Once the Gate Lords were secure and yelling curses in voices that shook with terror, Briar plucked weapons from helpless fingers, placing them in a heap out of harm’s way. “Be good, children,” he told his captives. “I won’t be but a minute.”

He rested his palms on the wooden door to the Vipers’ den and called to a memory deep inside it, one of growth and strength, not dead endurance. It wrenched itself off its hinges, falling to one side as it groaned, creaked, protested, and sank new roots deep in the ground. Branches forced their way out of planed boards. The Vipers might find another den one day, but it would not be this one, not when Briar was finished.

Just before he passed through the open frame, he threw his second damp packet into the room beyond. With it he sent another surge of magic.

Vipers charged as he walked out of the bright street and into the lamplit shadows of the den. They’d been preparing for the Gate Lords’ attack. They had their own weapons in hand, including lead-weighted blackjacks. The contents of Briar’s seed packet dug into the bare dirt floor unnoticed as the Vipers closed on him.

Mind the lamps, he ordered silently as his seeds began to grow. They burn.

Vines wriggled around and past the lamps like green snakes, reaching with eager tendrils to snare human beings. Briar ducked a swinging punch from the nearest Viper and called three vines to trap the youth’s arms: it wasn’t that he couldn’t or didn’t want to punch back, but that Evvy came first. The smoky, garbage-scented air of the cellar changed as more vines sprouted and threw out leaves. Briar took a deep breath of cleaner air and faced the boy who had tried to punch him. It was Yoru, the short black Viper. He was now bound in a web of green ropes, gasping for breath. A bloodstained rag was wrapped around his forehead.

Briar pulled away the stem that clutched Yoru’s throat, letting him breathe. “Sorry to interrupt that war you started with the Gate Lords,” he said with false good manners. “Tell me where Evvy is and I’ll let you get back to it.”

The other boy spat in his face. Briar grimaced, wiped the spittle on his sleeve, and ordered the vines to hang the Viper upside down. They grew, anchoring themselves on the posts that supported the building above, taking Yoru with them. Briar went to the next Viper, and the next. Those who didn’t spit on him cursed him. By the time he’d reached the far door, the vines had borne fruit: a crop of dangling, trapped Vipers.

Briar stepped across the doorsill into the next cellar. It looked to be the room where they slept: mattresses and sacking beds lay on the floor. The front room vines were already here, snaring the feet of any Vipers present. Briar, tired of being polite, took a crimson packet out, wet it, and tossed it onto the floor. Thin, whippy vines punctuated with hooked thorns jumped from the seeds as they sank roots in the dirt floor.

A Viper rushed Briar from the side. Briar dropped to his knees and grabbed the gang youth’s arm, using his leverage to toss his foe into the wall. The Viper hit with a grunt, the wind knocked out of him. Before he could sit up, Briar was on his chest. His knees dug into the fallen youth’s ribcage as he held a knife to his throat.

“You people took Evvy. I want her back,” Briar told the youth softly. He sent a command to the nearest rose. A thorny vine lashed out to furl itself around one of the Viper’s hands, forcing him to drop the knife he’d meant to stick into Briar’s ribs. “You didn’t answer,” Briar chided. “Stabbing isn’t an answer.” The youth looked at the room beyond them, his eyes wide at the sight of his friends battling with vines and roses. Briar gripped his chin and forced his captive to look at him. “Now harken to me. She’s ten, skinny, has Yanjing blood in her, and she’s my student. Where is she?”

“Threaten all you like,” the youth retorted breathlessly. “Torture us, kill us —”

“Why would I do any such thing?” Briar inquired. “What I will do is leave you Vipers wrapped up tight. That way you just stay here until the locals come to laugh at you. If laughing’s what they feel like. They might just want to get back at you for every bruise, broken jar, and free meal you took from them.”

The youth glared at him and clamped his lips shut.

With a sigh Briar left him for the roses and walked into the third room of the den, which filled the cellars of several houses. Its cook-fires were already hemmed by tall green weeds that had felt his magic and sprouted from the dirt floor. The room was empty of Vipers. He saw a pot of boiling water, overturned teacups and bowls, and oddly enough, a tumble of stones that appeared to have exploded from the wall. He smiled grimly at the stones: it had to be Evvy’s work. She was a fighter. She wouldn’t let these idiots treat her like a helpless kitten.

This was the final room in the hideout. The only other door in here opened to the world outside. Briar frowned and groped for his connection to Evvy. It led through the door and — southeast? Southeast. Toward Justice Rock or Fortress Rock.

Or toward Lady Zenadia.

Sheer spite made him waken the back door, helping the dead oak to return to life. By the time its growth slowed to normal, both it and the front door tree would be large enough to bar the entrances permanently. As long as the vines planted here could get runners into the sun, the den would be filled with a thorny tangle of greenery that would not take kindly to any attempt to clear it out. He and Rosethorn had thought that was fair, when they crafted plants that would be in danger of hurt from the moment they put out runners. They had given them a strong hold on life, to thank their creations for defending them first.