Luis. Brother. Another Warden, and one far stronger than Manny; I could feel his energy like heat against my skin, even from several feet away. An Earth Warden, like his brother. I wondered why he’d gotten tattoos of flames; it seemed an odd sort of choice.

I remembered, too, that when Manny was on the aetheric, he had the ghosts of the same tattoos on his arms. Odd indeed . . . unless his unconscious manifestation on the aetheric wished to be like his brother.

Luis had large brown eyes, and they surveyed me with interest and intensity. He offered a vague salute with his half-empty bottle of beer. “Hey, Cassiel,” he said. “You drink beer?”

“Yes,” I said. There was a challenge in his question, and I was in no mood to be defeated. Luis nodded, without any change in expression, and reached down inside the door. He held a bottle out to me. I went up the porch steps and took it, twisted the cap as I’d seen Manny do, and took a deep swallow.

The taste was foul. I choked, coughed, and managed not to spew the stuff back on Luis’s smirking face. I swallowed and willed myself not to give him more amusement.

The second sip was easier. “Thank you,” I said.

“You’re an asshole,” Manny told his brother. “Inside. What the hell are you doing here, man?”

He shoved Luis on the shoulder. Manny was the weaker of the two, but Luis allowed himself to be pushed, retreating back into the house.

We followed.

Angela was setting the table—four places. When she saw me, she quickly turned away and added another plate, as well as a welcoming silent smile. I thought—though my command of human expressions was not expert—that she looked troubled, despite the smile.

“Seriously, man, have you lost your mind?” Manny demanded as the screen door banged shut behind us with a sound like a thunderclap. “You don’t come back to Albuquerque. You know that. You’re asking for trouble.”

Luis’s face set in stubborn lines. “I don’t let fear run my life,” he said. “You shouldn’t either, Manny.”

“I got a wife and kid! I got things to lose, bro. You think about that before you go stirring things up again.” Manny shot me a look, excluding me from this strange conversation. I wandered to the screen door to watch Isabel playing in the box, earnestly talking to her dolls as they acted out whatever drama she had constructed. One toppled over into the dust, and Isabel leaned the other two over the fallen, mimicking human concern. Angela moved to the window to check on her child before going back to the kitchen.

I continued to listen to the brothers.

“This is still Noteño territory, and they’re not going to miss you rolling up, big as life, in that damn flashy truck,” Manny was saying. “You want to visit, you at least let me know before you come. We got our own problems around here without throwing yours on top.”

“Love you too, Manny,” Luis said. “Look, I’m sorry, but all that crap, that’s past, all right? The Norteños have bigger things to worry about than me. I’ve been out of that a long time now.”

“You know how it is: You’re never out. I hear they remember.” Manny was less angry now, but I could sense the dark undercurrents still in his voice. “Think about Angela and Ibby. I’m planning to move them out of here later in the year, now that I got a raise from the Wardens.”

“For taking her on?” Her meant, of course, me. I decided that mentioning me included me once more in the conversation, and turned toward the two men. Manny glanced nervously toward me; Luis did not. His eyes were fixed on his brother, and his muscular arms were folded across his chest. “Shit, bro, you sure about this?”

“You mean, is he sure about me?” I deliberately took another shallow sip of the beer. The malty, bitter aftertaste was less prominent this time. “I doubt he is, but I have proved useful to him.”

Luis did look at me this time, and I did not care for the expression on his face. It seemed to pass judgment, and I would not be judged by humans. Not even by a Warden as powerful as I suspected Luis to be. “You get yourself in trouble today?” he asked—not me, but Manny. Manny shook his head.

“Not any more than usual.”

I wondered why Manny was feeling it necessary to lie, even by omission, to his own brother, but I kept my silence. The two men continued to stare at each other, a contest of wills that left a palpable shiver in the air, and then Luis shrugged and chugged down half of his beer in one long gulp. “You know where I am if you need me.”

He didn’t wait for Manny to answer, but turned and walked into the kitchen, where Angela was preparing the meal. Isabel banged in through the front door, still clutching her dolls, and ran into the kitchen. Voices rose and fell, punctuated by Isabel’s giggles.

Manny sipped his beer in silence, eyes unfocused and distant.

“Your brother,” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Lucky me.”

Chapter 5

I LEARNED A great deal at the meal that night, mainly from the silences and when they fell. Manny loved his brother, but there were secrets between them, things that not even Angela seemed to fully understand. I said little, preferring to observe.

The meal was tamales, Angela explained to me, and went into great detail of how to season the pork that was rolled into the cornmeal. I was grateful that she quickly pointed out that the corn husk skins should be removed before eating, as that had posed a worry for me. The food was a heady mixture of tastes and textures, and Ibby tipped hot sauce freely onto my plate, begging me to try it with the tamales and rice. I haughtily refused. That earned me laughter from the others at the table, but kind laughter. Bright, not dark.

“So,” Manny said, “Luis, you staying long?”

“Maybe.” He shoveled another bite of food into his mouth. He had not been shy about the hot sauce, and seemed unaffected by it. “Waiting on a transfer out of Florida. I’m kind of on detached service right now.”

Manny exchanged a look with his wife, and Angela frowned. “Where’s the transfer to?” she asked. “Ibby, stop playing with the rice. You’re getting it all over the table.”

Isabel glowered at her, but ate the forkful of rice she had been waving around. Luis took a sip of his beer.

“They tell me they’re short of Wardens in Colorado,” he said. “So probably there, but it’ll be closer than the coast.” He nudged Isabel, seated next to him. “You’d like that, right?”

“Right!” She chewed her food noisily and grinned at him.

“Luis—” Manny said, and then shrugged. “It’s your life, man. But if I were you, I wouldn’t come back here. Not to New Mexico. And not to any place Norteños has a chapter. They don’t forget, man. And they never forgive. You know that.”

“I know. I just don’t care,” Luis said. He focused his attention back on his plate. “So what have you guys been up to while I was gone? Ibby?”

Isabel launched into a bubbling, breathless story about everything from the history of her dolls to the horny toad she had found in the backyard. Angela caught my eye and smiled, and I felt . . . warmed. Part of the circle of safety, however much an illusion it might be.

I saved his life, I thought, watching Manny as he talked and laughed with his wife and daughter. He would not be here tonight if I hadn’t.

There was something curiously strong about that feeling. I didn’t know what to name it, or whether or not it would help or harm me—but I couldn’t ignore it. As a Djinn, I had never cared about an individual human, other than as a tool to be used and discarded. I had never given a moment’s thought to what they had been before or after; I had spent as little time as possible in contact with them, and forgotten them almost immediately. Now I wondered. I thought about all of those faces I had glimpsed through the ages of my life—young, old, male, female—and how I might have helped or harmed them.