Gale Force by Rachel Caine

times. ‘‘But I saw him. And trust me, he was a Djinn.’’
    ‘‘How could you tell?’’ Zenaya asked me, very reasonably. I started to answer, then hesitated.
    Because I really wasn’t sure how I knew. I just . . . knew . ‘‘His aetheric signature,’’ I finally said. ‘‘Only the Djinn look like that.’’
    ‘‘Leaving aside that point,’’ Guillard said, in his rich, dark chocolate voice, ‘‘clearly you came into contact with something highly dangerous. Earth Wardens have not been able to correct some of the damage you sustained. We are dependent on simple human methods, which is why we’ve had to hospitalize you for so long.’’
    Lewis nodded. He wasn’t looking at me; he kept his gaze focused on the window, on the rain outside. ‘‘Sometimes damage just surpasses our ability,’’ he said. ‘‘That could have been the case this time.’’
    ‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘David tried to heal me, and you know he should have been able to. He has before.’’
    Lewis had no answer to that. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping it close to the vest, and he wouldn’t damn well look at me. I wondered why. Was he angry about Silverton? He had every right to be, I supposed. I’d screwed up, big time, and a Warden had paid with his life.
    Guillard asked more questions about the black shard, things to which I had no real answers except to give a recitation of my conversation with Silverton in the basement. And then the whole thing was over; Jones and Guillard wished me well and departed, and Zenaya left without a backward glance.
    Lewis stayed. He still wouldn’t look at me. Out of sheer stubbornness, I refused to speak first. I sipped water and tugged irritably at my drying hair, trying to get it to stop poodle-curling around my face. I used to have straight hair. I liked my old straight hair.
    When I finally turned my attention back to my guest, Lewis was staring at me, and what was in his eyes wasn’t anger at all. Or even disappointment. It was something neither one of us could ever really acknowledge, and it was big and powerful and breathtaking.
    He cleared his throat and looked down, and said, ‘‘You scared the shit out of me.’’
    ‘‘Yeah. Sorry, I had no idea it was going to be that dangerous, or I’d have done more, taken better precautions—’’
    He waved that aside. ‘‘Silverton was your expert; you were listening to him. So if there’s blame, it’s his, and he’s beyond all that now, poor bastard. Even if you’d pulled back as soon as you found the dead Djinn, it would have been too late to keep you from getting sick. This stuff is badly toxic. We couldn’t have left it there. As it is, we’ve had to inform NEST, and they’re following up with radiation treatments for anyone who reports in sick to the hospitals.’’ NEST was the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, out of Homeland Security. I didn’t want to imagine how that conversation had gone.
    ‘‘But by taking it out of the Djinn’s body—’’
    ‘‘The Djinn’s body must have been containing it, to a certain extent. You exposed yourselves to a massive dose,’’ he said. ‘‘Silverton more than you, because he actually touched it, even with protective gloves.’’
    It could have just as easily been me. Maybe Silverton had known the risks when he’d reached into that cavity to grab the thing; maybe he’d just been unlucky. No way to know. I’d come close to dying lots of times—I’d actually gone over the edge, once or twice—but this felt different.
    This left me shaky and deeply unsettled.
    ‘‘Is it true? That the Djinn really can’t sense it at all?’’
    ‘‘The Djinn think we’re all suffering from some kind of mass hallucination,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘David’s being kind about it, but it’s a blind spot for them. A big one. I don’t know how we’re going to convince them.’’
    ‘‘If me lying in this hospital bed doesn’t—’’ I felt light-headed, short of