She opened her eyes.

Her room. Walls of irregular stone, dark with age, no door or window allowing exit. An ornate rug, handwoven, on the floor. Her four-poster bed of dark wood with curtains of transparent silk in pastel blue. Her table. Her doll. The silvery mirror the height of a man on the far wall. The dress she wore, heavy but somehow not hot, not cumbersome. All hers.

Gabrielle’s.

But she remembered Gaby, too. There was no conflict; the memories fit together like lovers’ fingers intertwining. She smiled in sudden delight. She’d found her missing sister at last.

She listened for certain names, for specific voices. Eventually she found them.

“Goodsir Blackletter, we were attacked . . . -plete success. Goodsir Powrie has been to see a . . . left Siluston in that flying boat . . . dead, but Roundcap still lives . . . the storm cloud?”

She tried to make an eye open where she heard the voice, but there was no eye. They were speaking over a voice-only set. She could not hear any reply. She could not clear up the transmission; words went missing ­despite her best effort, and the pressure in her head increased. It distracted her, annoyed her.

“Gabrielle.” Doc’s voice. That eye she could open, and did. She saw the mirror brighten, her own reflection fade. Then, through it, she saw herself, dressed as Gaby; her eyes were closed. Doc was beside her, concern on his face.

“Gabrielle, you need to come out. I think you’re hurting yourself.”

“You can call me Gaby. I remember everything.”

“Gaby, just come out now.”

“I don’t want to. I’m just getting it right.”

“Do it.”

“Not yet!” Anger flashed through her.

She heard a shattering noise. Doc disappeared.

She couldn’t open that eye again. Uh-oh. She sighed, closed her eyes, and relaxed her hold on her surroundings. She felt them slip away. The floor rocked and she felt the sofa appear beneath her.

And the odd pressure inside her head resolved itself into pain, a solid steel spike of hurt driven deep into her brain. She cried out, clutched her head, tried to curl up into a ball. The pain wouldn’t let go.

She felt Doc hold her and heard him speak her name, softly, insistently. Finally the spike of pain began to withdraw. “I’m all right, I’m all right,” she said.

“You are not. You’ve dangerously extended yourself. I want you to promise me that you won’t do that again unless I’m around.”

She straightened in spite of the hurt. She looked him in the eye. “No.”

His face registered surprise. “Well. Will you at least take it under advisement?”

In spite of the pain, she grinned. “That much I’ll do.”

Then she saw the talk-box.

It was ruined. The glass of the tube was scattered in tiny pieces on the floor before it; Gaby found pieces on her legs and in her lap. The electronic elements behind were blackened and melted. “What the hell happened to that?”

“I think you did.”

They sighted Neckerdam after dawn the following day. Alastair reported that friends of the Sidhe Foundation had visited Omphalia in Panelassion, the second of Caster’s three sites; Harris remembered Panelassion being the fair world’s Greece. The Sidhe Foundation men found the same sort of Cabinet-henge arrangement there, abandoned; the ceremony was completed, the second link to the grim world cut.

Harris decided not to return to the forward cabin for the Neckerdam landing. The shade of Jean-Pierre might be waiting there for him. He stayed in the lounge and, through its windows, watched the landing, then the refuel­ing and reprovisioning that followed.

Workmen of the Sidhe Foundation came with a coffin for Jean-Pierre. Harris saw Doc go outside and ­issue them orders. They brought the casket aboard. A few minutes later they left with it, carrying it like pallbearers.

The last of Jean-Pierre. Harris waved good-bye from behind a small round window.

Other men brought new stores, more weapons, additional ammunition, books requested by Doc and Caster Roundcap. Harris asked for a welding torch; Alastair told him the lab was already fitted with one.

Harris checked the map in the lab cabin and found their destination: the nation of Aluxia. Alastair had pronounced it “Alushia.” It sprawled across what on the grim world would have been Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize.

Doc came back aboard with a man and woman. He introduced Harris to Ladislas and Welthow, pilots ­employed by the Foundation—“Aboard,” Doc said, “so Noriko and the rest of the pilots can get some rest ­instead of being bound to the cockpit.”

The new pilots both wore battered leather bomber-style jackets—his black, hers red.

Ladislas, whom Doc said was from faraway Dacisperia, was a head shorter than Harris but had a firm grip. His dark hair, pale complexion, and the point to his ears gave him a sinister aspect. He obviously enjoyed it, and cultivated a smile full of both charm and menace. He spoke with a heavy accent full of rolling R’s: “I understand some of you are learning to fly. Perhaps we will find out if the Frog Prince is capable of an outside loop.”

Alastair said, “Perhaps we will find out if you can pass through spinning propellers without being hurt.”

Welthow, nicknamed Welthy, was a head shorter than Ladislas. Her hair was blond, twined into a waist-length braid. She had muscles like a cat and a grin that suggested she’d just been at the cream. Harris decided that she looked like pure sex in a compact frame. He was surprised that he felt like noticing. “Ignore Ladislas,” she said. “He’s crashed in every outside loop he’s tried. Won’t rest until he gets it right.”

Doc got them and their gear squared away.

Through the windows, Harris saw the mechanics shake their heads over the engines, but by midmorning the Frog Prince was airborne.

When the others came back to the lounge or the bunks after seeing the takeoff show, Harris waved Joseph over. “Do you know how to use a welder?”

“I do.”

“Would you help me put something together? I have a kind of a sick toy in mind. Something that will give one of Duncan’s men fits.”

“With such a goal, I would be happy to help.”

Gaby sat with Doc in front of the replacement talk-box and learned everything she could about talk-boxes.

There were four types. Singles could only receive sound. Doubles could send and receive sound. Triples could receive sound and pictures. Quadruples, like most of the ones scattered through Doc’s headquarters, could send and receive sound and pictures. Most of the triples and quadruples in existence, and most of the broadcasts for them, were black-and-white, but color was available—just very expensive.

Each talk-box could receive signals two ways, from the Ether or the Grid.

The Grid was a network of cables stretching to many parts of the world. It was used mostly for two-way communications, like the telephone system she was used to. But most parts of the Grid could handle full sound and picture transmissions. Two people with quadruples set up on the Grid could talk to one another’s TV images.

The Ether seemed to be radio/TV broadcast transmissions. It was made up mostly of entertainment and news programming, but certain portions were set aside for communications between talk-boxes not set up on the Grid. These included the devices installed in the cockpit of the Frog Prince and the bridges of liftships—what the fair­worlders called zeppelins and blimps—and ships at sea.

There was still a third arrangement, enjoyed by the talk-box in the lounge of the Frog Prince. That talk-box was set up to send and receive through the Ether, but could also broadcast to and receive from special relay stations attached to the Grid. Doc said he paid a fortune for the service. “But at critical times, the ability to call into the Grid from the plane can save your life.”