Bound

chapter 9

It was later the same day.

“So it’s definitely going to be in August?” I asked.

“They said August, but it’s the Council,” Variam said. “I’ll count myself lucky if it’s done by autumn.”

“Funny coincidence that you start prepping for your journeyman tests within a few months of Luna doing hers.”

Variam gave me a suspicious look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just wondering if she’s trying to give you orders,” I said. “You know, seeing as she’s a journeyman and you aren’t.”

Variam tried to look expressionless, and did it so badly that I burst out laughing. Variam held the stone-faced look for a few seconds more, then reluctantly cracked a smile. “She told you?”

“You think I couldn’t guess?”

We were sitting in Arachne’s cave, warm lights shining down onto cloth and sofas and rolls of thread. Arachne herself was crouched over a table just a little way away, working on some new creation, her front legs deft and quick as she wove. “You getting any more shit from the Keepers?” Variam asked.

“About what happened at the Vault?” I said. “No, but that’s probably because they don’t want the embarrassment of admitting that, one, they sent me on a suicide mission, and two, they failed at it.”

Variam grunted. “Landis said he talked to Rain. He thinks he can probably ask enough awkward questions to stop that pair from trying any more abductions.”

“Probably means they’ll just find another way, but every little helps.”

The sound of voices made us look up as Luna and Anne walked in. Anne was in the middle of telling Luna some story or other, but it was Luna I looked at most keenly, and to my eyes she looked better. I still didn’t know what she was doing when she wasn’t with us, but whatever it was, she seemed to have recovered her confidence.

“Hello, Anne,” Arachne said warmly. “Luna, you’re looking well. It’s been a while.”

“Oh,” Luna said, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, I’ve been meaning to stop by, but . . .”

“It’s no trouble.” Arachne gestured to me. “Alex, are you ready?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

Anne and Luna sat on a sofa. With Variam, they formed a semicircle, and all of them looked expectantly at me. I looked between the three of their faces, young and alert and trusting, and for a moment I felt a pang. Should I be involving them in this?

But they were here willingly; all three had made that clear. And out of all the mages in Britain, while there might be plenty who were stronger, there were none I’d rather have with me. I just hoped I wasn’t leading them somewhere I shouldn’t.

“I met Vihaela this morning,” I began. “The good news, as you can see, is that I’m in one piece. The bad news is that Anne and I now have a mission. It’s going to be difficult and dangerous, and part of the reason that it’s dangerous is that we don’t know exactly how it’ll be dangerous.” I took a breath. “If you’re willing, I could really use your help.”

The three of them looked at me, then Luna and Variam looked at each other. “Wow,” Luna said.

“Wow?”

“You’re actually asking us for help.”

“Well . . . yes.”

“Normally you don’t do that until you’ve been stabbed or something,” Luna said. “Or unless you’re so blatantly outmatched that even you can’t think of any way to get out of it.”

“No, I don’t,” I said in annoyance.

“Actually, you kind of do,” Variam said.

“This isn’t either one of those situations, all right?”

“I know, that’s what makes it so weird,” Luna said. “You’re asking us before everything’s gone completely to hell.”

I threw up my hands. “Do you guys want to hear the details or not?”

“We do,” Anne said. “What does Richard want?”

“He wants a very rare item called a dreamstone.”

“Wait,” Variam said. “Isn’t that the same thing—”

“Yes.”

Variam thought about it, then shrugged. “No wonder you weren’t having any luck, if even Richard needs help to get one. But what’s so special about these things? From what Arachne said, they just sounded like a mind magic focus.”

“That is an oversimplification,” Arachne said. “Yes, a dreamstone can achieve the same results as some mind or charm spells, but the method by which it does so is very different. And there are some effects that a dreamstone can produce which are outside the realm of living magic altogether.”

“Like what?” Luna asked in interest.

“Like stepping physically into Elsewhere.”

“You can do that?” Anne asked, and she looked surprised. “I didn’t think . . .”

“In theory,” Arachne said. “There is, however, a catch. Dreamstones are closer to imbued items than to focuses, and they can be unpredictable in the hands of new bearers. The most reliable dreamstones are those that have been in the possession of mages for many years. Newly formed dreamstones are another matter altogether. They are powerful but not easy to use.”

“What do you mean, newly formed?” Luna asked.

“Well, that brings us to problem number one,” I said. “The place we’re supposed to find this dreamstone is inside a deep shadow realm.”

“A what?”

“You know that shadow realms are formed by taking a reflection of a location in our world,” I said. “Deep shadow realms are ones where they took a reflection of another shadow realm, like a copy of a copy. They’re supposed to be more fluid than our reality, and they can be pretty weird. Natural laws don’t work consistently. They’re not as closely tethered as shadow realms, and they can drift out of phase for years or centuries.”

“It’s believed that this process, where deep shadow realms become distant from our reality, is what provides the conditions that allow the growth of dreamstones,” Arachne added. “To the best of my knowledge, they’ve never been found anywhere else.”

