The golem drew a wheezing breath. “And if you venture outside of Starhaven’s walls, where I can spellwrite, you’ll face my full strength. You are trapped, so don’t be a fool. Give me the boy, and you will be rewarded.”

Deirdre shook her head. “Fellwroth, you are in no position to buy me. You should be more worried about your neck. You can’t use your magic here.”

“Fool,” the golem snapped. “You think I’m afraid of your blade or your man creeping behind me.” He laughed. “You won’t get-”

“Now!” Deirdre screamed as she sprung forward.

Kyran leaped from the shadows, bellowing a wordless war cry.

Deirdre reached the monster first. She slashed downward with her sword, landed a strike to the golem’s shoulder, and tore his white garment from chest to floor. Kyran stabbed something unseen into the golem’s back.

The white cloth collapsed as if filled with air.

Nicodemus dashed for the Index. But it was over before he picked the book off the ground.

Both druids were waving their hands before their faces and coughing. The air around them was gray.

“He knew he was safe all along,” Kyran managed to say between coughs. “With a body made of this, he could disengage almost instantly.”

Nicodemus stepped closer. The druids were enveloped by a thick cloud of dust.

“WE’VE AN HOUR,” Kyran said, “maybe less before the author can form a more substantial body. We must go!”

“What of the other cacographers?” Nicodemus asked, hugging the Index closer to his chest.

“They’re safe,” Deirdre replied. “The monster now knows you’re the one he wants. Quickly now, our lives and the fate of the Disjunction may depend on it. Tell me why the sentinels aren’t guarding the Drum Tower. Tell me everything.”

Nicodemus opened his mouth but did not speak. Fear had compelled him to tell Deirdre of the golem and of John’s behavior. He had been too shocked to be suspicious. But now that his wits were returning, he began to wonder how much he should trust the druids.

Deirdre took his hand. “Nicodemus, you are alive only because I gave you the Seed of Finding and because we came to your aid. You must trust us.”

Nicodemus shook his head. “I don’t know that-”

Kyran spoke. “Nicodemus, the enemy knows who you are and is coming for you. And the monster was right when he said we cannot remain in Starhaven. The sentinels will suspect us of murdering your friend.” He nodded toward Devin’s body. “We’re not safe here. Nor can you flee on your own. Outside Starhaven the creature will be powerful beyond your imagining. Your only hope is to come to our goddess’s ark in Gray’s Crossing. Only she can protect you.”

The druid was right. Nicodemus had no choice but to trust them. “We’re taking John,” he said.

Deirdre shook her head. “He’ll slow us down.”

“No,” he said. “We must take him. The sentinels will think he killed Devin. Leaving him here would be a death sentence.”

“Nicodemus,” Deirdre said carefully, “the man was cursed by a demon. We don’t know if we can trust him.”

“He’s coming.”

Kyran looked at Deirdre. “I could subdue the boy.”

“Try it!” Nicodemus replied hotly. “You could censor me, bind me, maybe even knock me unconscious. But you’ll never sneak my body through the front gates. Especially at this hour of the night. The guards will search everything.”

Deirdre’s mouth flattened. “You know another way out of Starhaven?”

“Only if we bring John with us.”

Deirdre looked him up and down and then laughed dryly. “Ky, rouse the big man. Now, Nicodemus, tell me why the sentinels stopped guarding you. Tell me everything about our enemy.”

As Kyran worked some unknown language over John, Nicodemus told Deirdre about his strange nightmares, about Shannon’s arrest, about the Index, and about the attack spell Shannon had written against the golem.

As Kyran finished, Simple John woke with a low moan. In a few moments Kyran had him on his feet. The stun spell seemed to have fogged the big man’s memory. He was confused and couldn’t seem to recall where he was. However, he did respond to Nicodemus’s voice.

Together, the four of them hurried out of the common room and into the stairwell. Nicodemus held the Index in one hand and John’s hand in the other.

“Where are we going?” Kyran asked as they hurried down the steps.

“To the Sataal Landing and the compluvium,” Nicodemus called back. “We should fetch the other druids. They could help protect us.”

“The other druids in Starhaven can’t be trusted,” Kyran protested.

“Just as there are wizardly factions, there are druidic factions,” Deirdre added behind him. “The druids we can trust are down in Gray’s Crossing guarding our goddess’s ark.”

On the ground floor, Kyran pushed open the door and led them into the Stone Court. Above them shone the brilliant but small blue moon.

The party hurried through the standing stones and into a wide arcade that would take them eastward out of Starhaven’s Imperial Quarter and into the Chthonic Quarter. Occasionally John made confused, anxious sounds. He seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes. But Nicodemus kept him calm with a few words and the reassuring pressure of his hand.

A shudder ran through Nicodemus as he thought about what the demon had done to John. He wondered if the big man would remember killing Devin.

“Nicodemus,” Kyran said. “If there is trouble, you must stay behind Deirdre and me. And if you have the chance to escape, do so.”

Thinking back to how quickly the druids had dealt with the bloodspells, Nicodemus nodded. He asked, “Kyran, back in my common room, when you fought the aracknus spell, there was a strange bear.” A cold autumn breeze set Nicodemus’s black hair fluttering.

Kyran chuckled. “Didn’t you recognize me?”

“But that’s impossible. Only a godspell could-”

Kyran laughed. The druid’s long, blond hair was also stirring in the breeze. “It wasn’t truly a bear but a partial construction, made of the druidic languages and oak. It was wrapped around my body like magical armor.”

Nicodemus raised his brows. That explained the bear’s wooden face and coat of splinters. “But where did you find oak in Starhaven?”

“I’m going to miss that walking staff,” the druid said with a sigh and a nod at his limp.

“You had already written a spell on the staff? But how can your languages animate wood? It should be impossible to-”

Kyran cut him off. “The druidic languages come to us from the ancients. Our languages connect to living tissue-especially that of trees-in a way that is difficult to explain.” He smiled. “Besides, Nicodemus, there is more possible with language than can be imagined within your rules of spelling.”

CHAPTER Twenty-nine

Sinking fast but still gloriously bright, the nearly full blue moon sat just above the Pinnacle Mountains. The white moon, in the identical phase as her smaller blue sister, hung high in the western sky.

From their different angles, the moons filled the compluvium with half-shadows of ivory and lapis. Nicodemus-still holding the Index in one hand and Simple John’s hand in the other-led the druids across the wall overlooking the compluvium. “The way to the Fool’s Ladder is just down that stairwell.” He motioned across the wall.

Kyran took the lead.

Far below them glistened the impluvium. The aquatic gargoyles that operated the reservoir’s valves were still at work despite the hour. Their movement slowly churned the water, transforming its surface into a coruscation of reflected moonlight.

Deirdre spoke. “That hawk-headed construct with the four arms, the one we passed to get into this place, if it obeys your commands, why didn’t you have it follow us?”

“So it can guard our backs,” Nicodemus replied, giving John’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “There are only two ways into the compluvium.”