“Gods,” Hildra said. “Does that tree have teeth?”

“We’re there,” Lisam said, before Avery could take a look, and the truck pulled to a halt. Fantastic trees and shrubs, some moving under their own power, stretched all around them, along sidewalks, cracks in the road, and vertically along the building faces. They were completely enclosed in the environment, with strange little—and some not so little—animals moving in the vegetation. “This way,” Lisam said, leading up a broad set of cracked steps toward the building they’d pulled up to. Thick bulwarks held up a heavy, multi-pointed roof, its pink stone facets and nicks glinting in the sun, vines curling around them, and grand, slender towers framed the sky, what little of it Avery could see through the vegetation.

“An old palace,” their guide said. “Ruined in some long-ago war and now a temple for the Sisters of Jucina.”

People, worshippers apparently, streamed in through the ruined doors, which gaped open and were carpeted in jungle. The worshippers carried candles and looked expectant. Music flooded around them, light and lilting—flutes and reed instruments of some kind, Avery thought. His group fought their way through the press of people and inside the hot, packed interior. The former palace had been remodeled, and a grand room yawned before them. Shafts of sunlight, muted somewhat, shone down through the overgrown and shattered windows upon a congregation in ornate pews wearing their local finery, with cotton shawls and colored robes. A paradoxically lewd display went on atop the stage the audience faced; naked nubile girls sparkling with golden glitter and glistening with oils danced in a circle while musicians played jaunty music to the side.

“The Sisters of Junica?” Hildra said.

“The junior priestesses,” said Lisam.

The girls wove among a copse of beautiful trees, and after a moment Avery realized there were men operating the trees. They shook and occasionally apples or oranges dropped from the branches.

Suddenly, men in fox masks popped out of trapdoors. Smoke billowed out, half concealing them as they danced about sinisterly. The girls screamed and ran, and the music grew tense as the chase went on.

Avery and his group descended along one side of the stadium toward rooms in the back. On stage, just as the foxes were about to catch the girls, the trees trembled to life, and their roots dragged the foxes under the ground, or through more trapdoors, to the accompaniment of more smoke. The girls and the trees danced together, and Avery received the impression this was the reenactment of some famous religious event, maybe the union between humans and nature. This was a nature cult, then. Well, that made sense. The city was surrounded by nature—of a sort, anyway.

Lisam conducted them into the back rooms, which led around, down a side hall out into a courtyard garden, all overgrown and dangerous-looking, then across it to another wing of the ruined palace. This apparently was where the Sisterhood lived, and they had made accommodations for the Resistance headquarters at the end of the upper story. Roots groped in through the ceiling and had ripped out chunks of the wall, and vines redolent of vinegar and cinnamon covered the walls. Avery was glad of the holes in the walls, as they admitted a breeze; without them it would have been awfully stuffy.

“We’re lucky to have the Sisterhood on our side,” Lisam said. “The people of Kusk love them more now than ever, and they’ve helped us recruit a good number of folk that wouldn’t ordinarily have joined up. But with the state of the jungle nowadays, people figure it’s a good time to be on the side of the gods of Nos Li, what you would call nature. Not that we really need the Sisterhood, of course. People hate Octung well enough on their own, and this isn’t a permanent arrangement. We relocate often.”

“The Sisters may have to invent some new gods,” Janx grunted, as they passed a bank of curiously humming blooms erupting from an expanse of black, oily vines covered in obscene veins. Lisam snorted but made no comment.

They found General Vursk at the penultimate room on the wing—the ultimate being caved-in—going over a map of the city with his top advisors. He made Avery and the others wait until he’d finished and his commanders had gone, then said, “You’re late.”

“We don’t run the airports,” Hildra said. “Can the attitude.”

Taking over (he had addressed her, anyway), Layanna said, “Thank you for helping us, General.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank your Prime Minister. She was very generous, and we happen to need the help.”

“Any enemy of Octung is a friend of ours.”

“I understand you need to find a certain Losg Coleel, is that right—the owner of Coleel Industries?”

“That’s right … unless you know where we can find a cache of fresh ghost flowers?”

The general smiled wryly. “Would that I did. I could buy a lot of guns with that nectar. With the war and all, the supplying of luxury items has been truncated severely. Things like that are hard to come by. Coleel—he’s pretty well known locally, by the way—he’ll have whatever supply is left stashed securely, I’m sure.”

