“No,” Lena said softly.

“Yet you intend to attempt it anyway.” He clucked his tongue and led us back into the office, where he grabbed a Saberhagen novel off the desk. He swiped his fingers through the book, sweeping away the magical lock like smoke. With one hand, he pulled a long, gleaming sword from the pages. “I can’t predict what might happen to you both. You might lose yourself as well as Isaac. If you do manage to succeed, I suspect you’ll have need of this blade. It should heal any physical damage . . . assuming he survives at all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m needed in Detroit.”

“You offered me a favor.”

He looked pointedly toward the sword. I ignored the hint.

“Tell me what I saw in Charles Hubert.”

“You saw that, did you?” He gestured for me to step closer. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“So be it.” He touched my chest, and I felt a tugging sensation, as if a hook had lodged behind my breastbone. “If you survive, I’ll tell you what I know.”

Gutenberg snapped his fingers, and for a moment, I felt part of the automaton’s magic tear free, enveloping him like a blanket. An instant later, Gutenberg vanished in a flash of sunlight.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I LOOKED UP AT THE CEILING, imagining the sky beyond. The automaton was battered and possibly dying, but surely I had enough strength to make it back to the moon. Could I reach Mars in the time I had left?

Lena reached for the exposed wood of my face. I pushed her aside. “You’d be risking your life.”

“I heard the old man, too,” she snapped. “And I’m not interested in any noble bullshit. I’m not letting you die in that thing. Now shut up and hold on.”

She grabbed my forearm in one hand and cupped my face in the other. Chunks of black wood crumbled away as she tightened her grip on my arm, but she simply squeezed harder. It was a gruesome sight, and I thanked Gutenberg again for not giving his creations a sense of pain.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not sure.”

I heard her voice inside me, even as the automaton’s senses picked up her words. Her warmth infused the cold, dead wood of my body. Her emotions twined with mine, hot and passionate. Metal blocks fell away, ringing against the floor as she pressed deeper into my body.

Whatever magic had created Lena Greenwood, her emotions were as genuine and powerful as any I had ever felt. Perhaps more so. It shamed me that I had ever believed otherwise.