When the suns emerged from behind the shadow panel, the others came looking for Perceval. She was glad to see them. She was starving, and she'd spent the time while she was waiting—once she'd analyzed and bathed in a clean trickle that flowed through a cracked bulkhead—performing exercises and walking among the trees, which dusted her hair and the parasite wings with petals. Some of those petals were the basilisk's— Gavin's—fault; he paced her, flapping heavily from branch to branch, companionably silent.
She welcomed the company; she was trying not to think about the wings. They weren't heavy enough to restore her balance, and they had a disturbing manner of shifting on her shoulders, demonstrating an eldritch intelligence.
She had paused to watch ants ladder up the trunk of a peach tree when Mallory hailed her. The necromancer's voice echoed off the roof of the Heaven a split second later, making Perceval smile as she turned to face them.
She knew what they had been up to, of course; it would have been hard to miss it, between the giggling and the scent of sex—and nobody had ever warned her how disturbing it would be to hear a necromancer .giggle—but that was all right, wasn't it? Rien was in clean clothes, her hair combed and braided, and Mallory was holding her elbow. They laughed every time they accidentally looked at each other.
'There was fruit.. .' Mallory gestured to the plum tree they happened to be standing underneath.
'And pluck uninvited, in someone else's garden?'
By the necromancer's expression, Perceval thought Mallory was chewing that over for double meanings. But after a moment, Perceval was rewarded with bright laughter.
'There are stories about that, aren't there? I'll cook, then.'
Perceval followed the necromancer back to the campsite. Somewhere along the way, Rien detached herself from Mallory and came to take Perceval's hand; the tension across Perceval's shoulders eased a little, despite the unweight of her wings. They went speedily, though Mallory stopped once to dig ramps and a second time to nick a bunch of mushrooms growing from the stump of a tree. The necromancer had a boot knife, a finger's length and sharp as a razor, to judge by how neatly it parted the fungus's flesh.
'You leave the base.' The cluster of mushrooms disappeared into a bag, the knife back into an ankle sheath. 'Then it grows again.'
When they passed, Perceval wiped a ringer across the moist severed end. She could see the hair-fine corpse-white filaments that vanished into the crumbling stump. 'We feed on it, and it feeds on death.'
'Everything feeds on death,' Mallory answered. 'Especially me.'
Breakfast was the fungus and ramps, a handful of spinach, and a foil vacuum pouch of silkworm larvae stir- fried in a nonstick wok. Mallory served the result in folded grape leaves; Perceval opened hers flat and, with chopsticks, began picking the pupae out.
'They're good protein,' Mallory said, demonstrating. Pop, and crunch in half. Darting chopsticks picked something from the carapace and flicked it away and then the rest was gone as if it had never been. 'You'll want a full belly when you go.'
Doubtfully, Perceval poked one with the end of a chop-stick. Rien seemed unsqueamish; her breakfast was rapidly disappearing. 'Are we going, then? Is Rien well enough?'
'After you eat,' Mallory said, managing not to either look at Rien, or giggle. 'I'll send Gavin along to guide you. And I'll fix you a pack.'
Perceval sighed, picked up the pupae, and bit it in half. People really would eat anything.
It crunched, and tasted of tofu, though the texture inside the shell was more like the part of mango closest to the pit. She peered inside and saw a darker bit, which she—with some difficulty—picked out. The second half followed the first. Mostly she tasted the ramps, and some garlic she hadn't seen Mallory put into the oil.
'All right,' she said. 'It's not bad.'
And it was full of protein; a quick analysis confirmed. Perceval picked up the grape leaf and continued to eat. But something, she thought, seemed strange about the light.
She glanced up at the suns, shading her eyes with a translucent wing, although they adapted fairly well to the direct light.
'Huh,' she said. 'That's funny.'
Mallory looked up, as did Rien, and both made encouraging full-mouthed noises.
'The suns,' Perceval explained. 'It looks like they're throbbing. We must be having a flare.'
'It happens,' Mallory said.
'Yes,' said Rien, before she paused to swallow. 'A lot lately.'
It was hard, leaving. After breakfast, Rien wandered from tree to tree, sniffing flowers for the whirls of music and speech and equations that flowed through her head when she did so. She didn't hear Mallory come up behind her until the necromancer reached over her shoulder, tugged a branch down, and said by her ear, 'Partake.'
'Should I?'
'It's my garden,' Mallory answered. 'I offered. And wherever you wind up, what you learn here may help you.'
The fruit was cool, its purple skin kissed with frosty bloom. She plucked it, raised it to her mouth, but did not bite.
Still in her ear, Mallory said, 'Your pack. Food and blankets and fresh clothes.'
Rien turned to face the necromancer as the padded strap slid into her other hand. 'You offer a lot, for someone who only just met us.'
If the exclusionary
Rien smiled, and kissed Mallory's moving lips. 'I'd tell you you were welcome to. What's the fruit of this tree, then?'
Mallory looked up, leaving Rien to study nose and chin and throat in profile. 'Mathematics, I think. Every fruit is different, and there is no way to tell until you put it in your mouth. You know, you're very well educated, for someone who was raised a Mean.'
That put Rien's back up. 'Head saw to it.'
'An unusual person.' With a wrist-led gesture, the necromancer indicated a white peach tree that stood in a clear spot, not far. 'That is my special tree.'
Rien looked at the plum in her hand, and then the heavy pale fruits, bloomed rose-pink, that bowed the branches of the other. 'What grows on that one?'
'Memories,' Mallory said. 'Souls.'
Leaving Rien standing, pack in one hand and plum in the other, the necromancer crossed to the peach tree. They weren't huge peaches, just the size to sit in Rien's palm. Mallory walked among them, touching the ones that hung down—then, with a scramble, was among the branches and climbing.
'Come here, Rien.'
She stood under the tree and dropped the pack at her feet. Above her, on a swaying branch, Mallory balanced like a wire-dancer, holding out a fruit the color of wine-soaked ivory. Rien put out her hand, and the fruit fell into it.
If the coat of the apricot had been velour, this was cut velvet, as soft and pale as Mallory's skin. Rien raised it to her mouth and sniffed. Nectar, tart-sweet-perfumy, and the green, green sap scent of the broken stem. Where