“We understand you sent some men to find him,” Avery said, leading.

Vursk frowned. “Yes. They didn’t return. I’m willing to send one more team if you’re willing to lead them. I may want your P.M.’s money, but I want my men more. But I can send a full troop, with armored vehicles, machine guns and fifty men. If that doesn’t get the job done, then I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you.”

“That’s more than generous,” Layanna said. “When can we leave?”

“The Prime Minster, she … hinted that this had something to do with stopping the Starfish. Is that true?”

“If we don’t acquire that nectar, there will be no stopping them.”

Vursk wet his lips with his tongue. “So. This is about saving the world, then.”

They let their silence answer for them, and he nodded.

“Then I suggest we don’t dally,” he said. “The latest reports show that the Starfish are notably closer to the coasts than they were just yesterday. For things as vast as they are, the beings move quite rapidly. Before long they will arrive on the beach of Urslin and Consur. I suppose they’ll destroy the coastal powers, like yours, before they advance inland, but I have no illusions; it will probably be mere weeks before they raze Ezzez to the ground … if you’re not successful. Unfortunately, the soonest I can gather the men to escort you is tomorrow morning. I propose we meet again at dawn.”

They were each given a room to rest in and wait for morning. Unable to sleep, Avery wandered the temple grounds for awhile, soon finding himself in the gardens. They were lush—mad, really. Towering trees like crab antennae soared to one side, and riotous coral bushes blushed blue and pink to the other. He paused in a gazebo encrusted by vines whose thorns secreted something that smelled of phosphorous and watched the stream that trickled underneath the gazebo and out the other side, at least splashing down an ornate waterfall and into a little lagoon half hidden under scummy-looking lily pads. Things moved in the brackish water, but Avery didn’t look too closely. His mind was on other matters.

He stared out into the night for a long time, not seeing anything really, until he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Janx approaching through the overgrown walkway, waving away fireflies that glowed violet. The big man was lighting a cigar. He didn’t say anything, but he moved beside Avery and stood there watching the play of water and listening to the croaking of things that might have been frogs once, and something large that may have been something decidedly unfrog-like. The smell of the big man’s cigar teased at Avery’s nose.

“Want one?” Janx tapped his breast pocket. “I’ve got more.”

“Thank you, no. It does smell good, though.”

Janx nodded, said nothing. They stood in silence for another long moment, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. At last Janx said, “Thinkin’ about her, aren’t you?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play games, Doc. Ani. You’re thinkin’ about Ani.”

Avery let out a breath. He didn’t have to answer. He was afraid the truth was all too obvious.

“You did what you had to do,” Janx said.

“Did I? I left her with strangers. Worse than strangers. Voryses.”

Janx lifted an eyebrow. “Your girl’s a Drake, Doc, like it or not. They’re her people. Shit. They’re yours, too. Your fuckin’ in-laws.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Anyway. They love her, or they will, and they’ll take good care of her, mark me. She’ll be in silks and silver while we’re trampin’ around gettin’ shot at in fucking Ezzez. Can’t believe we’re here. Home of the damned Maze of Dark Delights. The center of some of the darkest alchemy in the world. You know, there’s an underworld fellow here supposed to control an army of braindead slaves with his mind. His mind, Doc.” Janx whistled. “That’s what alchemy can do in this place. Meanwhile Ani’s sippin’ tea and havin’ servants groom Hildebrand with golden combs.”

Avery allowed himself a smile. “I would like to see that.”

Janx clapped him on the shoulder, staggering him. “See, Doc. You did right. You did the only thing you could, anyway.”

“I don’t like it, though, Janx. The Voryses—the Drakes—they brought our country to ruin once.”

“Once. But before that there was a whole line of ‘em doin’ good. Built Ghenisa up nice and strong after the Severance. Put an end to the dark times under the Ysstrals.”

“I suppose.”

“Sure! Of course! And ol’ Idris is a chip off the ol’ block, I’d bet money on it.”

“The good block, you mean. Not the one full of sadists and paranoid rulers who delighted in torturing and killing for sport.”

“Yeah. Not them.”

“You know the story of the Rape of Lostrina?”