“Okay,” Variam said. “So we gate to this deep shadow place, grab your dream thingy, and get out. Right?”

“That brings us to problem two,” I said. “First, you can only access deep shadow realms from another shadow realm which connects to them. Think of it as like links in a chain.” I shrugged. “Some mages claim that if you know what to look for, you can keep going from one deep shadow realm to another until you find yourself in another world completely. Point is, we’re going to have to go through a regular shadow realm first.”

“Which one?” Luna asked.

“That would be problem number three,” I said. “It’s a shadow realm called the Hollow. And it’s occupied.” I nodded at Arachne.

“The Hollow is a shadow realm of moderate age, grown from a location here in England,” Arachne said. “It was first created by Karyos, a hamadryad, and she withdrew into it ninety or a hundred years ago.”

Luna frowned. “I think I’ve heard of those. Aren’t hamadryads the ones who are . . .”

“Bonded to a tree, yes.”

“Do you think she’d allow us passage?” Anne asked quietly.

“Once upon a time, perhaps,” Arachne said. “Karyos was cool to humans, but had no hatred of them. Unfortunately, during your First World War, a group of people affiliated with the Council saw fit to cut her tree down.”

Luna grimaced. “Oh.”

“So I’m guessing mages aren’t her favourite people,” I said. It’s depressing how often I’ve heard this kind of story.

“I visited her once, some years after,” Arachne said. “Apparently she survived by transferring her spirit to a tree within the shadow realm. The process had . . . side effects. She recognised me, I think, but little more. When I next attempted to visit, she refused me entry.”

“Do you think she’ll let us pass through?” Anne asked.

“I do not know,” Arachne said. “What I do know is that on at least one occasion, mages have entered the Hollow for their own reasons. They did not come out.”

“And unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though there’s any other way in,” I said. “We go through the Hollow, or we don’t go at all.”

“What if she says no?” Anne asked.

I sighed. “Then it’s going to come down to a fight.”

“Isn’t there anywhere else we could go?”

“No,” Arachne said. “And if there were, the dangers would be just as great.”

“Come on,” Luna said to Anne. She looked more cheerful now. “We’ve handled a lot worse than this.”

“I just don’t like the idea of forcing our way in.”

“It’s not like we’re asking much,” Variam said. “All we want is to go through.”

Anne looked unhappy but didn’t answer. I didn’t say anything, but I had some of the same uneasiness as Anne. Isolating yourself in a shadow realm tends to be a bad sign. Anne’s first master, Sagash, had been one of those shadow realm recluses. By the time I’d met him, he’d been holed up for maybe twenty years, and talking to him had given me the uneasy feeling that while he might not be actually insane, it wouldn’t take much of a push. If Arachne was right, Karyos had been doing the same thing for a full century. I wasn’t sure that boded well for negotiations.

“So,” Variam said. “We either talk our way or fight our way past this Karyos, find a way through into the deep shadow realm, grab the dreamstone, and get out.” He frowned. “What does Richard even want with a dreamstone, anyway?”

“Yeah, I was wondering that, too,” Luna said. “I mean, once we get the thing, what’s the plan? Are you thinking of pulling some kind of switch? Giving him a fake, or . . . ?”

I couldn’t help but be amused that it didn’t even seem to occur to Luna that we’d fail to get it. “I’d like to, but I don’t dare,” I said. “Vihaela made it pretty clear what the consequences would be for me and for Anne if we failed. I don’t like handing something this dangerous over to Richard, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on.”

“But then even if we succeed, we’ll be right back where we started,” Anne said. “Actually, worse.”

“Not quite,” I said. “Richard ordered me to fetch a dreamstone. He didn’t say anything about taking more than one. Arachne thinks there’s a good chance that if two of us go in there, we’ll be able to bring two dreamstones out.”

“Just two?” Variam said.

“For one person to attempt to carry two newly formed dreamstones would be too dangerous,” Arachne said. “As I said, they have some of the characteristics of imbued items. And deep shadow realms are unstable. Sending in more than two people at once carries its own risks.”

“So, it’s going to be a four-person job,” I said. “Two to go into the deep shadow realm, and two to stay in the Hollow and guard our way out.” I looked between the three of them. “Are you in?”

“Does Richard know you’re bringing us in on this?” Variam asked.

I shrugged. “Vihaela and Morden didn’t mention it, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s none of their business.”

The three of them looked at each other. “I’m in,” Variam said.

Luna smiled. “I think you know what I’m going to say.”

“When do you want to go?” Anne asked in her soft voice.

“If Richard knows about this deep shadow realm, others could too,” I said. “So I don’t see any reason to wait around . . .”

| | | | | | | | |

The next morning found us in the Chilterns.

