She pointed to the other corner. To a large pockmark in the floor. Light green. With rings within rings. Like a cross section of tree trunk. “And that’s where Duncan was found. We didn’t even know that he was human, or alive. He looked to us like a gray cap whose legs had been fused into the ground. When he was brought to me, I don’t think he even knew who he was. He’d learned to walk among gray caps undetected. He’d traveled through the doors for many, many years. And then he’d come home here, alone, lonely. To give up being human. Half out of his mind. Attuned to the rhythms of mushroom and spore. Here, by Tonsure’s side. Like a dog guarding the grave of its master. I think he thought he’d wake up in a thousand years and everything would be different. Or that he’d never wake up at all.”

Remembering Duncan’s words: “They found me and infiltrated me—I could feel their tendrils, their fleshy-dry-cold-warm pseudopods and cilia and strands slowly sliding up my skin, like a hundred tiny hands. They tried to remake me in their image.”

“And you found a way to use him.” An echo of his voice against the stone. A place more like a memorial than a home.

“Yes. After a while. After we managed to remind him that he was human. Amazing how long that part took.”

Finch said, “What happened next?”

Pain in her smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”

He leaned in toward the Lady in Blue, humoring her. This close she looked somehow off-balance. Something in her eyes. The faint smell of cigars. Masked by the freshness of some subtle herb.

“Duncan Shriek isn’t dead,” she whispered.

Then she jabbed something into his neck.

No time for surprise. No time for anything but falling through the gullet of the skery. Again.

9

Came to: On the battlements of a fortress at night. Gun emplacements dark and menacing.

Duncan Shriek isn’t dead. For a moment he was losing his balance. Then someone propped him up from behind. I don’t believe it. Not Crossley, not Finch.

Cold, with a wind blowing. Above, the heavens, laced with stars that seemed to be falling in together. A wash of silver and gold across the sky. Beyond the walls, a vast empty space. A desert? In that space, a thousand green fires blossoming. He knew this place—he knew it. It had been in his memory bulb dream. Shriek’s memories. Bliss was here.

The Lady in Blue stood beside him again. Surrounded by dozens of soldiers. Intent on moving supplies, guard duty, or cleaning weapons.

“This is the monastery fortress of Zamilon, or at least a version of it,” the Lady in Blue said, as if reading his thoughts. “Abandoned for many decades, until we came along.”