Codex Born

“You let them escape? Freed them from their bonds, and did nothing?” Gutenberg shouted.

Another presence approached through the darkness. The strongest of the spirits cupped my face in her claws and opened my mind like a tin can. Her fingers stirred my thoughts.

“Even if I wanted to help the man who betrayed the Porters, he’s too far gone.”

Empty syllables. The spirits pulled me deeper, and a woman laughed from the shadows.

“Two months ago, Isaac Vainio saved your life. You will help him, damn you.” The words jolted me awake. Lena’s voice, furious and determined. The magic of her tree surged to life, even as the spirits tightened their grip.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

Laughter. “Would you like me to show you, Isaac?”

“Look at him, Lena. His skin charred by magic, power tearing through him from within. I know of only one way to stop that power from destroying him.”

I could see her now. A small woman emerging from the darkness, clad in bronze armor. She smiled at me, but her eyes were empty holes into nothingness.

“What’s your name?”

The world jerked into focus, and I saw Johannes Gutenberg standing over me, a gold pen in his hand. I tried to pull away, but I could no longer feel my body. The cold had frozen my blood, turning me to a statue. I would die here, trapped beneath the surface of an alien world.

The bronze woman stretched out a hand and whispered a single word. “Meridiana.”

And then the world shattered.

22

Thank you, Nidhi Shah.

Thank you for compassion. For strength and intellect.

Thank you for helping and protecting those who need it. For acceptance and ambition in balance, and pleasure free of guilt.

For juice from the grapes we planted and harvested together.

For the magic of scent, of herbs and candles and food simmering for hours in the kitchen, the aroma seeping into every corner.

Thank you for the ability to stand among giants and not feel small.

Thank you, Isaac Vainio.

Thank you for wonder, and for curiosity.

For the beauty of Saturn’s rings and the Northern Lights off the shore of Lake Superior, waves of green reflected in the water.

Thank you for the joy and loyalty to be found from a simple spider.

For the love of books and stories that never stop imagining what might be possible.

Most of all, thank you for your stubborn faith that there is always a solution.

There is always hope.

SLEEP WOULD HAVE BEEN a kindness. My body needed all the rest it could get, and my mind yearned to escape the real world. But even more than dreams, I wanted that brief period of awakening when dreams and denial blurred together to soften the impact of the real world. Let me blanket myself in delusion and hide from my loss for a few moments longer.

The universe had been rather short on kindness lately.

“Isaac, look at me.”

Sunlight turned the leaves overhead to green glass. I squinted and shielded my eyes until they adjusted enough to focus on Nidhi Shah sitting cross-legged beside me. Lena stood behind her.

The grove was still crowded, but now it was the Porters who had gathered here, and most of them were staring at me. Pallas and Gutenberg stood at my feet. I spotted Whitney and John, but not Toni. Maryelizabeth’s arm was in a sling. A woman I didn’t recognize was leaning against a tree while another libriomancer regrew her leg.

“Lena—”

“I’m all right.” The exhaustion in her eyes suggested otherwise, but at least she was alive.

Nidhi touched my wrist, feeling for my pulse. “What do you remember?”

I had been Nidhi’s client, and I knew her therapeutic voice. This was something else. Calm, but she wasn’t trying to hide her grief.

“Enough.” There was a woman in bronze, and a name, but when I tried to remember, the syllables slipped from my memory. I brought my fingers to my head, touching the skin where Gutenberg’s pen had traced his spell.

Hot pinpricks scampered up my ribs. I looked down to see Smudge crouched on my chest. “Hi, buddy.” I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked at Pallas. “How are things in Copper River?”

“Contained, but not controlled. We’ve cut off communications with the outside world while we work on damage control.”

I nodded. “How many casualties?”

“We won’t know for at least a day,” said Gutenberg. He picked up a lifeless metal grasshopper and held it to the light. Rainbows shimmered along the edges of the iridescent wings. He touched one wing, which was sharp enough to draw blood, though the cut healed quickly. “What happened to the students of Bi Sheng?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

He pulled a book out of his pocket, and it was all I could do to keep from swearing. It was the same A. E. van Vogt book he had used at the library to read Guan Feng’s mind. “Is Feng—”

“Gone,” said Pallas. “Jeff was found unconscious in the library. He hasn’t woken up yet, but I’m told he will recover.”

Gutenberg tapped the cover, and golden tendrils grew from his scalp, reaching toward Lena and myself. I watched it all happen again in my mind. Deifilia battled Lena. The two ghosts attacked. Bi Wei stopped them from killing Lena, then fell.

I remembered seizing control of the tree and turning it against Deifilia. What happened after was unfamiliar.

I saw through Lena’s eyes how she had locked Harrison in place, twisting the branch around his neck and trapping him with his dying dryad. Then she ran to me. She argued with the students of Bi Sheng, while to the side, another man worked over Bi Wei’s body. A woman knelt to touch my face. The last of the wendigos dropped to the ground and fled.

“The two of you let them go,” Gutenberg said, enunciating every word.

“They helped us to stop Deifilia and the Army of Ghosts.”

“Despite the sayings people repeat unthinkingly, the enemy of my enemy may not in fact be my friend.” He waved a hand, and the tendrils faded away. “You’ve freed an enemy we cannot see. They carry madness within them, Isaac. What happens when the first of their number loses their battle against the ghosts?”

I looked at Nidhi. “I could refer them to a good therapist.”

Several of the Porters cringed. I couldn’t blame them. Sassing Gutenberg wasn’t a wise life choice. But he had taken my magic, and I found it hard to care what else he did to me.

“Toni Warwick was found unconscious at the edge of town,” Gutenberg said. “She told us what you had given her, but she was unable to guard them from Bi Wei and her companions.”

Bi Wei had survived. I wondered if he could see my relief. “Will Toni be all right?”

“Eventually.” He leaned closer. His breath smelled of peppermint. “What was done once can be done again.