I sat on bumpy ground, my back resting against a tree. It was a type I didn’t recognise, with serrated leaves and a narrow dividing trunk which spread out into branches almost as soon as it left the ground. The tree and a dozen like it formed a hangar, and the hangar was on top of a hill, green grass falling off into hedges and fields. A few scattered houses were tucked in between the trees in the valleys below, but for whatever reason, this particular spot had never been chosen as a site for buildings or paths, and here up on the hilltop, we were alone. Despite the morning sun, the air was cool, and a steady breeze blew from the west, ruffling the grass and the leaves on the trees. Above us, a kestrel hovered in a blue sky.

It was a beautiful view, exactly the kind that people picture when they think of the English countryside in the summer, and the sight of it had raised my spirits when we’d arrived. Shadow realms tend to have associations with the locations they reflect in the real world, and I’d optimistically hoped that no shadow realm tied to a spot like this could be too bad. Now that I’d had the chance to reconnoitre, I wasn’t so sure.

Variam was sprawled on the grass a little way away, a tiny spark of fire jumping between his fingers. He knew not to interrupt me, but he was obviously impatient for the action to start. Behind him, I could hear the murmur of Luna and Anne’s voices; I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew they were arguing over who was going into the deep shadow realm and who was staying in the Hollow.

Of course, before we could reach the deep shadow realm, we had to survive the Hollow.

I sighed and rose to my feet. Variam looked up alertly. “We ready?”

“We’re ready.”

There were two big sports bags next to Variam’s resting place. “Black bag or blue bag?” he asked.

“Black.”

Variam grinned. “Thought so.”

I unzipped the black bag and took out my body armour, then started putting it on. “But we’ll take the seed as well.”

“Why?” Variam said, donning his own armour. My armour is an integrated set of mesh and plate, an imbued item that’s alive in its own way, and I could feel its presence as I sealed the jacket, alert and watchful. The pieces Variam was putting on were just regular body armour, but then Variam can shield.

I buckled my sword belt onto my waist at its usual hole. It slid down my hips and I tightened it a couple of notches. I’d lost a fair bit of weight since I started training with Anne. “Arachne put a lot of work into that thing.”

“So when are you going to use it?” Variam asked. “Before this haberdasher thing starts trying to kill us, or after?”

“Hamadryad. And she’s still got free will. That means she’s got a choice.”

Variam rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”

Anne and Luna walked in just as I lifted a gun from the black bag. It was a H&K MP7, a compact, nasty little assault weapon that I’d taken off a guy who tried to kill me a few years back. “So much for the diplomatic approach, huh?” Luna said with a glance at my weapons.

“I thought we were trying to talk to her?” Anne said.

“Let’s just say that the odds aren’t good.”

“And you think walking in like that is going to help?”

“I’m going to have my shield up too,” Variam put in.

“Not helping.”

“Maybe I should get some armour like that,” Luna said. She reached into a case strapped to her belt and produced a slim white wand, which she held like the handle of a whip. “Could take the pressure off my curse.”

“It’s dicey against bullets,” Variam said. “Anything fast enough will just go straight through.”

“Alex?” Anne asked.

“This isn’t for Karyos,” I said. “I don’t want to kill her if there’s any possible way to avoid it, but I don’t think we’re getting through without a fight. Now.” I looked around. “Here’s what we’re going to face.”

Briefing and final preparations took a little longer, then at last, the four of us were ready. I looked at Anne and Luna. “You decided who’s going in?”

Anne and Luna looked at each other. “If you two still can’t make up your minds—” Variam began.

“No,” Anne and Luna said at exactly the same time.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “We already agreed on this part. Two people to guard the gate, and one to go in with me.”

“This place is supposed to be kind of like Elsewhere,” Luna said. The tone of her voice sounded as though she’d made the argument before. “I’ve had more practice.”

“I’m the one whose job it is,” Anne said.

Variam threw up his hands. “Can you just flip a coin or something?”

“You know what, that’s as good a way as any,” I said. I dug into my bag and pulled out a fifty-pence piece. “Who’s calling?”

“Heads,” Luna said.

“No!” Anne said.

Luna looked at Anne. “What?”

“You’re not calling it.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Anne said, “whatever face you call is going to be the one it lands on.”

Variam laughed and Luna rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m not letting Alex do it,” Luna said. “He’ll know what face it is right after it lands.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. These are the kinds of ridiculous arguments you get when you’ve got a chance mage and a probability mage in the same group. “Vari flips, Anne calls.” I tossed the coin to Variam. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Anne said.

Luna looked reluctant. “Fine.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Variam asked.

“No,” both girls said in unison.

Variam rolled his eyes. The coin flashed silver in the air as he flipped it, then caught it midfall and slapped it onto the back of his wrist. He looked at Anne. “Call it.”

Anne stared at his hand for a long moment. “Tails,” she said at last.

Variam took his hand away to see the coin. “Tails it is.”

“That’s not fair,” Luna objected.

Variam rolled his eyes. “What, you think I rigged it?” He strode away towards the centre of the hangar. With an annoyed glance back at Anne, Luna followed.

