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I looked up for the first time, scanning the boughs of the trees that shaded either side of the path.

The branches were thick with birds. Some perched silently, while others preened their feathers. A few appeared to be sleeping. There were numerous types of owls, but the only ones I could recognize were the spotted and the great-horned variety. The others came in varying shapes: compact and gray, oblong and white, masked, variegated, and pygmy-sized. Some had amber eyes, while others had eyes that resembled bottomless pools of black liquid.

The owls occupied the highest branches, and smaller nocturnal birds, like nighthawks and frog-mouths, clung to the lower branches. The nighthawks shook their white-banded tail feathers at me. I felt chastised.

“Should we be asking their permission to be here?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Lucian replied.

“I was kidding.”

“The Striga have their own court here, along with the other fowls. They watch over the gardens and hunt prey.”

“Like mice? Or humans?”

“Sometimes both.”

“Right.” I gave them what I hoped was a polite smile.

“Well, I’m sure they’re doing a fabulous job.”

“Wait until you see the night bugs. They work twice as hard.”

“I’m not sure I want to know exactly what that means.”

Lucian chuckled. “Just follow me. You’ll see.”

We came to a walled-in grove with a fountain at its center. The fountain was made of a glossy black material that could have been hematite, but I wasn’t sure. It almost looked like polished obsidian. It was shaped like a giant lotus. Night lilies floated within it, their petals so narrow and sharp that they looked like porcelain knives. They drifted with the movement of the dark water.

Seeing the flowers made me think of Lucian’s tattoo, and I was struck once again by how closely it resembled a real flower.

“How many different types of lily are there?” I asked.

He smiled slightly. “Lilium belongs to a large family. There are red Martagon lilies, Tiger lilies, yellow Bosnian lilies—” He frowned. “Some of them I only know by their names in Spanish. Llilácea.

Azucena. Lirio mariposa

. Those are the kind that butterflies like best. And ninfea.” He gestured to the fountain. “This is the nightblooming water lily, or lirio de agua. That’s my family’s flower.”

I looked at him strangely. “Family? Do you mean like uncles and cousins who live in Trinovantum?”

I’d thought his family was long dead. The idea that I might have to attend a necromantic family re-union made me start sweating immediately, despite the moist, chill air that pervaded gardens.

“More like antepasades. Ancestors. But they’re connected by tradition rather than strict heredity.

Certain families have cultivated certain powers, and that includes particular styles and secrets for using necromancy.”

“What’s yours like?”

“My family? Or my style?”

“Both.”

He gently touched one of the floating lilies. It may have been a trick of the dim light, but I thought I saw a strand of white vapor move between his finger and the flower. I could feel a subtle type of energy connecting them, not precisely what I would have recognized as necroid materia. Although we could barely even recognize that. It was as different from elemental materia as dark matter was from the regular variety.

“Lilium is an old family,” he said. “Proud, but not impervious. We’ve nearly been wiped out on more than one occasion, but we always seem to survive.”

“And what sorts of things do you specialize in?”

“That’s a trade secret.”

“Come on.”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell you everything, Tess. You’re not even supposed to be here. If Lord Nightingale hadn’t granted his permission, you wouldn’t have made it through the front gates.”

“Is he like the head gardener?”

“You could say that. He rules the Dark Parliament.”

“Does that make him one of your cousins?”

“No. He’s Vespertine. All of the flowers in his family are poisonous, and that includes datura.”

“So I shouldn’t shake his hand.”

He actually looked startled. “Absolutely not. Don’t touch him, even if he invites you to. And don’t eat anything he gives you.”

“This is starting to sound like a fairy tale.”

“Trinovantum is an old city, with old politics and traditions. You may find it easier to be here than most mages, because you have an affinity for earth materia. But what you call necroid materia is very different. It’s toxic, unless you know how to use it. And you don’t.”

I nodded. “Sure. I don’t really want strange men touching me anyway.”

“It’s not that you can’t touch him. You just probably shouldn’t.” His expression was curious. “Lord Nightingale exerts a certain influence over people. Physical contact only makes that influence more powerful. It’s best to keep your distance.”

