This time, Ray's body was that of a young boy, perhaps seven years old, but lean for his age and long-limbed. He wore rough-spun clothes in shades of green and brown. Leaves, twigs, acorns, and pinecones littered the ground beneath his bare feet, but there was not a single tree in sight. A score of other children danced and swayed their arms in the wind.

A young girl with plaited hair and a shawl of moss ran past him singing. A boy held yellow flowers in his outstretched hand; bumblebees buzzed between his fingers, but he did not flinch. Another girl with knobby knees shrieked as a squirrel ran up her leg. It zipped around her back, perched on her shoulder, and pulled an acorn from behind her ear.

"Come, children," said a man with a powerful voice. It took Ray a moment to recognize Roosevelt without his scars.

The children ran to Roosevelt, and Ray followed; he was only a passenger—a witness. The thought troubled him. "Hey. Roosevelt," he said. As with Linnaeus, he received no response.

"I will eat you up!" Laughing, Roosevelt lifted one of the boy's shirts and blew on his stomach.

Something crackled in the distance. Something growled.

"What's this?" Roosevelt said. A horizontal slash of orange paint marred the boy's stomach. Curious, the other children lifted their shirts. All bore the mark, including Ray.

"I know what this is!" Ray shouted to anyone, or anything, that would listen. "I already know what's going to happen!"

"Behind me." Roosevelt stood ten feet tall. Ray took it for a trick of the child's perspective, but how could twenty or more children stand in one man's shade?

The growl grew louder, accompanied by sputtering engines.

"Come!" Roosevelt said. "Try your teeth on my hide! I'll make jelly of your bones!" The sound of chainsaws receded. The children, and Ray, cheered. But the sky turned orange, and the air grew hot, and the terrible thing drew near, heralded by ammonia, rotting meat, and burning tires.

"I don't need to see this!" Ray said. "I already know!"

Ray had only smelled the King's wards before. Thanks to the Golden Bough, he saw clearly and wished that he could not. The creature was a violation. Crouching on its haunches, it measured two meters tall and at least as wide; shelves of grey lichen armored its shoulders and upper back. Its abdomen was bilious yellow and pierced by writhing, thorny vines; translucent liquid wept from the wounds, giving the creature's skin an amphibious sheen. But long, fur-trimmed limbs and powerful hands marked it as a primate. Its cheek flaps made its head look like a sideways egg, and its jaw hung open, unable to fully contain its misshapen teeth. Once, some part of it had been an orangutan. Its eyes had shone with intelligence, until its creators put them out and forced blazing embers in their place.

He recalled a fragment of a poem by Theodore Roethke:

Mother me out of here. What more with the bones allow?

Will the sea give the wind suck? A toad folds into a stone.

These flowers are all fangs. Comfort me, fury.

Wake me, witch, we'll do the dance of rotten sticks.

Ray named the mad creature after the mad poem: "The Shape of the Fire."

Roosevelt's bravado melted before it, giving way to panic, then resignation. He removed a heavy, silver coin from his pocket, marked with an owl, and squeezed it in his palm. "Run, children. I cannot defeat this foe."

"We cannot," the children said; they were immature folk, trapped in their vessels.

Raising his fists, Roosevelt faced the Shape of the Fire. "Come! Fight!"

"You'll lose," Ray said. "You already lost. I don't need to see it!"

The Shape of the Fire howled not in challenge, but in agony. It was beyond threats— beyond cruelty, as cruel a thing as it was—and beyond fighting. It looked at Roosevelt no differently than the children he protected.

They all burned the same.

--

"The Shape of the Fire," Ray murmured. The beads of sweat on his face skittered and jumped.

Trivia felt his forehead. "He's burning up."

She wriggled her toes in the dirt. Groundwater squeezed to the surface. She directed the water into her cupped hands, which she brought to Ray's lips.

He spat the water out. His lips cracked and blistered, and his skin reddened. He screamed.

"He's being attacked," Trivia said. She drew more water to cool him.

"By what?" Audubon said.

"The Shape of the Fire," Ray cried.

The earth shook. Trivia did not reach for her bow; Roosevelt's footsteps were distinctive.

He knelt at Ray's side. "King's wards. Burning."

"Ray called out Frazer," Audubon said. "It must be attacking along the sympathetic connection he created."

Trivia shook her head. "The King and the challenger face each other as men. No magic can interfere."

Ray screamed in pain. Trivia squeezed his hand. He did not respond.

"You may not have noticed," Audubon said, "but our enemies don't follow the rules."

"This rule cannot be broken. Perhaps the Green has rejected him." Trivia had not meant to sound hopeful.

Audubon gave her a contemptuous look. "Perhaps the Golden Bough requires more time to work its magic. We will wait and see."

"I've waited long enough." Trivia stood. Familiar weights formed in her grip and on her back—her bow and quiver. Her soul.

"If you're doing what I think you are, it's a spectacularly bad idea." Audubon squinted at Trivia's hands.

