can consciously process or remember.” He skimmed the book and strode toward Guan Feng. As he bent over, golden tendrils flickered from his scalp, like an afterimage that faded when you tried to look at it directly.
I hadn’t read
“Feng flew to the U.S. six weeks ago,” Gutenberg said slowly. “The students of Bi Sheng are spread throughout the world. We face fewer than half of their total number.” He grabbed his gold pen and appeared to scribble a series of notes in the air. Magical note-taking so he would remember the locations of the rest?
“In the beginning, Harrison’s hope was infectious,” he continued. “He saw himself as a savior, and when he showed them a selection of documents he had taken from our computers, they saw salvation. As the weeks passed, he spent more and more time alone. When not locked in his cabin, he sent his insects to spy on Lena, watching through their eyes.
“Two weeks ago, Harrison left the camp. When he returned, he was quite drunk. He said the time for planning was past. In order to overpower Lena, he needed soldiers. If they wouldn’t help him to capture a wendigo, he would do it alone.”
“Two weeks?” Nidhi asked sharply. “Was this the twentieth?”
Gutenberg nodded.
“What happened July twentieth?” Lena asked.
“That was Victor Harrison’s birthday.”
“They tracked and killed the first wendigo the following morning,” Gutenberg said. “The body you investigated in Tamarack was the second murder.”
“Where did they go after they attacked Michilimackinac?” Toni’s impatience was palpable.
He raised a hand and stared at Guan Feng, as if he could dig out the truth with his eyes alone. “The tree he prepared for Lena didn’t survive the restoration of Bi Wei. He needed a stronger oak for his new dryad, as well as additional soldiers to defend her.”
“Between Bi Wei and Deifilia, they could grow a new oak anywhere,” said Lena.
“But it was to be hidden. Protected.” Gutenberg blinked. “Harrison asked Deifilia whether her oak could survive underground.”
Without the sun…but how difficult would it be to conjure sunlight? Jeff carried the moon’s rays around in a rock. Bi Wei could provide whatever Deifilia’s tree needed. “They’re at the mine.”
Gutenberg nodded, the transparent tendrils on his scalp making him look like Medusa. “Isaac is correct.”
That would explain where the dragon had come from, and the mine employed more than enough healthy, strong people to build Harrison’s wendigo army.
I turned to Lena. “Find what?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Nidhi?”
Nidhi’s brow creased. “What did you hear, Isaac?”
The room grew silent. My neck and cheeks warmed as I realized everyone had stopped to look at me. “I’m not sure.”
.”
Slowly, I stepped toward the edge of the library to look out at the sky. Despite the rising sun, stars burned clearly in the sky, stars which were completely wrong for this time of year. I searched until I spotted the constellation known as the Phoenix. “Oh, damn.”
Not too long ago, I would have tried to cover up what was happening. I would have blamed my confusion on the ringing in my ears from the explosion. But if I was seeing nonexistent stars, I was far too vulnerable. That didn’t make my next words any easier. “I need to stay behind.”
I tried to tell myself I wasn’t betraying Lena, Jeff…all of Copper River, really. If I was hearing voices, then the next spell I cast could be enough to let the Army of Ghosts into my head. Trying to help could get everyone killed.
“Are you armed?” asked Pallas.
I showed her the shock-gun.
I clenched my fists and focused on my surroundings.
“Lena will remain here as well,” Gutenberg said.
“No, she won’t,” Lena shot back. “Nobody knows what Deifilia can do better than me.”
“Nor do we know what will happen if the two of you face one another.” He sounded deceptively calm. He reached out, fingers coming together as if he were snatching an invisible thread. As he did so, printed type seemed to crawl over his tan skin, the characters burrowing into his body too quickly for me to read.
Lena’s knees gave out.
Nidhi jumped to catch her. “What did you do?”
“Lena is book-born.” Gutenberg released his hold, and the color slowly returned to Lena’s face. “If I can take her power, what do you think Bi Wei might do? What if she does worse? She could rewrite Lena, transform her into an enemy.”
“Can you do that?” I asked sharply. “Rewrite her?”
Gutenberg’s mouth tightened ever so slightly. “I cannot, no. But while Bi Sheng’s magic is similar to ours, we do not know all his secrets. Lena stays here.”
He neither raised his voice nor changed his expression, but everyone in the library recognized the discussion was over. Almost everyone.
“She’s my responsibility,” Lena pressed.
“In what way?” asked Gutenberg. “Did you create her? Did you write the book from which she sprang? Was it your stolen research that allowed our enemies to discover what she could do? Did your defenses fail to protect our archive? In what way are you responsible, Lena Greenwood?”
“Because she’s family.”
“That’s one more reason you will not be accompanying us.” He raised his voice. “I will lead a team to the mine. Nicola will command the others in Copper River.”
“We’re splitting our forces?” asked John.
Toni snorted. “You think they’re just waiting around for us to visit? They know Guan Feng has been spilling her guts to the Porters, they know Isaac blew their toy dragon all to shit, and they know he has reinforcements.”
“Indeed,” said Gutenberg. “They will attack Copper River for all those reasons, and to attempt to keep us from finding the mine. The longer they hold us off, the more of Bi Sheng’s students they can restore, and the stronger their power grows.”
Toni Warwick pulled a small roll of purple duct tape from her belt. She used utility scissors to snip the end from one of her dreadlocks, and sprinkled a few strands of hair onto the sticky side of a square of tape. She slapped the tape onto John Wenger’s shoulder. “This should let me track you, and give us limited communications. Please don’t scream into the duct tape.”
One by one, she did the same for the rest of the Porters. I was the last to receive my duct tape communicator, which she pressed onto my shirt with a whispered, “Sorry, man. For what it’s worth, I’m jealous as hell that you got to fight the dragon.”
Gutenberg wasted no more time in assigning a small group to protect Copper River, then led the rest out of the library. A single automaton waited like a statue in the middle of the road.
Pallas was snapping her fingers again. “Isaac, I could use your help deciding where to position people. You know the town better than anyone here.”
“Some of us were living in these parts before Isaac’s parents were born,” Jeff muttered.
I trudged toward the ruins of the entryway and dug out one of the brochures that described all the exciting things to do in Copper River, Michigan. It was a relatively short brochure. However, it included a decent enough map on the back.
