Undone Read Online Free Page A

sensed the subject was closed. “There are things going on here in the mortal world. David and me, we’re—” She looked for a moment completely blank. “Okay, I have no idea how to explain to you what’s going on around here, except that people are out to get us.”
    I took a spoonful of ice cream. “Is that not usual?” I had heard it from Ashan many times.
    â€œWell, yeah, kinda. But this time—” She shook her head, eyes gone distant and a little dark. “This time David’s in real danger. Tell me, do you know anything about antimatter?”
    I didn’t know the word. I frowned at her. “The anti of matter? Is that not—nothing?”
    â€œYou’d think,” she said. “But no. It’s the opposite of matter. It destroys it.”
    â€œSuch a thing cannot exist here.” Not in any level of the aetheric that I knew.
    â€œWell, it can , so long as it’s contained in something else. But yeah, I get your point.” Joanne waved that away with her spoon. “The thing is, we’re in the middle of something, and it’s very big. The Djinn—they’re not being a lot of help. Not even David’s folks. I was hoping you could tell me something.”
    â€œI know nothing,” I said. That was all too true. “You think this antimatter could harm David ?” Such a thing seemed impossible. It took another Djinn, or something equivalent in power, to inflict pain on him.
    â€œI think it could destroy him,” Joanne said soberly. “And I don’t know how to stop it. Yet.”
    I felt a surge of energy like a close strike of lightning, and came instantly to my feet, spinning to face the doorway. Joanne didn’t. She continued to sit, calmly digging her spoon into the ice cream and taking another bite.
    But I sensed that under the calm, she was tense and watchful.
    â€œVisitors usually knock,” she said. “Cassiel? This a friend of yours? Because if he is, we’re really going to have to talk about boundaries.”
    The Djinn who stood in the doorway was, in fact, familiar to me, although I wasn’t sure that the human terms of friend and foe really applied. Bordan was . . . less well-disposed to me than many. He’d taken on human form, that of a young man with jet-black hair and eyes as dark as oil, but with a blue sheen that gave him an eerie, unsettling stare. He’d chosen skin of a rich, satin gold, and clothed himself in black. So very different from the Djinn I knew, and yet . . . the same. A physical manifestation of all that he was. I could not possibly have mistaken him.
    Even though we had rarely been allied, seeing the cold contempt in his human-form eyes was a shock.
    He gave me only that single, searing glance, and then he angled toward Joanne, pointedly excluding me.
    â€œWhere is David?” Bordan asked. It was clear he wanted nothing to do with Joanne, either—but she was preferable to dealing with me.
    I could tell from her smile she read the subtext just as well. “He’s out,” she said. “Want a cup of coffee while you wait? Some ice cream? Mmmm, Ben and Jerry’s? C’mon. Even Djinn have to love a little frozen dessert now and then.”
    He didn’t dignify that with an answer. He simply stood, silent and motionless, staring at her. No human could outstare a Djinn, but Joanne tried. It was an impressive effort. I supposed the fact that she’d actually been one, at least for a short period, had given her a certain immunity.
    â€œRight,” she finally said. “So, you’re here to take your little lost sheep back where she belongs?”
    He looked revolted. “Cassiel? We do not want her back. Do as you wish with her.”
    I had never been an enemy of Bordan, but at that moment, I felt rage slowly building. “I will not be given ,” I said. “I am not property. ”
    Bordan didn’t even accord