Not exactly the wedding march, but it would do. I exchanged a look with David, and he gave me his hand, and we walked the short length of the deck to the bow, where Josue was standing. The sun was behind clouds again, and the air smelled heavy with brewing storms. David’s best man—and, I supposed, standing in for my maid of honor—was the Fire Warden, Brett Jones. Big and foreboding as a Djinn, only armed like a pirate and watching Josue and everybody else, including me, with smart, cold focus.

I felt both protected and unsettled.

“I don’t have no holy books,” Josue said. “So I make it up as I go along. You don’t like it, you go get married in hell.”

“As long as you get the important stuff right,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“I get paid first.”

There was a brief pause, and then David reached into his pocket and brought out a small handful of very large bills. Josue grabbed them and flashed a highly inappropriate smile, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“David Prince.”

“David Prince, you come here with this woman to be married. Right?”

I didn’t dare throw a glance at David, because there was something so weirdly hilarious about this that I was already choking on it. After a beat, he said, “Obviously.”

I coughed.

“You sure you want to do that?” Josue said. “Because you got to take care of her, love her, never look at another woman. Even if she’s sick or gets old and fat.”

My coughing turned into a full-fledged fit.

“If you mean will I stand by her in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for all the days of our lives—yes, I will,” David said, very quietly. The urge to laugh left me suddenly, and I squeezed his hand. “I vow that I will.”

I felt no corresponding surge from the aetheric, the way I had the first time we’d done this, but then, David had completed his side of the vows the last time we’d done this.

I hadn’t, not officially. Which was why Lewis and I had decided to go through with this. It was an experiment—probably doomed to failure—to see whether or not it would make any difference in the way Djinn and humans were bound together . . . if wewere bound together by ritual, completely.

“You’re sure about this,” Josue said. He continued to stare at David. “I give you some time to think.”

David didn’t smile. “I’m sure. Move along.”

“Well, okay.” He turned to face me. “How about you?”

“You suck at this,” I told him. I got a slow leer in return. “Come on, at least make an effort!”

“You dump this guy, come back to my cabin, I’ll make an effort.”

“To clean up the toenails off the floor?” I asked sweetly. “Come on, Josue. Today.”

He clasped his hands, and tried for a pious expression. I doubted he’d ever seen one, except maybe in the DVD collection belowdecks. “Do you—what’s your name again?”

“Joanne Baldwin.”

“Joanne Balderwin, take this—uh, Prince David, to be your husband? Do you swear to honor and obey him, and to never look at another man, even if this one gets—”

“Sick, old, and fat, yes, I know.”

“What would that matter? He’s a man, yes? It is the prerogative of a man to get sick and old and fat.” The crew laughed raucously behind us. “Do you swear to honor and obey him, even if this one gets poor and lazy?”

I closed my eyes and fought a cage match with my temper. “Ask it right.”He heard the echo of darkness in my voice, and the laughter of the crew died away. “I mean it.”

Josue cleared his throat. When he spoke again, the mocking tone was gone. “Do you take this man as your husband, forsaking all others as long as you both live?”

Close enough. I felt something happening, a stirring in the aetheric like a soft breeze. It swirled around me, lazy and gentle, and then solidified into a silver mist.

“Yes,” I said. “I vow it.”

The mist fell like soft silver rain on the aetheric, and I felt it sliding over my skin in warm threads.

And then it hit the black torch, and all hell broke loose.

“Jo!” David grabbed me as my knees folded. “What—?”

I had to make this work. Had to.Holy crap, Lewis had been right the whole time. Because our wedding vows hadn’t been finished, I’d made myself vulnerable to the invasion by Bad Bob. The equations had been out of balance, and on the aetheric that was a very bad thing.

We were setting it right.

The connection between us went wild, power flooding from him into me in a silver torrent. Power straight from the bloodstream of the aetheric, pure and white-hot.

“Take it out of me,” I panted. “Hurry. Hurry!”

David rolled me over on my stomach and ripped my shirt open, exposing the rippling, angry tattoo on my back. The thing under there was being forced to the surface.

David’s power was acting in self-defense, because I was now part of him. Flesh of his flesh.

I heard his breath rush out, and then he put one hand on the back of my neck and said, “Hold still. It’s coming out.”

I felt blood sheeting over my back, and heard the pirates scrambling backward to get away from the thing that was thrashing its way out of me.

I had enough control left to block the nerves before the pain got unbearable. I couldn’t see what was happening in the real world, but on the aetheric there was something that looked like a cross between a squid and a virus flailing its way out of my silver-shining body.

David fried it into grease and smoke on the deck beside me, and then burned it again.

The change was immediate, and dramatic. Calm flooded me, and confidence, and power—the power of the Djinn.

I directed it to my back, and sealed the ravaged muscles and torn skin—something not even Lewis could have done, as powerful as his talent for things like that was.

I’d just become something else. A bridge between the Wardens and the Djinn . . . and something of both at the same time.

And Bad Bob’s mark was gone.

I was free.

David picked me up and cradled me in his arms. I felt warm and relaxed, contented as a drowsy cat in the sun.

“It worked,” he said. He sounded surprised. “You were right.”

“Damn straight,” I said. “It’s why he wanted to stop us at the wedding. Bad Bob knew that once we exchanged vows, he wouldn’t be able to control me anymore.” I felt drunk on silver bubbles, and I laughed. “Free. We’re free of him.”

David captured my hands and kissed them.“Not quite yet,” he said. “He can’t control you. That doesn’t mean he’s helpless.” He pulled me back to my feet. My shirt was a disaster, so I tied the rags together in a makeshift halter top. Not so bad, really, all things considered.

Josue had prudently retreated as far as he could from us. Brett Jones was still standing there, looking focused despite the sight of an alien critter ripping out of my flesh.

I nodded to Josue. “Finish it.”

“Hell with you, crazy bitch!”

“Finish it!”

From all the way across the deck, he made the hasty sign of the cross. “Then I declare you married,” he said. “ Mazel tov.Kiss the bride before we do.”

He picked up a half-empty bottle of cheap rum, pulled out the cork, and swigged down a gulp, then passed it around. Our version of cheap champagne.

David pulled me into his arms, and what would have been a symbolic kiss turned deep, hot, and thoroughly suggestive. I helped with that part, thinking of nothing except the moment, the sensation of his body against mine.

We’d won. At the very least, we’d won my freedom from becoming Bad Bob’s slave.

Now I had to make sure that David didn’t suffer that fate, either.

We broke the kiss and clung together, panting. He was whispering things to me, quiet wonderful things. Promises.

And then he closed his eyes and said, “I don’t want to do this. Not this way.”

“I know,” I said, and kissed him again, gently. “But it’s important. Tactics and strategy, right?”