chapter eleven

The oak is ever divided. Reaching deeper, to the cool waters of Earth's lifeblood. Reaching skyward, to the warm breath of the sun.

Within this tree waits home. Within this tree waits solitude.

She is my mother. My twin. My center, cleaved in two. Yearning to be one. Yearning to be my own.

I was born into winter. Yearning to sleep through the cold. Yearning for one whose warmth would awaken me.

Within his need, I found myself. Within his desire, I found joy.

His body takes root within mine.

I reach inward to safety. I reach outward to his need.

I bring my Creator to his knees and receive his prayers.

—In memory of Frank Dearing

I AWOKE ON A low cot, gasping for breath. My feet and legs were tangled in an old wool blanket. The pillow was damp from sweat, as was the side of my

face. The lights were out, but the safety-glass window in the door provided a hint of fluorescent illumination from the office outside.

"You're safe." Nidhi had a hand on my shoulder, holding me down with more strength than I would have expected. "What do you remember?"

The flickering magic of the chronoscope. A wendigo twisted in agony. An armored man hidden by the shadow of a woman. I remembered resting while Jeff and Helen discussed what to do with the body. They had decided to bury it in an unmarked grave behind the church. I had stood up too quickly. "Did Lena…she carried me here, didn't she."

"That's right. We were worried at first, but then you started snoring. Do you know where you are?"

"Tamarack. We're inside the school, right?"

"What's your name?" Nidhi asked in that calm, clinical tone I remembered from our sessions. She kept her hands folded over the black leather purse in her lap.

"Isaac Vainio."

"What's the date?" She was firing questions faster now, and I found myself responding in kind.

"August fourth. Unless I was out longer than I thought?" She ignored me. "What's my name?"

"Nidhi Shah." I shook my head before she could continue. "It's me. Just me." I closed my eyes, listening for the whispers that were the first sign of possession, but my mind was my own. Whatever other damage I might have done, I hadn't ripped Asimov's story open that badly. Not that I could blame Nidhi for her fears. She had seen libriomantic possession close-up, as well as the damage that kind of madness could cause. "Where's Lena?"

"With the werewolves. I wasn't sure what was going on in your head."

"So you sent her away. Smart." I sagged back into the pillow. Lena's personality adjusted to the desires of her lover. Or lovers, as we had discovered earlier this year. The process wasn't supposed to be immediate, but who knew what it would do to her if any fictional characters moved into my brain?

An orange glow pulled my attention to Smudge, who climbed down the wall and stopped on the metal frame of the cot. The tips of the hairs along his back glowed like embers, and from the way he was watching me, I was the one who had spooked him. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a box of Red Hot candies. I shook one into my left hand and held it out.

The allure of hard cinnamon candy was enough to overcome his nerves. The burning glow had dimmed, but his feet were uncomfortably hot as he crept forward onto my fingers. He hesitated, then snatched the candy. His body cooled

as he ate.

"That can't be healthy for him," Nidhi said.

"I pulled him out of a sword and sorcery novel. Who knows what fictional spiders are supposed to eat? He seems healthy enough to me." I waited as Smudge climbed up my arm and settled onto my shoulder. "You were using him to keep an eye on me. A warning system?"

"Isn't that what you use him for?"

"That's not fair. I also use him to repel mosquitoes." I stretched my arms, grimacing at the tension in my back and shoulders. My jaw ached, too. I must have been clenching it in my sleep. "How long?"

"You've been asleep five hours."

The good news was that I had successfully cast a spell I would have thought was impossible only a few months ago. The bad news was that it had kicked my ass. "Gutenberg tosses magic like that around all the time."

"Gutenberg has been practicing for more than five hundred years. You've had what, a decade?"

"Exactly. I'm young and spry and energetic." I winced and rubbed my neck. "Young and energetic, at least."

"You seem to have survived the experience with your mind intact. Which means you should be able to tell me what the hell you were thinking out there!"

I could think of a few things more surprising than Nidhi Shah losing her temper and shouting at me. Smudge spontaneously breaking into a tap-dancing routine, for example. Gutenberg giving up magic and devoting himself to competitive macramé.

I couldn't even remember the last time Nidhi had raised her voice, let alone yelled at anyone. "I was trying to find out who killed that wendigo."

"By experimenting with magic you couldn't control?" She started to say more, but caught herself before she could speak. She clasped her hands tightly together, and took three deep breaths. Her body visibly relaxed. "I'm not your therapist anymore, Isaac. I'm your…I'm trying to be your friend."

"I know that." Friend was as good a word as any. The closest term I had come across for "my girlfriend's other lover" was "metamour," but the word suggested an uncomfortable level of intimacy between Nidhi and me.

Her lips pursed. "As your friend, I will call your therapist and have you yanked off this investigation if I think you're endangering yourself or the people around you."

Every Porter was required to see a therapist on a regular basis. It seemed a wise precaution for people who routinely rewrote the laws of existence to suit their whims.