forward. My foot caught in the roots, and I fell hard on my side. Dozens of metal legs pierced my skin, driven deeper by the impact.
I looked like a victim from a bad horror movie. My shirt was red with blood, and my skin was swelling, making my movements stiff. Individually, the stings I had suffered were relatively minor, but there were so many. One bee sting was an annoyance, assuming you weren’t allergic. A thousand could kill a full-grown man.
I had landed less than a foot from Guan Feng. My fingers tightened on the knife beneath my sleeve. I was close enough to stab her before anyone reacted, but what good would it do?
Looking up at her, I wasn’t sure I could have done it. She had released the book, and now twisted her fingers into her shirt. Her lower lip was trembling. She reminded me of a frightened child.
“They’ll be all right.” I placed my hand on the base of the tree. “She knows we’re here.”
The look Guan Feng gave me suggested she would happily take over for Harrison’s insects and finish skinning me herself, but after a moment, she reached out and touched the roots closest to the book.
“We’re waiting,” Harrison said.
“Ben dan, indeed,” I muttered.
A flash of emotion—amusement, maybe—passed over Guan Feng’s features. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Lena’s hand pushed out through the bark, knocking chunks of dry, dead wood onto the two of us. Her arm muscles strained as if she were trying to scale a cliff. I reached up to take her hand, but the insects stabbed my wrist and elbow, killing that plan.
Slowly, Lena emerged from the tree. Normally, the bark would have re-formed behind her, but not this time. Branches broke away with every movement, and the entire tree creaked, drawing nervous whispers from around us. Neither Guan Feng nor I budged.
Lena gasped for air and stopped, one leg and arm still trapped within the wood. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. “Get those damned things off of him.”
My head sagged. “I love you, beautiful.”
“I know.”
“You have Bi Wei?” asked Harrison.
Lena wrenched her other arm free. A slender bronze-skinned hand clasped hers.
Metal wings vibrated against my wounds, and then they were gone, returning to their master.
Lena braced her other hand against the tree and pulled, like she was hauling Bi Wei out of a pit. The woman she dragged forth was naked, roughly Lena’s height, but emaciated. Her skin hugged her ribs and hipbones. Atrophied legs collapsed, and she clung to Lena’s arm to keep from falling.
“
Bi.” Tears spilled down Guan Feng’s cheeks.
Another woman stepped forward holding a heavy robe of deep maroon silk, trimmed in gold. Before she could reach them, Lena’s fingers sank back into the tree and pried loose a two-foot length of pale wood, which shifted into a long, curved dagger. She curled her arm around Bi Wei’s throat, placing the tip of her newly created weapon under her chin.
Guan Feng screamed. “Stop! Wei has done nothing to you!”
Harrison simply smiled. “You have no power here, dryad. My pets will strip the skin from your lover’s body, a millimeter at a time.”
Lena matched his smile. “You think you know me because you read an old book? That’s cute.” She shifted her stance, and a wooden tendril punched out of the dirt and circled his ankle.
He snarled and grabbed the root with his hands, trying to rip it loose. Bad idea. More roots moved like serpents, twining around his wrists. I could see smaller tendrils stabbing into his skin, poetic justice for what he had done to me.
“I’ve read Isaac’s reports,” he snarled. “Bi Wei is an innocent woman. You won’t kill her. But you know I won’t hesitate to end him.”
“You know what Isaac wrote about me. You don’t know
“Thanks a lot.” To Harrison, I said, “What do you think Lena will be doing to you while your bugs kill me? I’ve watched this woman go toe-to-toe with an automaton and win. And believe me, you’ve pissed her off far more than that automaton ever did.”
Behind Harrison, the cat crouched, metal tail lashing through the dirt. I wasn’t the only one to call out a warning. Guan Feng and one of her friends shouted at Harrison to stop, but the cat was too quick. It bounded toward Lena and leaped for her face.
Lena’s toes curled into the roots as her left hand shot out to catch the cat by the throat. Lena grimaced, but kept her knife to Bi Wei’s throat while the cat dug steel claws into her wrist and tried to rake her arm. Lena stepped to the side, dragging her prisoner along with her, then swung the cat in an arc, smashing it against the oak tree like she was beating dirt from a rug.
She tossed the remains of the metal cat at Harrison’s feet. It looked like someone had run over a garbage disposal. Broken legs twitched, and with every movement, small gears and scraps of metal popped free. “Don’t do that again.”
Harrison snarled, and the insects on his body began to buzz. Two wendigos started toward Lena. She spun, keeping Bi Wei between herself and the closer of the wendigos. I lunged forward and stabbed my knife into the other’s thigh. It wouldn’t have worked on a full wendigo, but this one’s armor was weak. The blade slid through the cracks in the ice, into the flesh beneath. It backhanded me to the ground, then howled and clutched its leg, where the knife appeared to have taken root.
A cloud of insects rose from Harrison’s body, but as one, their bodies locked up and they fell into the dirt. The roots twined around Harrison’s limbs stopped moving. Lena’s forehead furrowed, but the roots no longer responded to her will.
Four students of Bi Sheng stood with their books open, whispering to whatever presences lived within those pages. Had I been able to see their magic, I knew I would have seen four ghosts suppressing both Harrison’s magic and Lena’s.
Harrison tore the roots from his limbs and started toward Lena. Bloody welts marked his forearms, and his pants were shredded.
Guan Feng jumped to stand between him and Lena. “Everyone stand back.”
Lena’s knife never wavered. They might be able to stop her from reshaping the wood, but I doubted they could prevent her from stabbing the blade through flesh.
My hands shook as I ripped the lifeless millipede from my throat, prying one segment free at a time. Blood made the metal slippery, and the damn thing had dug in pretty good, but I finally got it free. I flung it onto the ground, and Lena smashed it with her heel.
Lena kept her attention on Harrison. Bi Wei was breathing so fast I thought she might hyperventilate or pass out. She had one hand on Lena’s arm, but lacked the strength to pull the knife away from her neck. Her head moved in frightened twitches, like a rabbit trapped by wolves.
“Do you remember your name?” I asked. She stared blankly. I mentally kicked myself. Torture had apparently messed with my faculties. Of course she wouldn’t recognize twenty-first century English, and my knowledge of Mandarin was limited to a few simple phrases from a trip six years ago. “Ni jao…shen ma ming zao. No, wait. Ming zi?” Dammit, where were my books? I needed a universal translator.
“Isaac Vainio?”
The hairs on my arm stood straight up when she spoke my name. There was no recognition in her eyes, but for an instant, contempt edged her voice. Not only did something within her know me, it hated me. What the hell had Lena brought back? I reached out and touched her arm, and a dozen weapons jerked toward me.
I pulled away. That one touch had confirmed my hunch. The power flowing beneath Bi Wei’s skin was like the pages of a magically active book.
She spoke again, but I understood nothing. Whatever her friends had done, it had suppressed my ability to understand other tongues. Guan Feng answered in the same language.
If they had blacked out my magic, what had they done to Lena? “Are you all right?”
“It’s not pleasant,” she said tightly, “but I’ll survive.”
