Thin Air Read Online Free PDF

want to, but their real existence is energy. They’re…spirits. Spirits of fire and will.”
    â€œPoetic, but not exactly the whole story,” David said. “We were once slaves to you. To the Wardens. You used us to amplify your powers.”
    â€œSlaves?”
    â€œSubject to your orders. And your whims.” He was watching me with half-closed eyes, and when I turned I saw sparks flying in them. “We’re free now.”
    â€œSo you’re…all-powerful?” I had to laugh as I said it. “Snap your fingers and make it so, or something like that?”
    He smiled, but the sparks were still flying. “Djinn move energy—that’s all. We take it from point A to point B. Transform it. But we can’t create, and we can’t destroy, not at the primal levels. That’s why I think we may be able to undo what was done to you—because at least on some level, the energy is never lost.”
    â€œGreat! So, just…” I snapped my fingers. “You know. Make it so.”
    â€œI can’t,” David said, “or I’d already have done it. Time was Ashan’s specialty. I was never very good at manipulating it. Jonathan—” He stopped, and—if anything—looked even bleaker. “You don’t remember Jonathan.”
    I shook my head.
    â€œIt would take a Jonathan or an Ashan to undo what was done.”
    â€œCan’t you just go get one of them?” I asked.
    â€œJonathan’s dead,” David said, “and Ashan’s…not what he was. Besides, I can’t find him. He’s been very successful at hiding.”
    â€œToo bad,” I said. “I was going to offer to bear your children if you could get me out of this icebox and onto a nice, warm beach somewhere.”
    I was kidding, but whatever I’d said hit him hard. It hurt. He got up and moved back to his original position at my feet, breaking the connection, breaking eye contact. There was a tension in his body now, as if I’d said something really terrible.
    Lewis covered his eyes with the heels of his hands, digging deeply. “She doesn’t remember,” he said. “David. She doesn’t remember.”
    â€œI know,” David said, and his voice scared me. Raw, anguished, fragile. “But I thought…if anything…”
    â€œShe can’t . You know that. It’s not her fault.”
    No answer. David said nothing. I opened my mouth a couple of times, but I couldn’t think what to ask, what to say; I’d put my foot in it big-time, but I had no idea why.
    No, I realized after a slow-dawning, horrified moment. I did know. Or at least, I guessed.
    â€œDid you and I…do we have children?” I asked. Because I wasn’t ready to be a mother. What could I possibly have to teach a child when I couldn’t remember my own life, my own childhood? My own family?
    The question I’d addressed aloud to David seemed to drop into a velvet black pool of silence. After a very long time he said tonelessly, “No. We don’t have any children.”
    And poof. He was gone. Vanished into thin air.
    â€œWhat the hell…?”
    Lewis didn’t answer. Not directly. He rolled over on his side, turning his back to me. “Sleep,” he told me. “We’ll get into this tomorrow.”
    I rolled over on my side, too, putting me back-to-back with Lewis with a blank view of a blue nylon tent wall. Uncomfortably close, close enough to be in the corona of his body heat. He needed a bath. So did I.
    â€œLewis?” I asked. “Please tell me. Do I have a kid?”
    A long, long silence. “No,” he said. “No, you don’t.”
    I didn’t remember anything about my life. For all intents and purposes, I’d been born a few hours ago, on a bed of icy leaves and mud. I’d been dropped out of the sky into a bewildering world that wasn’t what my instincts