Anne was about to go after them, but a small movement from me stopped her. “I saw you looking at Vari’s hand,” I said.

Anne looked back at me.

“I’m curious,” I said. “How accurate is that lifesight of yours? Enough to see impressions in skin?”

“You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to put other people in danger,” Anne said quietly.

“Hey!” Variam called back at us. “You coming or what?”

| | | | | | | | |

Getting into a shadow realm can be very hard or very easy. This one was somewhere in between. None of us had visited the Hollow before, meaning that we had to make a bunch of educated guesses rather than simply opening up a gate and stepping straight through. On the plus side, the place didn’t have wards. When mages move into a shadow realm, typically the first thing they do is set up a bunch of restrictions on gating into the place, kind of the magical equivalent of changing the locks. Common methods include password systems, requiring a keystone, or simply barring all gates that aren’t made from a specific location. That was why I’d had to go to that school in Plymouth yesterday to reach Vihaela’s shadow realm—if I’d tried to gate there from anywhere else, then the gate simply wouldn’t have worked, and I was willing to bet that there were a bunch of nasty security measures waiting for someone to try to force it.

In this case, we hadn’t needed to travel to the hilltop in the Chilterns to make the gate, but since we were gating to an unknown location, it helped. Variam ended up doing most of the heavy lifting—out of the four of us, he’s the best with gate magic by a long way—while I gave advice. “All right,” Variam said at last. “Ready?”

I drew my sword an inch from its scabbard, testing that it could be drawn easily, then let it drop back. “Ready.”

Variam opened the gate, and we stepped through into a scene out of fantasy.

I don’t know what I’d expected the Hollow to be like. When we’d been sitting in Arachne’s cave, the name and her description of its owner had given me a mental image of twisted trees, dark and close. My divinations had given me a more accurate picture, but I’d been concentrating on dangers and paths, not stopping to look at the view. I hadn’t been prepared for how beautiful it was.

We’d stepped out onto a grassy clearing in the middle of light woodland. Most of the trees were the same green, thicketlike ones we’d seen on the hilltop on the Chilterns, but they seemed bigger and stronger, more real somehow, their leaves more bright, the branches more thick. Pathways of packed dirt wound through the trees, roots showing through the earth, and flowered bushes formed clumps on the grass.

To our right was blue sky. And to the left was orange sky, and ahead was green sky, and behind was violet sky, but that wasn’t what made Anne and Luna widen their eyes and instinctively take a step closer together. There was sky under us too. Our feet were resting on grass, but only a dozen yards away the ground dropped away into nothingness, and we could see more sky to the left and right. We were on a floating island.

“Wow,” Luna said, her eyes wide.

“Okay,” Variam said. “That’s impressive.”

I couldn’t help myself. I walked towards the edge.

“Alex!” Anne called warningly.

I stopped a foot or two from the lip, watching the futures carefully for any sign of it crumbling, and peered over. There was nothing there. Sky and clouds, going on forever, both above and below, and I felt a moment of dizziness as my brain tried to make sense of it. The sky wasn’t supposed to be on every side—

A hand closed around my arm and I snapped back to reality. The grass and earth seemed to sway for a second, then steadied. “I think maybe,” Anne said, “you shouldn’t stand so close.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, stepping back. Anne didn’t let go until I was well away.

“How does it stay up?” Luna asked in fascination.

“I’m not sure it is staying up,” I said. The island had little peninsulas sticking off into space, and I could see the earth on the underside of them. Tree roots stuck out below, branching into empty air. “I think it’s staying in the middle.”

“What happens if you fall?” Variam asked.

“Let’s not find out.”

We walked deeper into the shadow realm. Birds sang from the trees, and red and orange roses grew in clumps. There was a faint breeze, just warm enough to be pleasant. Despite how it had looked, I was realising that this was quite a small shadow realm; the boundary had probably been no more than a hundred feet from where the ground ended. Up ahead, a much larger tree loomed up above the canopy, gnarled branches spreading wide to shade the grass beneath. “That’s where we need to go,” Variam said.

We’d walked into a clearing, and as we did I held up a hand. Luna, Anne, and Variam halted instantly and I looked from left to right. Dense trees formed a half circle around us, with more of the rosebushes clustered at their trunks. The grass was a bright green, with vivid crimson flowers scattered in patches here and there, and at the far end the ground rose up slightly into piles of moss-covered rocks.

“She here?” Variam asked.

I nodded, not taking my eyes off the trees.

“Alex,” Anne said warningly. “Those plants . . .”

“I know.”

“So you still planning to talk?” Variam said. “Or are we skipping to the part where we burn things?”

I took a step forward. “Despoina Karyos,” I said, clearly and loudly. I hoped I’d got the pronunciation right. “We seek audience.”

The leaves rustled in the breeze.

