Each step we took whittled away at my confidence, and I hadn’t been terribly confident to begin with. Partly it was a matter of scale. From the street, the trees looked enormous. Here in their shade, with the roots turning the ground to hard lumps and coils of wood, it was like crossing into another world, a world in which Deifilia was creator and goddess. The trees muffled the sounds from outside. The canopy turned the sky green. Leaves swirled through the air, a gentle and deceptively peaceful effect.
Wendigos climbed lower, preparing to pounce. I tensed, but Bi Wei never slowed. These wendigos were fully transformed. The students of Bi Sheng must have found a way to complete the process. Flakes of ice drifted from their bodies like snow as they moved about.
The branches parted, and Bi Wei escorted us inside.
Nothing remained of Lena’s garden. Her oak stood in the center of a swamp of tree roots and fallen leaves, without a single flower or blade of grass to be seen. Lena’s central tree was unchanged, but dwarfed by the surrounding oaks.
A man and a woman stood in front of the central oak. I could feel the magic wafting from them, like heat rolling from an open furnace. Both wore loose silk tunics, but the embroidery didn’t appear to be Chinese. The necks were cut in a low V, revealing white undershirts. The man wore blue leather boots that rose just past the ankle. I’d have to check my books, but the fashion looked European. Not the wardrobe I would have expected from Bi Sheng’s followers.
Neither one showed any hint of sanity. They didn’t move at all. I didn’t think they were even breathing, and if they blinked, it was too quick for me to see. Their eyes were wide, their mouths parted as if to speak, though they never did.
“Their books were destroyed?” I guessed.
Bi Wei said nothing, but her back tightened.
The others Deifilia had restored were trapped within the roots, bound so tightly they could move only a finger here, a toe there. She hadn’t bothered to provide clothing, though little flesh could be seen through the gaps. I counted four more.
August Harrison was here as well, and he was awake. He sat, shirtless, at the base of Lena’s oak. A single root circled his neck. Judging from the bruises around his arms, he had been bound more tightly until recently.
Had I been a more petty man, I might have gloated. This was the man who had broken into my house, stolen my research, and used it to attack my town and the woman I loved.
On second thought, I had time for a little pettiness. “You see what happens when we steal other people’s magic toys and try to use them without knowing what we’re doing?”
He watched in silence as Lena and I stepped carefully over the outer edges of the roots. I stepped carefully, at any rate. Lena was barefoot, and strode as easily as a cat. Being here seemed to have restored some of her strength, though she still leaned on her branch for support, her fingers lost in the budding leaves.
“This is your doing,” Harrison said. “Victor’s death at the hands of creatures the Porters hid from the rest of us. The students of Bi Sheng, victims of Gutenberg’s war.”
“And this is your plan to make it better, eh?” I pretended to look around. “How’s that working for you?”
His face reddened, but before he could respond, the root around his neck pulsed. His fingers went to his throat, and then he settled back. He glared hatefully, not at us, but at the trunk of the oak, where Deifilia was emerging from the wood.
Harrison’s dryad had auburn hair, and her skin was a lighter tan than Lena’s, but she had come from the same mold. She was eerily familiar: short and plump and delightfully curved, like an assembly line doll painted by a different artist.
A sleeveless gown made of interwoven leaves clung to her skin like scales. Her legs were bare from the knees down. A wooden sword hung from her hip, though I saw nothing holding it in place. It could have been a part of that living dress. A smaller wooden knife clung to her opposite hip. Both had straight double-edged blades and heavy pommels.
She stepped toward Harrison and stroked her fingers through his hair. To Lena, she said, “You have something for me, sister?”
“I thought you loved him,” I said, nodding toward Harrison.
She smiled. “He’s a beautiful man. I owe him my existence.”
“What do your other lovers think of him?” Lena asked.
Her loving expression never changed. “She sees a pathetic, magically worthless worm of a man.”
“She?” I repeated. Jeneta had referred to a “she” when talking about the devourers in her dreams. “Does this other woman have a name?”
“You’ll learn her name soon enough,” she said lightly.
“How did you get out of the mine without Gutenberg seeing you?”
“You don’t understand.” She gestured to the two people standing like zombies. “Your Porters study magic, but they
“Cool.”
Lena’s toes dug into the roots. “It must be difficult, loving someone you can never touch.”
I searched for the glint of metal among the green of Deifilia’s dress. The leaves clung like a second skin. The cicada had to be on her, but where?
“She’s waited more than a thousand years,” said Deifilia. “I can wait, too.”
“You long for her, don’t you?” Lena stepped closer. “You hear her whispering to you, but a ghost isn’t enough. You want to feel her legs curling with yours, the sweat as your bodies tighten against each other.”
Deifilia didn’t answer, but I saw goose bumps on her skin.
I caught Bi Wei’s attention, wishing there were a way to communicate without Deifilia overhearing. She inclined her head ever so slightly. Doubtless she could feel Lena’s magic. I turned toward Deifilia’s two mindless guardians, both of whom were now watching Lena.
“I know what it’s like to feel alone.” Lena pointed to Harrison, then to me. “They would have us kill one another, the only other person who understands what it’s like. Who knows the strength and passion of the oak.”
“His wishes no longer matter,” Deifilia said.
“Can you imagine the things we could do together?” Lena whispered.
There was a question with more layers than I could count. Yet, on some level, I think she meant it. The longing in Lena’s words wasn’t sexual. Not just sexual, at least. She reminded me of myself years ago; the first time I met other Porters. The first time I truly understood that I wasn’t alone.
Deifilia’s answering desire was enough to flatten me. She spoke, but the drumbeat of my blood deafened me to her words. All I could see was the longing in her eyes.
Lena’s hand snapped out, catching my arm and stopping me from walking toward her, from pulling those leaves away one by one.
The touch of Lena’s hand both helped and made things worse. I clasped my fingers over hers, my mind careening into a new and utterly inappropriate fantasy involving my lover and the woman who would happily destroy everyone and everything I knew.
Lena bent my arm, wrenching me around behind her without ever breaking eye contact with Deifilia. With her free hand, she reached for the other dryad.
Just before Lena made contact, Deifilia realized what was happening. Her arm snapped up, striking Lena’s hand away. Lena spun with the impact and whirled around like a dancer to slam the back of her fist into Deifilia’s cheek.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered to myself. “All right, time for plan B.”
21
