The changes were subtle at first, only noticeable because they came on so fast. The trees, always alien, began swelling, stretching upward as their bark took on complicated, unearthly patterns. Rivers of fungus burst through the wood, bloating and expanding into complicated shelves in a thousand shades of crimson and gold. Some of them began to glow faintly. All around me were startled exclamations and shouts as the other visitors were shocked out of their mossy beds and back to their feet.

The ground rippled, new growth exploding everywhere—mosses and bushes and grasses, patches of flowers where only mud had been a moment before. It was like time had been accelerated, transforming this from a forest that was established but not yet mature into something stately and ancient.

I opened my eyes.

The room was dark, dim light shining through the open window, and the bed was cold, chilled by the absence of Graham’s startlingly efficient metabolism. I could have been a hothouse flower as long as I was sleeping with him; he would never have let me freeze.

My longing for his presence was an icepick in my heart. I pushed it aside and stood, padding barefoot out of the room and down the hall. The bark-like soles of my feet snagged and tugged on the rugs, making the trip feel oddly dreamlike. I had a lifetime of memories telling me that walking didn’t feel like this.

Tahlia was in the living room when I arrived, standing at the window, eyes searching the empty desert. Lights flickered in the distance, like a mirage cast against the dark. She turned toward the sound of my footsteps, frowning slightly.

“You felt it too,” she said.

I nodded. “I did. What … what was it?”

“I don’t know.” She looked back to the window, her frown deepening. “I was in a grove of our fellow flowers, speaking with poets from around the world. They see scents differently in different cultures. Sweet and sour change meanings. We were arguing about the relevance of the scent of lilacs when everything began to shake and grow, and first the forest turned strange, and then it threw us out. I woke here.”

Slightly ahead of me. I looked at my arm, green-skinned, concealing veins which ran rich with sap, no longer capable of generating blood. Tahlia had reached that stage before me. If my guess was right …

“What the hell was that?” Jeff barged into the room wild-eyed and bare-chested, his hands balled up like he thought he was going to be called upon to fight the world. “I was—”

“In the forest, and now you’re not.” Tahlia waved a hand, dismissing his distress as so much noise. “Welcome to the program already in progress. Something’s happened.”