“I thought nightingales were sweet little birds that liked to sing.”

“They are. But they’re also very determined. In medieval legends, the nightingale sang most sweet-ly when her heart was pierced by a thorn. She was willing to sacrifice herself in order to sing a perfect note.”

“That’s beautiful. And scary.”

“You’ve just described Trinovantum. It’s both of those things.”

“But I haven’t actually seen a city yet. Just gardens.”

“You will. They’re both connected.”

We came to a thick hedge that was spotted with white blooms. Lucian gestured, and I felt a subtle wave of necroid materia stir around him, almost like a breeze. Shadows flickered along the surface of the hedge, and the leaves drew back, forming a narrow entrance. Lucian stepped through it, and I followed.

On the other side of the hedge was a small square of dark soil, enclosed by a glass wall. The wall was only about four feet high, but the threads of glowing necroid materia that coursed along its surface were warning enough to anyone: Don’t touch.

The flowers planted in the soil were white and brittle. As I looked closer, I realized that they weren’t flowers at all, but rather skeletons of flowers. The petals were made of bone, and the leaves were a kind of ash-colored tendon, a black tissue that must have terminated in unimaginable roots. The flowers remained still despite the wind, their stiff, osseous petals looking more like spiked cactuses.

“They look like fossils,” I said.

“They are. Each of those flowers is extinct. All that’s left are the bones, but even they have a trace of power left in them.”

“Like undead perennials?”

“Basically. Some of them you might recognize. Those Hawaiian lobelias have been extinct since the nineteenth century.” He pointed to a group of extremely delicate floral skeletons in the back of the row. “Those are from the Palaeozoic Era. The stringy ones that look like algae are Cambrian flora.

Next to them, with the sphenophyte bulbs on each branch, are Cooksonia.”

“So this is where flowers go when they die?”

“These have been collected over time. Most extinct flowers are simply gone, but we’ve managed to preserve some of them in fossilized form. We call this place the Bone Garden. As long as the plants stay in this soil, they can’t ever decompose completely.”

I shook my head. “You know, I always thought that necromancy was about destroying cellular structures and tearing apart systems. Like chaos theory. But this place is full of life. It’s like an ecol-ogist’s wet dream.”

“Necromancy is a natural force,” Lucian said, “like entropy. When a system expands, it loses heat.

The same goes for the universe. On a planetary level, death makes room for new life.”

“Does that make you like a Venus flytrap?” I grinned. “A killer plant?”

He smiled as well. “Maybe. Our power is linked to the earth, like yours. Only, your earth materia functions as a result of photosynthesis, mytosis, convection, and other biological forces that make life possible. Necroid materia comes from things that are already dead: compost, cadaverine, pu-trescine, necrotic tissue, and decay. Even the heat produced by maggots invading a dead body can be converted into necroid power.”

“Romantic.”

“Isn’t it?” He placed a hand lightly on the small of my back. “Keep walking. These are the suburbs.

We’re about to reach Trinovantum proper.”

I noticed that the cats had mostly disappeared. “What happened to our feline entourage?” I asked.

“They tend to stay in the outer gardens. Most of these plants are toxic to them, and the birds roost close to the entrance. That’s their primary entertainment.”

We came abruptly to a body of water. It wasn’t exactly a lake, but it was large and dark, receding in-to shadows. Water lilies drifted across its surface. The stone path terminated at the edge of the water.

“This is the Flood,” Lucian said. “It’s like a moat that encircles the city. Living things aren’t supposed to be able to cross it, but you’ve been given Lord Nightingale’s dispensation. So you should be fine.”

I glared at him. “Should be?”

Lucian winked. “No seas preocupada. Just let me summon the ferry.”

He held his hand over the surface of the water. I felt another wave of necroid materia, and red vapor swirled between his fingers. The water lily nearest him began to tremble. Then it swelled in size, growing until it resembled a floral vessel. The petals shimmered and turned translucent, becoming like glass, or ice. The flower was now just large enough to hold both of us.

“Hop on,” he said.

