Free Unbound by Jim C. Hines Page B

stores to either side, an antiques shop and an Indian restaurant, sustained minor damage, but should reopen soon.
    Padfoot, the store cat, was found huddling beneath a car in a nearby parking lot. He was checked out and found to be in perfect health. Padfoot is staying with a friend until he can be reunited with his owner.

I FOUND LENA IN the backyard, pulling up the poison ivy vines that had begun to encroach from the edge of the woods. She yanked them from the dirt bare-handed, unaffected by the oils that would have transformed me into a miserable mass of red, itchy bumps and blisters.
    Most days during the week, she would have been out doing odd landscaping jobs or volunteering around town, but lately she had been spending more time near her grove. She brightened when she saw me, and then her gaze moved to Mahefa. She grabbed a wood-handled rake and walked toward us.
    I wondered if Mahefa had any idea how quickly Lena could grow that handle into a spear, or how many bones she could break with it. A part of me hoped he’d get the chance to find out.
    “You’re home early.” Lena kissed me, careful to keep her oil-covered hands away from my skin. “What’s wrong?”
    “This is Mahefa Issoufaly. Jeff said he could help us to speak with Gerbert d’Aurillac.”
    She frowned and looked at my arm. I didn’t try to hide the Band-Aid near the elbow. There was almost no bruising. He had hit the vein on the first try. The remaining warmth evaporated from Lena’s expression.
    “He’s not a vampire,” I said. “He’s . . . you could probably call him a hematophile.”
    “You make it sound like a medical condition,” Mahefa complained. “Blood magic is just as real and valid an art as your libriomancy.”
    “You let him drink your blood?” Lena’s fingertips pressed into the rake’s handle like it was clay. “And then you brought him here.”
    “His price for helping was a sample of my blood.” I rubbed my arm. I should have said no. Should have told him to go to hell the second he said Lena’s name. Let Jeff find someone else who could help us. “And yours.”
    She took a step back. “I see.”
    “You don’t have to say yes.”
    “What’s wrong, Isaac?” Mahefa asked. “You’ll share your dryad with your friend Doctor Shah, but not with me?”
    “She’s not—”
    “Not what?” He circled Lena, studying her up and down. “She’s certainly not human. Isn’t this why she was created? For men like you and me?”
    Forget saving the world; right now I wanted my magic back so I could turn this loathsome man into a cockroach and drop him in a cage with Smudge. But since I couldn’t do magic, I settled for punching him in the nose.
    He staggered back, eyes watering. Blood dripped from his nostrils. He snarled and started forward, only to find the sharpened tip of the rake handle barring his way.
    “I told you I would ask her,” I said. “I didn’t say anythingabout letting you come to my home and insult the woman I love. You have until the count of five to get off my property.”
    “If you want to speak to your dead man, you’ll let me sample your woman’s blood.”
    “If you want to join my dead man, you’ll keep standing there.” I folded my arms. “One.”
    “Wait,” said Lena. “Isaac, tell me why you need to do this.”
    “Jeneta—”
    “The Porters know about Meridiana and Jeneta,” she interrupted. “You’re not the only person in the world clever enough to make the connection to a dead pope. Why do
you
need to be the one to go chasing answers?”
    It was arrogant as hell to believe I could succeed where the Porters had failed. But then, being one of the few who could use magic to rewrite the universe tended to reinforce both ego and arrogance.
    The problem was that I wasn’t just risking my life. If I died, who and what Lena was could be lost as well. We hoped the book Bi Wei had given her would help to stabilize her identity, to end her dependence on her lovers, but we