fact, most of these guys barely consider me half of one."

Patrick grunted and shoveled in pale gray yogurt with lime green chunks floating in it. "Less than half," he said. "I'm afraid that to them, you're a parasite. Better off dead."

"Yeah, see? Parasite. I'm a parasite. You need somebody reliable. Like David."

Lewis's face had become a still life. How anybody could sit that quietly ... "I can't find David. Rahel turned me down. Patrick recommended you."

"And that's your entire list? What about the three you freed?" Because I was thinking hey, talk about owing favors . . . but his tense expression didn't relax. I wasn't breaking any new ground.

"They're gone," he said. "No longer on this plane of existence."

I tossed that one to Patrick for an explanation. He gave another insouciant shrug. "They don't want to be imprisoned again. You can understand their point of view. I myself am not willing to risk it, either. And while I trust that Lewis wouldn't even consider it unless it was an emergency, I'm afraid that an emergency to the Wardens doesn't necessarily constitute an emergency to me. There are plenty of Wardens equipped with Djinn. Let one of them handle it."

Chapter Twelve

Lewis's chin set in that stubborn line. A muscle flickered in his jaw. "They can't see it. I think the only ones who can are the Djinn and humans with all three forms of Warden powers."

"Meaning, only you."

Lewis nodded.

Patrick slurped through another spoonful of slimy crap. "My, doesn't that just make you indispensable, my friend? Fate of the world, depending on you? Whatever did we do before you came along?"

And the award for most cutting sarcasm goes to