“Is it seaworthy?”

“Of course.”

We both stepped onto the surface of the flower, which trembled slightly beneath our weight, but was still surprisingly firm. It began to drift along the surface of the water, moving at stately pace.

“This is my first time traveling by flower,” I said.

“And how do you like it?”

“Better than the skytrain, so far.”

I could see lights and indistinct shapes along the edges of the lake. As we drew closer, I realized that the lights were coming from massive trees. Each tree had a structure nestled within its roots, a building made of glass, iron, and polished stone. Some of them looked like temples, while others more closely resembled greenhouses.

The trees themselves were enormous. Points of colored light moved within their leaves, winking in the darkness. Once we were close enough to them, I saw that the lights were actually gemstones, which hung from the boughs like pendulous fruit.

There were diamond trees, sapphire trees, amethyst trees, and other gems that weren’t immediately familiar. Some were black with green veins—chrysoberyl, maybe? Others were striated or multicolored. A cluster of bejeweled apples, much darker than rubies, had to be carbuncles. We passed by what looked like a topaz tree, and I watched in fascination as the glow of the gemstones struck the glass surface of the structure beneath them, making it seem to burn with amber light from within.

“This is the Grove of Souls,” Lucian said, his voice hushed. “Each tree belongs to a different family, and yields a unique gemstone.”

“Where’s your family tree?”

“Right there.” He pointed to an emerald tree, whose gems were bright and oblong, almost pear-shaped. “The gemstones are the souls of my ancestors. They hold the collective memory of Lilium.”

“Are the souls—” I frowned. “I mean—”

“They’re alive, in a sense,” he said. “But they’re more like memories. We learn from them, but they don’t communicate in any kind of straightforward manner.”

“What are those buildings underneath?”

“Family arboretums. Sort of like a cross between a mausoleum and a conservatory. You can go there to be alone, or to pay respect to your ancestors. They’re full of family history.”

We passed the final row of trees. For a while, it was impossible to tell if we were moving at all, since the water was so dark and still. It felt like we were penetrating into the heart of some uncreated universe, something dormant and immense.

Then I started to hear sounds. Metal striking metal, voices, and a low buzzing whose source I couldn’t identify. We seemed to pass through a nebulous wall of shadow, which felt like spiderwebs against my face and hands. Beyond the outer layer of darkness, a high wall emerged from the water.

It was white and smooth.

I realized that it was made of bone.

A portal was set into the wall—two massive doors, also made of bone. The surface was so smooth and burnished that I could see a distorted version of my reflection within it. Stone embrasures had been set into notches within the bone at regular intervals, casting shaky firelight. The wall seemed uncomfortably alive.

“We’re here,” Lucian said. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Is there anything I can say to reassure you?”

“I doubt it.”

He smiled. “All right, then. Welcome to Trinovantum.”

The gates began to open. I took a deep breath.

Suddenly, the Bone Garden, with its haunted fossils, seemed comforting.

We walked through the gates and stepped into the middle of a crowded square. Kiosks and tables had been set up everywhere, and I could smell a hundred different things. Some of them smelled amazing, and others worried me slightly, but I couldn’t exactly say why. Most of the customers browsing the tables wore black, but some wore gray, and a few didn’t seem to be dressed at all.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell with paranormal species, though.

“This is the Night Market,” Lucian said. “Really, just the market, since it’s always night here.”

“Wow. It’s bigger than the one in Richmond.”

“You can get almost anything here, but whatever you buy is native to the city. It can only leave Trinovantum for a short time before it vanishes.”

“Like the Vorpal gauntlet?”

He nodded. “Even in your lab, under controlled conditions, it won’t last for more than a few days.

No amount of magic can slow down its deterioration.”

I saw too many things to even mentally absorb, let alone describe. Black woven tapestries hanging from steel racks, with silver thread that trembled and rewove itself every second, as if playing a film. A produce stand filled with black watermelons, tomatoes, and gourds. They were so shiny, they looked like beetle shells. I wondered if their seeds were white instead of black. What did their juice look like? Congealed blood, maybe, or tinted sangría.