I couldn’t say one way or the other. What she did look like was tired. “Is she sleeping?”
“Yes. Fuzzy Britches trusts me enough to do so. She must be very tired. Hellfire Rayburn informed me that only scuttlebuttorphans who have no tribe of their own are ever offered. They do not remove them from their family.”
“Oh.” The meaning settled inside me. “She lost her family?”
“It would seem so. I do not yet know the details but plan to obtain them in the future. It is my duty, as a member of her tribe, to understand Fuzzy Britches’s past.”
“That’s”—I struggled for words but finally settled on—“very mature and understanding of you.”
“I am thousands of years old,” Aurelia answered. “I am very mature.”
Perhaps in years, but not emotionally. I let the topic slide. Or would have if Aurelia hadn’t said, “Ajita was here,” before picking up her bowl of Jell-O and taking another bite.
Just hearing the name made me nervous. “She was. Have you spoken with her since?”
Aurelia either swallowed her bite or let it dissolve in her mouth. “Briefly. Djinn do not spend much time in each other’s company. The outcomes of such prolonged interactions typically lead to destruction.”
I already knew that djinn generally couldn’t hurt each other, but I had a feeling the areas surrounding them weren’t so fortunate. “I see,” I answered even though I wasn’t certain I truly did. “I don’t think she likes me much,” I added.
Aurelia shrugged. “I do not know if Ajita likes anyone.”
That was probably true. “And what about you?” I curiously asked.
Aurelia cocked her head to the side. “As I said before, I would not claim to love you.”
My eyes widened to the point of discomfort, and then I remembered how I’d ended my call with Pops and what I’d said after. “That’s okay.” I found myself chuckling. “I’d be creeped out if you did.”
“That is acceptable.”
I realized Aurelia hadn’t really answered my question but let it go as another thought entered my mind. “Do Pops’s wards affect you?”
“You mean the ones surrounding your home?”
I nodded. “Yes. They’re configured so that individuals that mean me or Franklin harm can’t get through.” Oddly, I’d never gotten the impression that Aurelia meant me harm, so I hadn’t given it a lot of thought. “I think Ajita would have harmed me if she thought she could get away with it and survive the process.”
Aurelia blankly stared at me for a time before she finally answered, “I am uncertain. They are not as strong as Peaches’s boundary. A djinn cannot pass that without express invitation. However, there are ways to get around the boundary. Had Janus lived long enough, he would have succeeded on finding a way in.”
In other words, if I hadn’t forced Janus’s soul back into his body, undoing the magical manipulation that made him a djinn, he would have eventually gotten through.
“The magic surrounding your home is different and does not affect me as much.”
I thought there might be a way to test the theory and cautiously asked, “Have you ever meant me harm?”
Aurelia gave a slow blink. “I am uncertain.”
Well, that cleared up exactly jack shit. “You don’t know?”
“I would say that generally I do not. However, I cannot claim that I have never considered it.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s…honest.” Most of the time honest answers were the hardest to hear. Now was no different.
“Can you claim to have never meant me harm?” Aurelia challenged.
I opened my mouth, ready to immediately deny it and found I couldn’t. “I don’t want to harm you,” I finally settled on.
Lips twisted in a parody of a grin, Aurelia nodded. “That is not the same, but it is honest. I would have been disappointed if you had answered otherwise.” I didn’t think disappointing Aurelia was in my best interest. “I was uncertain you would survive meeting with Ajita. I am not unhappy with the outcome.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’d take it.
