I saw through their eyes. I saw myself standing in the hallway. Another Kiyoko worked in a darkened room by several large tanks, each one containing a living siren. I saw unfamiliar faces and locations, scenes from this country and others.

Three clones waited in the server room, hidden from sight. I saw their plan to kill us, retake Babs Palmer’s office, and lock Talulah out of the network. They had deliberately stalled Lena and Deb, knowing I would join them. Knowing they would have the opportunity to kill us all at once.

My mind went numb, as if someone had poured liquid helium into my skull. Kiyoko collapsed in front of me. She had voluntarily ended her life, trying to take me with her. I barely pulled free. Before I could shout a warning, the clone trapped in the young oak tree turned her head and said, “Sleep.”

A magically created being shouldn’t be able to perform libriomancy. Everyone knew that, but I watched the power of that word, drawn from Stephen King’s Firestarter by another libriomancer and stored in Kiyoko’s memory, slam into Lena, Deb, and myself.

I did my best to claw through Kiyoko’s magical assault, to rip the power of that story apart before it could drag me into slumber. This wasn’t true libriomancy; it was a recording, a copy of the sound. Like any reproduction, it was weaker than the original. Slowly, I freed myself and reached out to help my companions.

Lena had dropped Excalibur and the scabbard when she fell. A Kiyoko stepped from the server room to pick up the sword. She pointed the tip at Lena’s throat. The other two clones joined her, guns aimed at Deb and myself.

I ripped Excalibur’s magic away, dissolving the blade into silver dust. I did the same to the enchantment on the bullets. When the Kiyoko standing over me pulled the trigger, her shots struck my shield and fell to the floor.

Lena kicked the legs out from beneath her Kiyoko, rolled to the side, and punched both fists into the clone standing over me. Wooden spikes punctured Kiyoko’s side, and she fell.

Bullets thudded into Lena’s back, but without their magical boost, none of them penetrated. Lena spun, slashing wooden claws.

Kiyoko ducked. The third clone launched a kick over the head of the second, catching Lena square on the bridge of the nose. The second clone bounced to her feet with an uppercut to Lena’s jaw, allowing the third to snap a follow-up kick to the side of my head.

Both clones stiffened and spun to look into the server room.

“You had access to the Porter database and all of my reports.” I spat blood and wiped my chin. “You should have known better than to piss off the fire-spider.”