“We ask for safe passage through your territory,” I said. “We intend only to travel and return. We will undertake to commit no harm against you, nor any damage to your home.”

“Only if she doesn’t pick a fight first,” Luna said under her breath.

“Shh,” Anne said.

“In exchange for the right of passage,” I said, ignoring Luna, “we offer a gift.” I brought out a small, inlaid wooden box. “A regeneration seed, made by Arachne, the weaver. She offers it freely to you with her regards, and in the hope that you and she might meet again, as you once did.”

The item in the box was our best card in these negotiations, and Arachne had explained to me in detail what it meant. Hamadryads can live forever, but only as long as their tree does. When it dies, hamadryads quickly waste away unless they can find a new tree to bond to; it has to be of the right species and it has to be a new sapling, and the hamadryad goes into a cocoon to regenerate, emerging years later with a new, young body. The seed in the box was supposed to be a necessary part of that process. According to Arachne, when Karyos’s last tree had been killed, she’d survived by jumping to a grown tree as an emergency measure. For whatever reason, she hadn’t followed that up by completing the ritual normally. Arachne’s guess was that she’d been injured in the process and no longer had the strength to grow a seed of her own.

There was another possible explanation. According to Arachne, jumping to an adult tree could have damaged Karyos mentally as well as physically, and being sealed away in a shadow realm for a century probably wouldn’t have helped. If so, Karyos could very well be completely insane, which given that we were standing in her territory—territory that she’d had years to cultivate—was not a pleasant thought.

The four of us stood in the clearing. For all the response, I might have been speaking to the empty air. The flowers stirred in the wind, red petals bright against the grass.

“She’s not going for it,” Variam said under his breath.

“Shh,” Anne said.

“Well, she’s not.”

“She’s still deciding,” I said. The futures were mostly of violence—actually, nearly all of them were of violence—but there were a tentative few in which nothing happened. I could even catch a few glimpses of ones in which something came out to talk. Unfortunately it was someone else’s choice, not mine, and I’d already played all of my cards.

“We could still go with the burn-things plan,” Variam said. “I like that plan.”

“Will you shut up?” Anne whispered.

“If she wanted to be nice, she’d have come out by now,” Variam said.

I took a breath. I still didn’t like the look of the futures, but I didn’t think sitting and waiting would help. “Despoina Karyos,” I began again, taking a step forward.

The attack came from three sides.

The flowers seemed to ripple, as though in a strong breeze, then rise. For a moment it looked as though they were flowing along the grass, then my eyes focused and I saw that they were flying, petals flapping like wings, wheeling and twisting like a flock of starlings. Three, four, five of the flocks lifted off, each flying towards us, and now I could see that the stalks ended in sharp points.

At the same time, creatures burst seemingly from nowhere. They were humanoids, small and twisted, and there was only time for a blurred impression of thorns and stick-thin limbs before they were on us. They’d been camouflaged so perfectly that our eyes had slid right over without seeing them, and now they dashed straight for us. The multiple angles were confusing; an unprepared group would have been overwhelmed in those first few seconds.

Luckily, if there’s one thing diviners are good at, it’s being prepared.

I’d briefed the others thoroughly before gating into the shadow realm. I hadn’t been able to see past the first few seconds of the fight, but I’d been able to see where and how the attack would come, and Luna, Anne, and Variam reacted instantly. I felt a flash of heat to my left and knew Variam was casting, but I didn’t turn to look. The front arc was Variam’s responsibility, but the right arc was mine, and three of the creatures were racing in. I’d trust Variam and the girls to watch my back, just as they trusted me to cover theirs.

The gun came up smoothly to my shoulder, kicked back with a stuttering ba-ba-bang! and I had a fraction of a second to see the creature framed clearly in my sights, an elfin humanoid with blackened teeth and thorned spindly limbs, before its head disappeared in a spray of green liquid. It dropped and I was already swinging to aim for the next one but it swerved just as I fired, and I missed and corrected and fired again, sending it tumbling to the ground.

The moment’s delay had given the last one the chance to close, and as I started to wheel I realised I wouldn’t get the gun around in time. I turned the movement into a twist and a blow jarred my arm, spikes digging in, but my armour held and the thing’s momentum took it past. It came around, slashing at my eyes, but I’d had just long enough to sight and with a ba-ba-bang! the MP7 tore a hole through its body. It staggered, took another volley, and fell to the grass.

All of that happened in less than five seconds, yet it felt like ten times that long and when I turned back the battle was raging. Variam held the front alone, sheets of flame walling us off from the clearing, and through the fire I could see the flowers shying away: those that touched the flame crisped and burned, falling to join the others on the blackening grass. Luna and Anne were facing twice their number of the thorned humanoids, yet two more were lying on the grass and as I watched Anne caught one jumping in and the thing dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. The thornling behind shied away and soaked up a lash of silver mist from Luna’s whip. It tried to slide around to flank her, tripped and fell into Variam’s wall of fire, and was gone with a single piercing scream.