"It can't hurt him if it's focused on me," Trivia said. She whistled for Rex.

Rushing off to fight the Shape of the Fire would compound grief into suicide. But Linnaeus and Waldheim and countless others had died, and Trivia had lost Ray twice, and she could not endure another moment with Audubon without tearing off her wings and legs and hurling her smug face into the Styx. Trivia had never borne grief well. Like Achilles, she preferred battle rage, and her weakest point lay in her heart not her heel. She would not stand idle while her Patroclus slow-roasted on a pyre.

"Keep him cool," she said to Roosevelt.

"I fight," Roosevelt said.

Trivia shook her head. "I"—Rex barked, announcing his arrival—"We hunt alone."

--

The King's wards loomed larger than before. Foul magic bubbled from his fortress like a cauldron, spilling decay onto a shallow moat of black asphaltum. The trees on the periphery rotted from the inside, and patches of grass wilted before her eyes. Men were more oblivious than she had thought, if they could work amidst such evil.

Rex barked furiously at the corrupted structure. A tide of magical energy flowed across the asphaltum carrying the scent of rotting meat and burning tires. The dog snarled and bared its teeth just out of reach.

"Come out and fight," Trivia said, loosing an arrow at a window.

The tide retracted, forming a semi-solid shell over the building. Her arrow penetrated a couple meters but fell short of the window glass. She loosed two more at opposite sides of the building, but the wards stopped both.

Rex cocked his head at her.

"A siege calls for greater weapons." She dismissed her bow and approached a dead pine tree. The ambient magic coated the bark with a sickly, soapy residue. At her command, the branches shriveled and dropped away. She linked her fingers around the trunk—it was too wide for a palm-to-palm grip—and ripped it free of the ground with a grunt. The oversized caber steadied against her shoulder.

Rex sat on his haunches and wagged his tail.

"It's not for you, silly," Trivia said. She ran towards the field unit and hurled the caber end over end towards the field unit's front door.

The wards blinked out of existence. The Shape of the Fire appeared in their place. Its eyes blazed and the air shimmered. The caber burst in to flame, then to cinders with one swing of the creature's ape-like fist.

Rex's hackles rose. He circled to the Shape of the Fire's rear, staying low to the ground.

The creature swept its gaze across the moat. The embers in its eyes glowed brighter. The air warped, distorting the creature's image, and the fortress's, like a flawed mirror.

"Watch for the heat shimmer," Trivia said, leaping aside. The asphaltum beneath where she had stood boiled in a line traceable to the Shape of the Fire's eyes.

The creature pounded its knuckles and barreled towards her on all fours.

She circled aside, turning it away from Rex, and fired an arrow into its sagging abdomen.

The creature howled in pain.

Rex leapt onto its back, but shelves of grey lichen protected its spine from the dog's snapping jaws.

The creature reached for Rex. Trivia took advantage of the opening, firing at the creature's exposed chest. The arrows pierced through the creature, leaving holes that Trivia could see through. Translucent slime spilled from the wounds.

Rex leapt clear, assuaging Trivia's fear that she had shot him. He harried the Shape of the Fire, tearing at its hamstring.

The creature splayed out on its belly like a toad and rested in a puddle of its lifeblood.

Keeping her distance, Trivia walked in front of the creature. Its armored upper back and prone position left no clear shot at its vitals, save through the top of its head.

Seemingly anticipating her attack, the Shape of the Fire buried its head in its hands and pulled its elbows and knees beneath it. The puddle of slime beneath its belly receded, and the holes in its back sealed shut.

"Care! It's healing," Trivia said. The creature was a part of the Green, after all. She readied an arrow. If the creature moved, she would have a target.

Rex whined.

The creature raised its head to gaze at Trivia. Her arrow sailed through the shimmering air. She threw herself to the side before seeing whether it struck. A shrub burst into flames behind her.

Trivia rolled to her feet and whirled around. The Shape of the Fire had vanished.

Rex barked a warning. Above!

The Shape of the Fire did not merely look like a toad, it leapt like one. The amphibious meteorite smashed Trivia flat, pinning her between its bilious yellow stomach and a crater of broken asphaltum.

Rex leapt to her aid. The creature slapped him aside. He bounced twice and lay still, drawing ragged breaths.

Trivia struggled to free herself. The creature's slime ate into her skin, and the thorny vines protruding from its abdomen sought purchase in hers. Unable to escape the vines, she wrapped them around her arm and yanked.

The creature jerked back enough for Trivia to shift onto her hip, freeing one arm. It bared its misshapen teeth and howled. Ropey, caustic spittle showered her face. Its eyes blazed only inches from hers. The air warped.

Unable to turn her head, Trivia slammed left hooks into the Shape of the Fire's egg-shaped face. Her blows shattered its teeth and diverted its fiery gaze. The asphaltum bubbled all around her, but she didn't burn.

The creature shrieked pitiably.

