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Warden. My kind has seen quite enough of that.”
    I had never in my life been a slave to the humans. Unlike many of my fellows, who had been tricked or suborned into service by the Wardens over many thousands of years, I had never been captured, never made their property. I had no love of mortals, and no fear of them, either. And I would not ever be owned.
    We stood there, the three of us, in a peculiar triangle, in such a human-seeming, normal home. David, fierce and powerful, but with little hold over me because I was a different kind of Djinn altogether. Joanne, just as fierce, but fragile and mortal, therefore of no more consequence to me than any of her kind.
    But . . . what was I?
    I didn’t know. I was neither human, nor was I Djinn, and it terrified me. I said, very quietly, “Where can I go? If not here, where?”
    Even to my ears, it sounded strangely empty and weak. Joanne exchanged a long look with David, some silent communication in their own language I couldn’t share.
    â€œShe’s got a point,” he said.
    Joanne sighed. “You can stay,” she said. “For a couple of days, no more. But one wrong move, Cassiel, and you’re going to wish we’d let you dry up and fade away.”

Chapter 2
    THE REST OF the day passed. I learned more of my human body, and the more I learned, the less I liked. Its machinery was too fragile and required too much maintenance. Food. Breathing. Finally, sleeping. The humiliating process of waste elimination was enough to make me wish fondly for oblivion.
    Joanne, distantly compassionate through this, assured me that I would soon adjust. And I did, out of necessity. By the next day, I even began to enjoy some of the tastes of the food and drink she offered me, and learn which were better avoided. Coffee was strongly flavored and good. Garlic was not, until she showed me that it was best used to season other things and not eaten in large pieces. (I tried seasoning my food with coffee, but the results were disappointing.)
    Ice cream was a revelation. For the first time in human form, I experienced a warm rush of something that I identified as real pleasure. It must have shown plainly in my expression, because Joanne, seated across from me at the kitchen table, smiled and pointed a spoon at the round container, still frosted and smoking lightly in the warmth of the room.
    â€œBen and Jerry’s,” she said. “I figured if anything could teach you to smile, it’d be New York Super Fudge Chunk.”
    Had I smiled? Surely not. I gazed at her, feeling my brows pull together in what I’d learned was a forbidding expression, and took another spoonful of the frozen chocolate dessert.
    â€œIt’s not bad,” I said, trying my best to sound indifferent. I spoiled it by closing my eyes to savor the creamy goodness as the ice cream melted in my mouth.
    â€œThis is a good sign,” Joanne said. “If you didn’t like chocolate, I might have to write you off as a lost cause.”
    I opened my eyes to gaze at her. “Would you?”
    She licked the spoon. “For real?”
    â€œWould you consider me a lost cause? Do you?” It was an important question, and I felt I deserved the answer.
    Joanne’s clear blue eyes studied me unblinkingly as she cleaned the spoon. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, but I do. If you hang on to being a Djinn, you’re never going to make it as a human. I’ve been there. I know what it feels like, being so close to God and then ending up back here. At least I wasn’t born to it, though. You were. So you’d better make your peace and move on, or sooner or later, it’ll kill you.”
    â€œOr you will,” I said.
    She tilted her head slightly to the side. It might have been an acknowledgment. It might have simply been an attempt to get to the last bit of chocolate on the spoon.
    â€œWe need to get you out of here,” she said finally, and I