I sighted and fired, saw one more of the thornlings stagger, then my precognition sent me jumping back as two of the flowers zipped through the space where my face had been. Now that I was close, I could see that the points at the end of their stalks were long and barbed with a reddish tinge, and they flew like birds, reversing and darting at me. The gun was useless against such small targets; I dropped it in its sling and tried to draw my sword, fumbling at the hilt as more of the flowers gathered, thorns stabbing. The air tasted sweet, foggy, and I coughed, managed to drag the sword out, split one of the flowers with a clumsy slash, but there were more and more of them and thorns stabbed into me, bouncing off the armour on my arms, my back. I kept slashing but my movements were slower now; it was harder to lift my arms and I managed to cut down one more of the flowers, but there were more than a dozen and they were swarming all over me. One caught my neck and I stumbled, going to one knee—

Then Anne was there, her hands quick and sure. As her fingers brushed each flower they stiffened and went limp, falling to the grass, and she touched my neck. Warmth seemed to flow through me, the pain from the wound vanished, and I could move freely again. I pulled myself up but Anne was already gone, running back to cover Luna.

Airborne toxin. I’d seen from my divination that we’d face venom, but I hadn’t been able to see how, and I’d assumed that it was going to be delivered on claws or teeth. Instead it had been carried in the air. Anne had promised that she’d be able to immunise us as soon as she saw it working, and she’d been as good as her word.

I cut down one more flower and suddenly the battle was over. Variam had scattered the swarms and now only a few stragglers remained; occasionally one would swoop in and Variam would burn it to ash. All the thornlings were down, dead, or both. “Anyone poisoned?” I called to Anne.

“You’re all clear,” Anne called back.

Another flower came winging towards Luna. Variam flicked a hand at it and a small burst of fire engulfed it, there and gone in a second. A blackened stalk dropped to the earth. “Nice work,” I said to Variam. Vari’s never been short of power, but control’s another story. Obviously he’d improved.

“Guys,” Luna said, pointing. “Look.”

I followed the direction of Luna’s finger and shivered. Where the red flowers had been planted the grass was thinner, and now that the flowers were gone I could see silhouettes of flesh and bone. The wind shifted slightly, blowing towards us, and just for a second I caught the aroma of rotting meat. From the shapes there were at least three bodies, maybe more.

“You know,” Variam said, “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something’s telling me we’re not welcome here.”

“Look how desiccated they are,” Anne said, staring. Her lifesight had shown her the flowers, but not the dead bodies beneath. “I think something drained their blood.”

“Guess those flowers get hungry,” Luna said.

“And I guess we’re not the only ones trying to get through,” I said. “Those bodies can’t be more than a week old.” Apparently they’d tried to get past Karyos too, and lost the argument. Might explain why she hadn’t bothered to talk.

“Heads up,” Variam said. “We’ve got company.”

There was movement above the treetops, small objects flitting between the branches. From a distance they looked like birds, but I knew they weren’t. “Anne?” I asked. “Any more of those thorn things?”

“No . . . yes,” Anne said. “They’re staying behind the trees.”

“Guess they saw what happened to the last lot,” Luna said.

I shook my head. “No. You saw how they just charged in? These things are pretty much mindless. They’re being directed.”

“Karyos,” Luna said. “We take her out, they stop, right?”

“Then you better hurry,” Variam said, “because they brought friends.”

Looking into the futures, I saw that Variam was right. In only a few minutes we’d be attacked again, and this time there’d be almost three times as many. I didn’t know how many reserves Karyos had, and I didn’t like the idea of waiting around to find out. “Anne, can you see her?” I asked.

Anne shook her head. “Not in my range.”

I thought quickly. Karyos must be relying on her minions, keeping herself away from the fight. Which meant that the surest way to bait out a response would be to threaten her directly . . .

I looked ahead again, but this time I searched the futures in which we advanced, scanning the different directions. In most of them, the creatures fell back before us, content to wait while they gathered their forces. But in one cluster, if we went ahead and a little to the left, it’d provoke a furious attack.

“I think I’ve found her,” I said. “Head straight forward and angle left around the big tree. And get ready. Once they realise where we’re going, they’re not going to be happy.”

“You want to take point?” Variam asked.

“You and me together,” I said. “Luna, you’re rearguard. Anne, stay at the centre where you can reach everyone. Got it?”

Three faces nodded at me. “Okay,” I said. “Keep to a walk until I say.”

We advanced. The charred remains of flowers crunched under my feet, leaving soot on my shoes, and I pulled out the half-empty magazine from the MP7 and replaced it with a new one, snapping it into the pistol grip with a click. The woods were silent, waiting. From behind, I could hear Luna’s breathing. There was a clatter and Variam swore as he stumbled over one of the skeletons; a skull went bouncing away.

