Codex Born

Wei’s book on the way back, along with a portable reading light from my bag.

The light was designed to clip directly to a book, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the cover. I settled for clipping it to my jeans pocket.

As I opened the book, I found myself missing Smudge, who would have been trying valiantly to blister my skin and warn me away. But we needed information, and I couldn’t think of another way to get it.

I switched on my glasses and skimmed from one section to the next, trying to decide where to start. A description of Bi Wei’s first encounter with magic caught my attention, and I flipped to the beginning of the story. It was her great-grandaunt who introduced her to Bi Sheng’s teachings. They had spent most of the day hiking to the top of a rocky hill outside of their village. Bi Wei could have made the walk in half the time had she been alone, but she was happy to match her great-grandaunt’s pace, and wouldn’t have dreamed of complaining.

They talked of trivial things along the way, but Bi Wei knew this was no ordinary outing. She longed to ask what awaited them and why her parents had been so somber the night before, but she suppressed her curiosity.

The clouds blazed that evening. A glowworm clung like a beacon to a stalk of grass, bobbing in the warm breeze. Great-Grandaunt unrolled a reed mat on the grass. Atop the mat, she opened an atlas of star charts. Times and seasons were written into the margins, while pictures of familiar stars spread across the rest of the page.

“Find them,” she said.

I looked skyward. Clouds and splintered sunlight hid the night sky from view. The stars wouldn’t be visible for some time yet. “How?”

“Read with me.” She turned the page, and we read a description of the northern stars. The author had written both of the stars’ usefulness in navigation and of their beauty, for shouldn’t the most useful things be also pleasing to behold?

As we read, it was as though the starlight he had looked upon—and I somehow knew both that he had watched the stars as he wrote, and that the writer was a man—it was as if that same light brightened within me. Shock tore my manners asunder, and I cried out.

Great-Grandaunt was not angry. Instead, she smiled and turned back to the star map. “Find them,” she repeated.

This time, when I looked to the clouds, I could see the stars burning beyond. “The Celestial Spear.” Despite the sunlight, I saw the constellation more clearly than ever I had before. I felt as though I could touch them, gather them to my breast like jewels. “How?”

“Through the [UNTRANSLATABLE] of your ancestor, Bi Sheng. This book was printed a hundred years ago. It and its sisters were shared and read by those with spiritual and magical strength. As each of Bi Sheng’s [UNTRANSLATABLE. SUGGESTIONS: DESCENDANTS, APPRENTICES] read the book, the words grew stronger. We read each book again and again, refilling the cup of its magic.”

Just as Guan Feng had done for Bi Wei. How many times had someone read this book over the years to sustain her? Thousands? How many hours did the students of Bi Sheng spend with these texts, fighting to keep their ancestors alive?

I laughed with delight, an outburst that would have earned disapproval from others, but Great- Grandaunt understood. This book had brought the night to life. I saw not just pinpoints of light, but the Emperor of Heaven, the Celestial Kitchen, the First Great One…I saw what they represented, the meaning we had painted on the sky throughout the ages.

“Why me?” I asked, not daring to hope that there might be more.

“Because you see beyond the words. They open your eyes to the world, and you give them power, just as Bi Sheng did. Just as I did. And it is time you learn to use those gifts.”

It was a connection I had felt with few others: the excitement of libriomancy, of magic. None but another libriomancer could understand the wonder and amazement of that discovery, the thrill of our first forays into magic. With Bi Wei, I relived that delight through the prism of her life. If anything, her joy had been even stronger than my own.

In that moment, I touched her mind.

Joy vanished, replaced by pain and confusion. Everything about this place and time was strange. The only constant was the violence and war that had followed her. She had fled the Porters centuries before, and had awakened to find herself threatened by them once again.

Or had she awakened at all? Was this the madness that had claimed the Lost Ones? Power clawed like a beast trapped within her chest, fighting to tear free. Even as she struggled to contain the beast, it slithered through her fingers, seducing her with the promise of magic. It had been so simple to use that power to grasp the words of those around her, the angry orders of the one called August Harrison, the broken-but-familiar words of the Bi de du .

Her own descendants practically worshipped her. Whereas August Harrison treated her with derision, as if she were nothing but a Miao slave. Guan Feng often cursed him under her breath, but she obeyed his wishes out of gratitude and respect. He had been the one to restore Bi Wei.

He was the one who could bring back Wei’s friends.

Feng held her hand as they walked alongside a palisade of sharpened poles that led to a square watchtower. The ground was hard-packed earth, bordered by old wood and stone buildings. Fireflies crawled over the walls—no, not fireflies. Those were Harrison’s insects. Bi Wei was seeing the magic in each one.

Wherever they were, Harrison was taking no risks. He had ordered everyone along this time: twenty-four of the twisted monsters he called wendigos, sixteen readers, and another twenty guardians, not counting Bi Wei and Guan Feng. Roughly half of the humans carried firearms. The handheld cannons were as frightening and disorienting as the metal cars they had stolen to get to this place, traveling at unimaginable speeds.

“The north wall,” said Harrison.

Bi Wei didn’t move.

“What is it?” asked Feng.

She looked around, searching. “We’re being watched.”

I slammed the book shut.

“What happened?” Lena asked, fully awake and alert.

“It worked.” I studied Lena more closely. Her eyes were red and shadowed, her hair a disheveled mess. “Are you all right?”

“I essentially tried to switch from sleeping on a king-sized bed to a little throw pillow.” She managed a pale smile. “I’m fine. This isn’t the first night I’ve spent away from my oak. What did you learn?”

“Not as much as I wanted. I think Bi Wei might have seen me. She’s disoriented, but determined to save the rest of her people. There are at least sixteen more of these books, and a bunch of people she called guardians. They must have had a second camp or base somewhere.”

“Did you see where they were? How close are they to finding us?”

“Harrison isn’t after us. They’re looking for something else. Something magical, I think.” I stared at the book, reconstructing what I had seen. That palisade was familiar. “Oh, shit.”

I grabbed my phone and called Nicola Pallas. The instant she answered, I said, “Harrison’s going after the archive at Fort Michilimackinac.”

“How long would it take you to get there?” Pallas asked calmly.

“Too long. He’s there now, and he knows where the archive is.”

To Pallas’ credit, she didn’t ask me how I knew. “Do you know what he wants?”

“Let me pull up the catalog.” I hurried toward the front desk and powered up the computer. I could connect to the Porter network and see what books and other toys were stored at the old fort. Hopefully something would jump out— “Wait. Nicola, did the Porters transfer everything from MSU to Michilimackinac?”

“Everything save a handful of books and artifacts that were destroyed when the building collapsed.”

I remembered the Michigan State University library, both as a student and as a field agent investigating the