I had always assumed Lena to be a natural-born dryad. The idea that she had been created, grown from a seed in a bad pulp novel . . . created to be someone’s plaything, like some kind of magical sex toy . . . I felt physically ill just thinking about it.

Lena touched my forearm. “It’s all right.”

“How the hell is it all right?”

“I was happy. Content. I didn’t know any better. Part of our nature is that we don’t want to say no. When Frank died and the Porters found me, they brought me to Nidhi. They thought I was suffering from Stockholm syndrome. They knew I was magical, but we didn’t discover my origins until later. By then . . . I had spent so much time with her.”

I looked at Lena, the black hair, the brown skin. “You and Doctor Shah?”

“We’ve been lovers for nine years.”

My mental clutch jolted and stalled as I tried to incorporate this information into my image of Doctor Shah.

“You only knew her as a therapist,” said Lena. “If you met her outside of the office, you’d probably like her. She’s a bit of a geek, too.”

“What do you mean, too?” I asked, but my heart wasn’t in the banter.

“Nidhi grew up reading comics, especially She-Hulk and Tank Girl. Those fantasies helped to shape me. The Nymphs of Neptune were able warriors, and there were plenty of scenes where we fought our sisters for the pleasure of men. I learned to fight for a better purpose.” She shrugged. “It could be worse. I’m smart, strong, and nigh indestructible.”

Being born from an acorn, she wouldn’t have experienced the shock of transition the way a more fully-fleshed character might. I suspected her nature helped there as well, just as Smudge’s had. Presumably both Frank Dearing and Doctor Shah wanted a sane lover, and Lena would have been shaped by those desires. “Is it strength if you exist to fulfill someone else’s fantasy?”

She flexed an arm. “Tell you what. Let’s arm wrestle, and you can tell me if that strength is real.” Her words were playful, but muted.

“This doesn’t explain why you read my file. Why you sought me out.” My anger at Lena had fled, replaced by confusion. Her athleticism, her energy, her sense of humor, everything I found so appealing about her, were these things simply a result of how her race had been written?

“Think about it, Isaac. My lover was taken by vampires. If she’s not dead, if they turn her like they did your friend Deb . . . her desires define me, Isaac.”

“And you can’t refuse your lover. So you need—” I almost swerved off the road.

“You’re not usually this slow on the uptake,” Lena commented.