The futures of violence were getting closer and I knew Karyos wouldn’t wait much longer. “Get ready,” I said. “When I say run, head for that tree. Stay close.” It was in view now: a huge thing with a thick trunk, visible through the rest of the wood. I counted as I walked. Three . . . two . . . one . . . “Now!” I called, and broke into a trot.

For a few seconds the only sound was our running feet, then the woods seemed to come alive, thornlings and flowers closing in on all sides. I fired, saw a thornling explode in a bloom of flame, knelt, and fired again. A flower swarm was engulfed in searing heat, then I heard Variam yell and the flow of fire magic winked out.

I spun. Variam had come too close to a knot of rosebushes and they’d seized him, stalks and branches binding around his limbs. He thrashed, trying to burn them off, and I changed direction and sprinted for him; I was halfway through drawing my sword when my precognition warned me of danger to the right and I twisted my head to see more of the thornlings on top of us. One was just about to hit Vari from behind and as it drew back its arm, long thorns aiming for Variam’s neck, my bullets took it in the head. Another was intercepted by Luna; the other two jumped on me.

Suddenly I didn’t have time to worry about Variam or Luna; the futures had narrowed to a whirl of combat where one wrong move could get me impaled. The thornlings threw themselves at me, slashing and stabbing; my armour took the worst of the hits but it didn’t cover everywhere, and pain flared in my cheek and hand. I hit one with the gun’s stock, but the MP7’s polymer didn’t have enough weight and the thing leapt on me. I fell back with one leg up, let my foot sink into its body, then heaved to send it flying over me. Before the thing could rise I rolled over onto my elbows and shot it through the chest.

I scrambled to my feet to see that Variam was free, staggering back; Anne had reached him and the rosebushes that had ensnared him were dead. There was blood on Variam’s legs but Anne was dragging him back, and as Luna stood over them to cover them both Anne put her hands on Variam; green light surged into him and he gasped and shuddered but a second later he was pulling himself to his feet just as another pair of flowers was snapped out of the air by Luna’s whip.

All of a sudden, our enemies were gone again. The four of us crouched in a defensive ring, shielded by the dead rosebushes and a tree. Thornling bodies were scattered all around us, but the remaining ones had disappeared. “They’ve backed off,” Luna said.

“They’ll be back as soon as we start moving,” I said.

“Shit,” Luna said. “You see how many of those things there are?”

The path towards the centre of the shadow realm was littered with those rosebushes. They looked innocuous, their blooms red and pink and orange, but I knew that as soon as we got close enough they’d lash out. “Screw this,” Variam said. His armour had been punctured and I could see blood through the holes, but he mostly just looked pissed off. “I’m going to burn a way through.”

“No,” Luna said sharply. “We need you taking out the swarms.”

“So I’ll do both.”

“Luna’s right,” I said. “We’re going to get bogged down.”

A scream sounded from ahead of us, and at the sound of it, all of us froze. There was something inhuman about it, wild and frenzied, a woman’s voice but one that spoke of madness and death. It sounded again and this time there were words in it, a shrieked challenge in some language I didn’t understand. It died away and all of us crouched motionless, waiting.

“I’m guessing that’s Karyos,” Luna said at last.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Variam said.

“Shut up,” I said tersely. “Listen.”

The scream came again, but this time I could make out the words. “Trespassers!” it shrieked. “Despoilers!”

“Go fuck yourself!” Luna shouted back.

“Slayers of the wood, burners of the groves!” The voice was coming from somewhere off ahead and to the left. “Die and be forgotten!”

The echoes faded away and there was silence. I stood very still, listening, but Karyos didn’t speak again.

“Hey, maybe you should try asking her nicely some more,” Variam said. “I’m sure this time it’ll work.”

I gave Variam a look. “She’s not far,” Luna said.

“I don’t think it’s her,” Anne said.

I looked at Anne. “Can you see?”

“Maybe.” Anne was frowning. “Everything is connected here . . . But she wouldn’t give her position away unless she had to, would she? If she can make thornlings, she can make something with vocal cords.”

My hopes fell. “Shit.”

“They’re moving,” Luna warned. “More thornlings.”

Variam swore. “How many of those things does she have?”

“She’s been in here a hundred years with nothing else to do,” I said. “I’m guessing a lot.” More and more my instincts were telling me that we were outmatched here. We had to come up with something different, and fast.

“Alex, check something for me,” Anne said. “I’m going to run straight at those rosebushes. Tell me what’ll happen.”

I frowned, not understanding, but there was a note of urgency in Anne’s voice and I didn’t argue. I seized the future just seconds away in which she went sprinting forward, coming within range of the roses’ grasping thorns, and . . . I blinked. “Huh?”

“Well?” Anne asked.

“They’re not going to attack,” I said. It had been only a brief glimpse, but I was sure. “They’ll go for us, but not for you. What are you doing?”

“Trying something,” Anne said. She took a breath. “Okay. I’m going after Karyos. Can you get her attention?”

“Wait,” I said. “Take someone—”

“We don’t have time,” Anne said. “Just trust me.”

