Trivia and Ray reentered the circle of stones.

Audubon held a seashell like an old-fashioned microphone. She parted her lips. The cry of a red-tailed hawk echoed across the glade.

Trivia whispered to Ray, "She has a kinship with birds; crows are only her favorite."

"That one better?" Audubon said.

"Good," Roosevelt said.

"Really good," Ray said.

"What are you doing?" Trivia said.

"Saving the forest." Audubon tossed the shell to Wilson. "Play it back."

Wilson looked at her quizzically.

"See if the glamour works, dummy," Audubon said with affection.

Wilson held the sea shell to the side of his head, where his ear ought to have been. Nothing happened.

Audubon frowned.

Wilson shook the sea shell up and down and repeated the gesture.

"Why are you—" Trivia said.

Ray would never know what one thousand red-tailed hawks screaming into his ears sounded like, because all he heard was agony and a hint of cinnamon. The latter was the result of trauma-induced synesthesia. "Oww!"

Audubon clapped with delight.

Trivia massaged her temples.

Roosevelt slowly covered his ears. "Loud," he complained.

Wilson said nothing, because he had been decapitated. His body lay on its side, twitching and jerking. His scarf and glasses lay ten feet away, his trilby twenty, all supported by a writhing, cone-shaped carpet of ants with its apex at Wilson's neckline.

"Wilson!" Ray ran to Wilson's side, taking care not to stomp any ants, and looked helpless.

Audubon giggled into her palm.

"I think he's got a head injury!" Ray said. "Somebody do something! Where's his head?!"

"Get yourself together," Trivia said.

Her callousness shocked Ray. Unable to think poorly of Trivia, he said, "Audubon! What did you do?"

Audubon pointed to her ears and mouthed, "I can't hear you."

Wilson's headless body sat up and patted Ray on the shoulder.

Ray screamed. He fumbled for his cell-phone. "I have to call Byron, he'll know what to do."

"Ray, he's fine." Trivia said. "Get yourself together, Wilson."

The ants formed a flying wedge and charged beneath Wilson's coat. More ants spilled out of his neckline, connecting their bodies into chains and the chains into scaffolding. The structure supported a softball-sized ball which grew larger as more ants glommed onto its surface. When the shape grew large enough to rest upon Wilson's shoulders, the scaffolding came down and Wilson molded it like a child sculpting Play-Doh.

"Wilson?" Ray said. "You okay, buddy?"

Wilson wrapped his thick, grey scarf around his head and replaced his green sunglasses and trilby. He waddled over to his cache of candy, unwrapped the last caramel, and pressed it between the folds of his scarf. "Delicious."

"You have an affinity for ants!" Ray said. "That was you in the Field Unit!"

"Nothing gets by this guy," Audubon said.

"We tried to repay you for the candy," Wilson said.

"Forget about it," Ray said. "Why did you bite me?"

"You bit him?" Trivia said.

"I'm sensing a double standard," Audubon said.

Wilson shuffled his feet. "Ray frightened us. We understand that we are delicious paired with chocolate."

"I wasn't trying to eat you!" Ray said.

Wilson took Ray's hands and bowed low. "Please forgive us."

"No harm done, I was just surprised." Ray pointed to Audubon's seashell. "What's that for?"

"It's part of my plan." Audubon picked the shell up and tossed it to Trivia. "Don't worry, I'll tweak the volume."

Trivia turned the shell over in her hand. "You have a plan?"

Wilson said, "To destroy the King's wards. It's a good plan."

"It's a great plan," Audubon said.

Roosevelt nodded.

"If you take out his wards, you can dethrone him or whatever?" Ray said.

"That's the beauty of it," Audubon said. "One of the beauties; let's not sell myself short."

"No danger of that." Trivia's comment rolled off of Audubon's back.

"We aren't just going to remove him," Audubon said. "We're going to replace him."

"We can't," Trivia said.

"If we leave Frazer's throne empty, Tallahassee will fill it within the hour," Audubon said,

"You can't know that," Trivia said. "It must have been costly to coronate Frazer without the Green's consent."

"I'm sure the price was high," Audubon said. "Can you be sure they won't pay it again? Magi are fools, but even a fool would not create the abomination that killed Linnaeus on a whim. Our enemies are invested."

"She's right, Trivia," Wilson said. "We don't like it any more than you do."

"Why not just replace Frazer?" Ray said.

"There isn't anyone," Trivia said.

"None at all who love the Green?" Audubon said, peering around the glade and over Ray's shoulder. "Have men fallen so far?"

Ray lifted his index finger and cleared his throat.

"There is one," Trivia admitted.

Ray smiled.

"He is strong of arm, and bold as a lion," Trivia said.

Ray put his finger back down.

Audubon grinned at him.

"Then have this lion pluck the Bough," Wilson said.

"I thought the same," Trivia said. "But the Green will not have him. He is an errant champion; a knight of the road, not a spirit of the place. He can serve better if set to wander and spread love of the Green."

"And serve longer," Audubon said.

Trivia scowled.

"Don't tell me you're talking about—" Ray said.

"Never mind that," Audubon said.

"Hold on," Ray said to Trivia. "You love the Green. Why can't you be King?"

"The King must be a man," Trivia said.

"That's sexist as hell. Fine, what about you?" Ray pointed to Roosevelt, who crossed his arms.

"Wilson?" Ray said. "Uh, you are a guy, right?"

Wilson looked thoughtful.

"No one cares about your cloaca, Ray." Audubon rolled her eyes. "Well, Trivia does, but the Green doesn't. Boy parts, girl parts, both parts, none, doesn't matter. When Trivia says man, she means not folk."

"I'm a man," Ray said.

"In this context," Audubon said.

"So I could—" Ray said.

"No," Trivia said.

"But—" Ray said.

"No!" Trivia said.

"What does it take to be King of the Woods?" Ray said to Audubon.

"Ray," Trivia said. "You don't understand what you're asking."

"So tell him!" Audubon held up three talons. "It's just three little things: One, love the Green."

"I do," Ray said, looking at Trivia.

"I know," Trivia said. "You don't have to prove anything. Audubon, that's enough."

"There's something about plucking the Golden Bough, right?" Ray said

"He's clever for a man," Audubon said. "Let's put it to a vote."

"This is not an ochlocracy," Trivia said.

"No, it's a war council," Audubon said, looking at Trivia. "One that you called. I can't make you take my advice, but I want to know where everyone stands. Isn't that how Linnaeus ran things?"

Trivia clenched her teeth. "None of you are soldiers."

"Yet Roosevelt is wounded, and Waldheim is dead," Audubon said. "Tallahassee doesn't care whether we're soldiers. We have a right to be heard."

Trivia looked at Roosevelt and Wilson, and saw that she stood alone.

"I am junior, so I shall begin," Audubon said. "We should coronate Ray as King of the Woods."

She raised Ray's arm, like a referee signaling a victor. "All those in favor."

"It's not your decision," Trivia said. "It's the Green's."

"Glad you agree," Audubon said, reaching for Ray's forearm with her free hand.

"Don't!" Trivia said.

Ray felt a sharp pinch on the inside of his wrist.

Trivia leapt past him with her knee raised. It struck Audubon's chin, making a sound like the crack of a baseball bat.

Audubon stumbled back and raised her hand to yield. Her index talon glistened with blood, but Trivia seemed unharmed.

That's curious, Ray thought.

Trivia punched Audubon in the throat.

Audubon fell to her hands and knees, wheezing or laughing.

Ray felt something wet roll off his finger tip and looked down. A widening crimson line traced from his wrist to the inside of his elbow. 

"Oh," he said. 

It seemed like an awful lot of blood.