“No automatons,” Lena said firmly.
“Why attack Lena’s tree like this, and why now?” Nidhi asked. “They could have waited in the branches and swarmed down as she approached, or let her enter the tree then burrowed in after her.”
“Please don’t give the magical dryad-eating bugs any ideas,” Lena said.
They hadn’t just attacked Lena’s tree. After burrowing into my house, they had also attacked my computer, which had layer upon layer of Porter spells protecting it. My e-reader probably had a lingering taste of magic as well, thanks to Jeneta using it to pull raisins from a poem. “They’re drawn to magic. Like overgrown, spell-sucking mosquitoes.” Which meant magic might lure them out of Lena’s oak.
I turned toward the house, but Nidhi was faster, stepping into the garden’s archway and blocking my path. “How much magic will it take to draw them to you? What do you intend to do to them once they’re out? Lena had to carry you out of the woods earlier today because you burned yourself out with your time-travel spell.”
“Time-viewing spell.”
She ignored my correction. “If you blow your mental fuses trying to pull those things from Lena’s tree, you’ll only make things worse for all of us.”
“Stop derailing my plans with logic and reason,” I snapped. If I could track down a children’s book with one of those cartoonishly powerful supermagnets, I might be able to rip the bugs out of Lena’s tree, but it would probably tear up the wood in the process. Not to mention I’d need a trip to the library or bookstore. My collection didn’t include many books for that age group.
Not many, but there was one that might work. And it had the bonus of being awesome. “When the Porters need to shut down electronics, they use a book to generate an electromagnetic pulse. You don’t have to manipulate the energy like I did with the chronoscope, and energy is actually easier to create than matter.”
“We don’t know that these things are electronic,” Nidhi said.
“Different kind of energy.” I gave up on trying not to grin. “We think they’re metal, right? Ever see what happens when you put silverware in a microwave?”
I ran into the house and grabbed Why Sh*t Happens: The Science of a Really Bad Day. We’d still need to get them to poke their heads out of the tree, but once they did, microwave radiation should be as effective as a bug zapper.
As I turned to leave, Smudge raced down my arm, every step like a droplet of boiling water on my skin. He jumped onto the side of the shelves and sprinted toward the ceiling. Once there, he clung to the plaster and crept forward, his attention fixed on a pencil-sized hole.
“Be careful.” I opened the book and skimmed the section that explained how a metal-rimmed plate could do very bad things to your microwave pizza. If there were stragglers in the roof, this was the perfect opportunity for a test run.
Smudge crawled back and forth, never stepping directly over the opening as he laid down one gossamer strand after another.
“You were there when those things drilled through metal and glass, right?” Spider silk was strong, and Smudge was laying it on pretty thick, but—
Three insects shot out of the hole, tearing through the web as if it weren’t even there. The first was a ladybug the size of an almond nut, with what looked like brass rivets for spots. It cleared the way for the rest, but at a cost. Webbing tangled its wings, causing it to fly erratically back to the ceiling. Delicate legs gripped the edge of the hole as it scraped its wings together, trying to rid itself of web.
The second was built like a dragonfly. The third, more waspish in shape, flew for the back door.
I tracked the dragonfly, touched the book’s magic, and pointed the pages at the ceiling.
The magic wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped, but results were what mattered. The insect flashed orange, like a tiny light bulb burning out, then dropped to the floor.
I turned to get the ladybug, but Smudge was too close. He circled the struggling insect, like a predator playing with his meal.
He struck too quickly for me to see. The web clinging to the ladybug went up like gas-soaked rags. The flame didn’t hurt the metal, but whatever the wings were made of, they weren’t as strong. One broke away and fluttered, smoldering, to the floor.
The ladybug charged Smudge, who left a blackened path along my ceiling as he retreated. The insect darted in again and again. I couldn’t see what it was doing, but every missed strike caused a thread of white dust to fall from the plaster.
Smudge raised his front four legs, waving them like tiny flaming swords. The ladybug hesitated, then sealed its shell and ran directly into the fire.
Smudge flared blue and fell. I lunged without thinking, catching him in an outstretched hand before he hit the floor.
Pain travels quickly along the nerves. I had a moment of clarity as I realized what I had just done, and then I was screaming, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” through my teeth and fighting the urge to fling the burning spider away. I ran to the kitchen and transferred him to the tile floor.
The ladybug was burrowing back into the hole. Keeping my burnt hand curled against my body, I raised the book with my other hand. But the ladybug disappeared before I could get the shot.
An angry buzzing sound warned me as the wasp swooped toward my eyes. I dropped to the floor. Forget guns and books, I needed a laser-powered fly swatter. I searched the shelves, trying to see where it had landed. It hadn’t followed its buddy into the ceiling, and the room was silent, which meant it was creeping around, waiting for a better chance to attack.
The back door slid open. Lena gripped one of her bokken with both hands. “Don’t move.”
She was staring at a spot on my back. I slowly twisted my head until I spotted the wasp perched on the waist of my jeans. “Aw, crap.”
Lena’s bokken whipped past, close enough to tug my hair in its wake. The insect shattered into fragments, and her weapon embedded itself in the floor. She wrenched it free and leaned against the shelves.
“There’s another one,” I said. “It burrowed into the ceiling. I want it in one piece.”
“Why?”
“So I can take it apart.”
I grabbed a metal spatula and used it to carry Smudge to the kitchen sink where I could examine his injuries. Clear fluid that smelled faintly like diesel oozed from cuts on his forelegs. Blue flame danced over the cuts, never actually touching the fluid. Like gasoline, it was probably only flammable when it evaporated. Leaving the book on the counter, I returned to my library.
My classification was loosely based on the system we used at the Copper River Library, but in addition to sorting books by genre and author, mine were also classified by magic. Healing texts were on the end of the middle shelf, where they would be easy to get to in case of emergency. I picked out a copy of Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm and flipped pages one-handed until I came to “The Water of Life.”
My hand throbbed, the pain growing worse with every beat. My palm was red and blistered, with blood oozing from the edges, but it was the blackened skin in the middle that most worried me. The pain wasn’t bad there, which suggested nerve damage.
Shock threatened to make me drop the book. I sat on the floor, resting it in my lap. “It springs from a fountain in the courtyard of an enchanted castle,” I read softly, imagining the scene in my mind. The prince hurrying to get to the spring before the clock chimed twelve, grasping the cup in one hand, reaching…
Through the yellowed pages, I touched the hammered metal cup in the prince’s hand. I eased the cup from his grip and carefully pulled it free. I spilled half the water onto my shirt. Lena caught my hand, guiding the cup to my lips.