I hesitated for an instant. Luna and Variam were looking at Anne and Variam was frowning, about to argue, and I made a snap decision. “All right. Vari, you’re not going to force a way through, but make it look like you’re trying to force a way through. Burn a path through the bushes, but at the first sign of a counterattack go back to focusing on the flowers. Luna, you and I’ll cover him. Anne, do what you’ve got to do, but if you get into trouble, you yell for help and we’ll come get you. And if this doesn’t work, then we’re pulling out, because we’re not going to get another shot. Understand?”

All three of them nodded and I took a breath. “Go!”

Variam cut loose. Fire erupted, leaves blackening and flaring in the heat, and thick smoke rolled up into the sky. Bark charred as Variam spread the flame outwards, burning a path.

The wood’s defenders recoiled, then struck back. Anne was gone; I’d had a brief glimpse of her running left before she’d disappeared into the trees. I sighted and fired, dropping one thornling, then two. The MP7 clicked empty and I ejected the magazine and slapped in a new one. Luna was fighting by my side, one hand lashing out with her whip, the other throwing hexes.

We made it maybe twenty feet before we were halted again. There were just too many, and now they had us surrounded. With only three of us, we each had to watch too wide a sector, and the thornlings weren’t presenting such easy targets anymore. Their attacks were just as furious but they were using the trees as cover, forcing me to take longer to line up a shot. Variam burnt a swarm of the flowers to ash, but all of his attention was on the sky and he didn’t have time to burn us a new path through the roses. As if sensing that they’d stopped us, the creatures pulled away, leaving us standing back to back.

“You okay?” I said without turning my head.

“Got scratched,” Luna said. “It’s not bad.”

“This is like fighting fucking army ants,” Variam said.

Movement to the right caught my eye. I brought the gun up, but the thornling ducked behind a tree and I lost the shot. “The way you beat swarms,” I said, “is to take out the queen.”

“You see Anne?” Luna asked.

“No.”

“Defilers!” the voice screamed again. “Barbarians!”

“Okay, that’s definitely closer,” Luna said.

“Yeah, and it’s definitely a trap.”

“Your flesh will feed the leaves and bark!” the voice screamed. It actually sounded more unhinged, if possible. “Your blood will be drunk by the hawthorn roots! Your bones will be nests and chattel!”

“I’m really getting tired of listening to her,” I said.

“More thornlings,” Luna said. “Behind the forked tree, my two o’clock.”

“I see them,” I said. “Vari, get ready to blast them.”

“Got it.”

“Wait,” I said. “Cancel that.”

“What?”

“Just . . .” I looked ahead, concentrating. Yes. All we had to do was not screw anything up. “Don’t do anything. Hold steady.”

Seconds ticked away. “Alex?” Luna said.

“Steady.”

“They’re getting ready for a rush,” Luna said. There was an urgent note in her voice.

“Ten more seconds.”

I could see the thornlings now, creeping forward in a wide arc centred on Luna. I kept my gun up but didn’t level it, counting down in my head. Three . . . two . . . one . . .

A piercing scream echoed through the trees, cut off abruptly.

Luna twisted her head. “Wait. That was from the other side—”

I pointed. “Look.”

First one by one, then in a shower, the vampire flowers were dropping from the sky, spiralling down to plant their stalks in the ground. “The bushes are stopping too,” I said, checking the futures. “We can go near them safely.”

“The thornlings aren’t,” Variam said. “Get ready.”

The thornlings came again, rushing from cover, but oddly hesitant. Their single-minded ferocity was gone, and when Variam incinerated the first pair, the two behind checked their advance and ran. Luna’s whip took out a third, I shot down two more, and suddenly the remaining thornlings were running. This time they didn’t retreat to shelter, ready for a new attack; they just kept going, dodging between trees until they’d disappeared from sight. It was over in seconds. None of us had taken so much as a scratch.

“Guys!” Anne called from somewhere off to our right. It was the same direction the scream had come from.

“You okay?” I shouted back.

“I’m fine! Come over.”

We shared a glance and walked across the clearing, stepping over scorched flowers and dead thornlings. I was still scanning the futures, but I couldn’t see any more combat. The battle was over.

Anne was in the midst of a small thicket. The entrance was cunningly camouflaged, and we walked all the way around it twice before figuring out where to look; if we’d still been fighting, we would have skirted it without a second glance. Slipping between the branches, we found Anne in a tiny enclosed space at the centre.

Lying at Anne’s feet was a woman . . . or what could have been one, if you didn’t look too closely. Twigs sprouted from ash-blonde hair, and lichen and moss grew over skin. The fingers ended in curved wooden claws. Below the waist, the skin transitioned to bark, and in place of legs the lower half was a mass of branching roots, making her look like some strange, leafy, wooden octopus. The hamadryad’s eyes were closed.

“Huh,” Luna said, looking down at Karyos. “That was easy.”