Trivia kept punching its lacerated gums until its jaw broke apart. New teeth split her knuckles; the creature regenerated faster than she could hurt it. She shifted her hips away out from underneath the creature and kicked it away.

It rolled over one of the small, stone obelisks laid in rows across the asphaltum moat and flattened a metal sign. Rising to all fours, it bared misshapen, but intact, teeth.

"How do I kill you?" Trivia asked.

The Shape of the Fire howled back, echoing her frustration.

The wind carried a scent message: "Return to us. Ray's fever has broken." Roosevelt spoke eloquently in his native tongue; he'd combined the fragrance note for 'man' with that of Ray's brand of colored pencils.

Trivia grinned. The creature had broken off its attack on Ray. The thing feared her, or at least respected her. Somehow she would kill it, but not yet and not bare-handed.

"Rex! We're leaving!" She charged the Shape of the Fire. The air shimmered. At the last moment, she threw herself beneath its gaze and drop-kicked its arms.

The creature's forearms shattered. Groaning, it toppled onto its face.

Trivia rolled to her feet. She curb-stomped the Shape of the Fire once for good measure, ran to pick up her dog, and carried him to safety underneath her arm.

--

Ray screamed and inhaled to scream again. The air was cool and moist. He had returned to the mushroom forest.

"What did you see?" Byron had finished his workout and returned to his perch and his bong. His caterpillar abdomen was no more toned than before.

"Jesus," Ray said, wiping his eyes.

"No shit?"

"I mean I saw kids. Jesus."

"Can a brother get some context?"

Ray slumped against the squishy wall of Byron's tiki hut. "A lot of the trees that Frazer burned down had folk trapped inside them. They don't die easy, even when they're young. They suffered."

"Damn," Byron said.

"It's not going to stop, is it?" Ray said. "I don't know if Frazer knows what he's doing, or if he can see what I can, but wherever he goes, people suffer."

Byron bared his teeth. "Can I bite him? I hope I'm poisonous."

"You're thinking centipedes again. If he picks you up he might get a nasty rash."

"No dude's gonna pick me up."

"Wait," Ray said. "You know what I know. Why am I telling you this?"

"You just saw a bunch of kids burned alive," Byron said. "If you didn't leave me here smoking a ton of weed, you'd probably drive yourself crazy." He took a hit for emphasis.

Ray's eyes widened. "But what if weed is self-aware? All this I'm trying to stop Frazer, but I've burned more plants than he ever will. What if I killed Mary Jane!"

Byron blew a smoke cloud shaped like a flexed bicep. "If I know one thing, it's that weed wants to be smoked. I burn weed, but I love weed. I kill the thing I love, but I nurture it. It's the circle of life, bro."

"Don't give me that Lion King bullshit," Ray said.

Byron gave him a blank expression.

"No Disney movies, right," Ray said. "I just mean that it's easy to talk about death when you've never smelled it. When you've never heard the screams."

"Hey!" Byron waved his forelimbs frantically. "Hey! What did I say about driving yourself crazy? New topic."

Ray sighed. "Okay, go ahead."

Byron pat the mushroom he sat upon. "I want to know something about your girl.

"That won't help," Ray said, clambering up next to Byron. "I screwed that one up, too."

"Just tell me," Byron said. "Does she have gnarly '70s bush or what? Do you look like Abraham Lincoln when you're going down on her?"

"What?!" Ray turned red. "You asshole."

Byron grinned. "Well?"

"Let's just say I need to buy a top hat," Ray said, "and stay the fuck away from theaters."

Byron laughed until he cried. Ray did too, but he kept crying. Byron draped some of his thoracic legs around Ray's shoulder.

"She's a murderer," Ray said. "And I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her."

"Can you blame her, after seeing what you saw?" Byron said.

"I treated her like she's a monster," Ray said, "and she says she loves me, and I don't know how I'm supposed to feel."

"I got this," Byron said. "You know how in the Hulk, David Banner was always going from town to town, helping people, and everyone's like, holy crap, it's yoked-up Lou Ferrigno with contact lenses? He's doing his best, but they're shit-scared of him, and at the end of the episode he's walking, and that sad music is playing, and he's doing this." He extended one of his legs.

"What's that?" Ray said.

"Pretend I have thumbs, man," Byron said. "Dude has to hitch-hike. It's lonely."

"I don't see what any of this has to do with Trivia."

"Yeah you do," Byron said. "You just don't want to admit it. Think of Western movies where the nameless gunslinger rolls into town shooting bad guys. Killing is ugly work. Some people need to die, but even if it's justified, killing takes a toll on a man. That's why, in a lot of those movies, there's a young woman — a whore, let's be real — but somehow she's still innocent and beautiful and everything that's right with the world. The killing is awful, but at least she exists. She's someone worth protecting."

"I don't see Trivia that way!"

Byron gave Ray a look that said, "Come on, buddy. You can do it."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

Ray groaned. "I'm the hooker with a heart of gold."