“I only have to distract her, to create enough of a conflict for us to act.”
She took the test tube from my hand and carefully locked it away in the glove box. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?”
“The same thing I did to you in the library,” she whispered.
“How is that better than my so-called magic date rape drug?”
“It’s not.” She straightened. “But Deifilia is family. A sister. She’s my responsibility. If anyone does this to her, it will be me. Not a human.”
“And what if she turns that power back on you?”
Lena managed a smile. “One way or another, you’ll have your distraction.”
I hadn’t liked my original plan. I liked this one even less. It was one thing for me to try to enchant Deifilia, and to risk whatever backlash might come if my plan failed. It was my research that had started all of this, after all. But if Lena failed, she would take the brunt of Deifilia’s punishment.
I turned onto my street, and a metal eagle swooped down to land on the top of the windshield, talons grating against the crystal. I slammed the brakes, stalling out the engine. Smudge lit up like a flare.
“That’s why you didn’t get to stay supersized,” I said as I waited for my heart to recover. “You’d have set the whole car on fire.” I nodded to the eagle. “We’re alone.”
The eagle spread rust-edged wings and gave an ear-stabbing shriek. Tiny, layered scales of sheet metal served as feathers. The edges were irregularly cut.
“I have the books.” I restarted the engine and edged the car forward. The eagle didn’t appear to object, though it watched me closely with eyes made of iron pellets. I was more fixated on the damage Deifilia had done.
I lived on the edge of Copper River, in a moderately wooded area. Deifilia had turned the trees against my neighbors. Using oak and maple as giant clubs, she had smashed rooftops and fences, flattened cars, and ripped through power lines. My house was the only one undisturbed. Deifilia had put the trees behind my house to another use.
I couldn’t decide whether to call it a grove or a fortress. Oak trees had sprung up in a rough circle throughout the backyard. Branches wove together to create a fence of living wood. The trees were a good forty feet higher than any others, and the smallest was three feet in diameter.
Wendigos watched us from the upper branches. Metal glinted among the bark and leaves. I saw no sign of Deifilia or her human followers. Presumably they were inside the grove.
“That’s impressive,” I said. “Terrifying, but impressive. Of course, now all the neighbors are going to want one.”
We stopped in the driveway and climbed slowly from the car. The moment Lena’s foot touched the grass, she froze. “It’s all one tree. Isaac, this is my oak, and Deifilia is inside of it.”
On another day, I would have come up with something better to say than, “Wow.” Not only had Deifilia created a grove of cloned oak trees, she had done it in less than an hour.
“Be careful,” said Lena. “Anywhere the roots or branches touch, she can strike. The roots will encircle and break your legs, or drag you into the ground until you suffocate. Or maybe they’ll just sprout spikes and impale you.”
“Making Deifilia into Sleeping Beauty and the enchanted hedge all in one. Perfect.”
A slender figure stepped out from between the trees, the branches bending aside to let her pass. Bi Wei gave no outward sign that she knew me, though we both knew Deifilia was aware of our earlier contact. “Leave the car and any weapons. Including your books.”
I stripped off my jacket, tucked my pistol into an inner pocket, and set it inside the car. Lena did the same with her bokken, but she kept the graft from her tree. She rested one end on the ground and leaned on it like a crutch. At this point, the branch was probably the only thing keeping her upright.
Bi Wei studied us both. A pair of metal grasshoppers nested in her hair. They could have been decorative, save for the way they rubbed their forelegs together as they watched us. Harrison’s millipede circled her throat. “You carry spells,” she said, stepping closer. Her fingers touched my temple. “Here. And another, deeper within.”
I tapped my head. “I have a fish in my brain. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It translates languages for me. Slimy and a bit gross putting it in, but it works well.”
For an instant, I saw amusement in her eyes, and something more: a libriomancer’s delight at discovering a new trick. But the emotions didn’t reach her voice. “What of the other spell?”
I had left the potion in the glove box, and I wasn’t carrying any other magic. Everything was locked in the car, my books, my jacket, even— “Smudge. I created him, and it’s my magic that helps to sustain him. He’s staying with the car.”
Bi Wei tilted her head, listening to sounds I couldn’t hear. “You’ve brought our books?”
If I said yes, they could kill us and rip the car apart to find them. They’d be pissed to discover the books weren’t there, but that would be little comfort, what with me being dead and all. “First I need to talk to Deifilia. She needs to leave Lena and Copper River in peace.”
She bowed slightly, then beckoned for us to follow.
“I like her,” Lena said. “She’s cute for her age.”
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?”