Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(93)

He looked into her eyes, took her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. Indeed.

Just then the two Djinn that had been exploring the house assumed physical forms and walked toward them. They wore the shapes of identical women, tall, blonde and strong looking. Grace looked at them with her mind’s eye. Their presences were almost an exact carbon copy of each other; they really were twins. Khalil’s expression darkened as they came near, his face hard. He asked, “What have you discovered?”

“We have shut off the gas,” said one of them. “There is nothing magical in the ruins.”

“And the cause?”

The other twin held out her hand. In her palm was a piece of damaged metal. “We think it was this piece of the stove. It is part of the gas regulation and ignition process called a flame failure device. It appears quite faulty.”

Grace said, “We used that stove hundreds of times, and it worked perfectly.”

Khalil looked at Grace. “This was the first time you used the stove since yesterday’s work day, wasn’t it, when you had so many people over?”

“Yes.” She went a little numb.

The twins looked at each other. One of them asked, “Did you leave the house for any length of time?”

Twelve people, not including Olivia, who knew each other well. They looked her in the eye and ate her food and mowed her lawn. Did twelve people do this?

She nodded and whispered, “For about forty-five minutes.”

Khalil’s rage flared red-hot against Grace’s senses. His face was vicious. “Brandon Miller has metal devices like this in a hidden workshop. Along with tools with which to alter them.”

Chloe knuckled her eyes. “Did our lunch break the house?”

Grace’s arms tightened. She shook her head at the others, silently warning them to stop the conversation, as she said, “It seems so, baby girl.”

The Djinn returned from their various errands. The first to arrive were the two who had gone to Boston. Then came the one who made the travel arrangements. Ebrahim was the fourth, laden with packages. He had the new diaper bag, stuffed with everything Khalil had requested, and a large plastic shopping bag filled with three different kinds of cheese, crackers, juice, pudding, fruit and animal cookies. Grace opened packages of food so Chloe could nibble, and she ate too, mechanically, because she needed the fuel.

The messenger to Katherine and John was the last one to return. The Djinn wore the form of a reed-thin girl with a gleaming fall of chocolate-colored hair.

“They are coming,” she said, her voice as light and airy as a flute. “Katherine told me to tell you, of course they will come. She is shocked and saddened and extremely angry.”

Khalil said, “Make sure they arrive safely.”

“Yes.” She vanished again, and two of the others went with her.

Khalil spread out the new cotton blanket beside Grace and Chloe, and he eased the sleeping Max onto it. Then he went with the rest of the Djinn to look at the house. He returned soon with her knee brace, the hated cane, and Chloe’s Lalaloopsy doll.

“They will see what is salvageable of your possessions, and if possible, they will work on repairs,” he said to Grace, his voice softer than ever, for Chloe had fallen asleep too. He set Chloe’s doll on the blanket beside Max and knelt to help Grace buckle the brace into place.

“They must be in a lot of debt to you if they’re still working to cancel it out,” Grace said.

“None of the Djinn owe me anything anymore,” Khalil said. “Now they’re working for you.”

Her eyes rounded. “No pressure, right?” she muttered. “That’s a hell of a burden of hope they’re piling on my shoulders.”

“I have been talking to them. I promise you, nobody will expect anything more than you can give.” He brushed at her face lightly with the tips of his fingers, eyes burning. Then he leaned forward to kiss her with tautly controlled passion. His hand dropped to circle the base of her throat. I think this time you scared the immortality out of me.

I’m sorry, she said again.

He leaned his forehead against hers, and he said in her head so softly she barely heard him, Grace, you almost died. I don’t want to know what that’s like.

She didn’t need to say that she was going to die sooner or later while he wasn’t, because the fact hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles that dangled by a single hair. She stayed silent and stroked his face, her eyes closed, and absorbed the hot comfort of his presence.

But because the Oracle’s moon could be a freaky bitch too, it didn’t care if there were only so many epiphanies a girl could take at a time. The endless day wasn’t done with her yet, as the dark sea took her again, the riptide filled with beginnings and endings, all potential futures and the past.

This time the vision that took her was sharp as a blade’s edge, and she saw that the real sword hanging over their head was not her mortality, but something else entirely. Image upon image of possible futures bombarded her. She flinched back with a gasp.

Khalil grabbed her shoulders. His touch snapped her back into the here and now. He studied her with a sharp concern. “What’s wrong? You’ve gone completely white.”

She stared at him, heart pounding, then her expression turned grim. “No,” she said. “One thing at a time. Right now we’ve got enough on our plate.”