“And you, father.”
Khalil released his physical form and arrowed toward Louisville and Grace’s house. As he came nearer, he noticed that her car was in the driveway but the lights in the house were off. Perhaps she had been too tired, and she had fallen asleep.
He entered the house quietly and checked from room to room. It was unoccupied, tidy and silent. Not even the fans were running. He frowned at the empty little beds in the children’s room. He disliked how the house felt without any of them present. By the time he had reached the narrow futon where Grace slept, his frown had turned into an agitated scowl.
He whirled out of the house and rampaged across the land.
She was not in the meadows. Nor was she near the river. He could not locate her anywhere, and the light was failing fast. His sense of urgency turned to frenzy. In fifteen, twenty minutes at the most, it would be full dark. Her eyesight was limited, and her knee was not strong.
She was so fragile. She was only human.
Then he saw the door set into the side of the hill. It stood open. That would be the tunnel that led to the place where the Oracle spoke.
He dove. He didn’t waste time assuming a physical form. Instead he roared down the tunnel to the cavern.
The female Djinn gave Grace a smile that looked eerie in the flashlight’s sharp beam, elongated shadows filling in the hollows at cheeks, temples, underneath her black starred eyes. “Very good, human,” Phaedra said. “How could you tell?”
“You choose a physical form that has something of Khalil in it,” Grace said quietly.
Phaedra walked close to circle Grace like a prowling cat. “My physical form has something of both my parents,” said Phaedra. “I do not want to forget anything they did for me or to me.”
Grace held very still and tried not to let her unease and sadness show. She might wish with all of her heart that it was not so, but dark, angry spirits really did tend to be dark and angry because they held on to things.
She said, “Khalil told me how your mother kidnapped and tortured you, and how he had to go to war with her to free you.”
As Phaedra circled around, she trailed fingers along Grace’s back and across her arm. “Did he tell you it took him five hundred years to free me?”
Khalil always felt hot when Grace touched him. By contrast, Phaedra’s touch was oddly cool. Goose bumps broke out over Grace’s chilled flesh. She cleared her throat and said softly, “No, he didn’t say. I’m so sorry.”
“I spent five hundred years trapped,” said Phaedra. “Five hundred years because he was too cautious to fight Lethe on his own. No, he had to take his time, build allies, create an army. Clearly it was not an issue of some urgency to him.”
Grace struggled to reconcile that information with the pained sadness she had sensed in Khalil whenever he referred to his daughter. She said gently, “I don’t know what to say.”
“I used to dread Lethe’s visits,” Phaedra said. “Then I looked forward to them, because as much as they hurt, anything was better than the dark, empty, airless hole she kept me in. Then I learned that was just a phase too, as I became the dark.”
Grace couldn’t imagine what such a lengthy, profound deprivation interspersed with torture might do to a mind, inhuman or otherwise. What would it take to recover? Djinn might not need physical food but they gained nourishment from Power and energy sources like the sun. Had Phaedra actually starved? Was there anything left of her that was salvageable?
“Khalil said he thought Lethe was insane,” she said.
“Did he?” Phaedra thrust her face close, black eyes blazing. “Then why did it take him five hundred years!”
“I don’t know,” Grace whispered.
Just like she did with Khalil, she felt surrounded by Phaedra, but this time there was no pleasure from a warm, male presence. She felt surrounded by razors, any one of which might cut her at any time. She knew Phaedra was trying to frighten her. It was crude and obvious, like playground bullying.
It was also working. She thought she had felt alone at times before, but she had never felt as alone as she did right then. She patted the thread that led to Khalil. The connection felt so insubstantial, it seemed like a mirage. She kept part of her mind focused on it tensely, but she did not tug on it.
Phaedra cocked her head, unblinking. The purity of her white face was pitiless, stark. “Why don’t you ask him sometime, since he apparently likes to talk to you?”
“How did you know to come here?” Grace asked.
“You mean, how did I know he comes to see you and your cute widdow famiwee?” Phaedra said. “His new human toys? It’s been remarked upon.” Phaedra opened her eyes wide and said in a pseudo-confidential tone, “I don’t have friends, but I do have sources.”
“What do you want?”