Noriko stepped up beside Harris and fired the Wexstan. The shotgun discharge tore Angus’ tormented expression away as though it were a paper mask, leaving ­behind only blood and bone. Angus’ head rocked and he fell. He slapped onto the stone of the courtyard.

Harris stood over him and got his breathing back ­under control. He glanced over at Noriko and was amazed to see her cheeks wet with tears. Her words were barely audible over the crackle of burning wood: “I am sorry, Harris. He was yours, but I had to. Family honor ­demanded.”

He took her in his arms and held her. “It’s all right.”

They collected in the center of the henge. Doc, ­unhurt, was first on the scene. Then Harris and Noriko.

Welthow, lately arrived, knelt beside Joseph. The giant’s face did not express concern or hurt. His body was riddled with bullet-holes, but one by one they slowly began to contract to nothingness. Bits of dark metal worked their way free of his flesh and dropped to the stones.

Alastair moved from one fallen form to the next. With most, he did little more than check pulse and then close the victim’s eyes.

The others trickled in. Gaby pushed a couple of gunmen before her, keeping them at riflepoint; both were fairworlders. Gaby looked in alarm at the blood ­streaking Harris’ crotch. “Not mine,” he said, but did not elaborate.

Ish moved to Doc, touched his cheek, stayed beside him.

“They finished the ritual,” Doc said. “We’ve failed.”

Angus Powrie and fourteen of Duncan’s men were dead. Another dozen, most of them injured, were dragged off one by one into Harris’ workout cargo hold, now pressed into duty as a temporary gaol.

Ladislas had a leg injury, a twisted ankle sustained as he left the Frog Prince. Joseph was almost recovered from the craters and divots that had marked him a few minutes before. And two of the villagers, one of them a child, were dead, killed during the triplane’s strafing run; another was hurt.

The villagers added wood to the fire raging in the fortress. The lake’s last remnant of Castilian rule would never be rebuilt.

Doc’s associates retreated to the Frog Prince dock to watch the structure burn down. Noriko and Welthy worked to repair the damage done the plane during the strafing run.

One of the prisoners talked freely when pressed. “We were set up in some wretched hole of a town,” he said. “The old man called it Lady of the Birds.”

“Ixquetzal,” said Ish. “Territorial capital of the blood-drinking sons of Castilians.”

“He rented a warehouse, had us set everything up in a chalk circle. Said when we got here, all we had to do was hold the fort. When the ceremony was done, he’d bring us back. He was supposed to bring us back.”

Doc dragged the man off to the cargo hold, then ­returned to the dock. Alastair said, “Ixquetzal next, I ­assume. Duncan will be working up the strength to bring them back.”

Doc shook his head. “It took a tremendous amount of energy for Duncan to send them here at all. To bring them back would probably have killed him. Powrie probably had a return arrangement; the rest were sacrificed. He’ll have packed up and taken off already. We need to get back to Neckerdam. Noriko, how long on the repairs?”

“We could take off now, but I don’t want to fly all the way home on three engines. By dawn, I think, for the port inboard engine.”

“Dawn.” Doc balled up his fists, pressed them to his eyes. “All right. Keep at them. We need to get Harris and Gaby to where we can protect them.”

Harris, dressed once more in his grimworld jeans, sat with his back to one of the dock’s wooden support poles. “Let me get something straight, Doc. Duncan has to kill us if he’s going to forge a new link between the worlds. He can’t do that while we’re alive because we have the wrong whatchamacallit valences.”

“Firbolg. Yes. You could go back to the grim world and he would not need to kill you. But Gaby he would still need to kill. Remember, her Firbolg Valence lights up their registers on either world.”

“Right. So we have to wait around until he makes a move on us. We can set up the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines around us, but it all boils down to when he decides to attack.”

“Correct. Or until Caster’s ‘umbilical cords’ recover. Which could be months or years.”

“So rather than wait, I think we need to force his hand.”

“I’d considered that. The best way would be to begin the very ceremony he wants to initiate. Threaten to ­define the new links ourselves.” He smiled apologetically at Gaby. “Of course, we’d have to send Harris home and kill you first.”

“Let’s not,” she said.

“But even if we pretended to be planning it, Duncan has a few grimworlders of his own on the fair world. We got one tonight, but we’d have to capture the other two and send them home first.”

Harris shook his head. “So let’s take a different ­approach. Bring in more grimworlders of our own. Or make him think that we’re about to, so he has to act right away to stop us. It’s better than waiting around.”

Doc considered that. “You’re right, and I’m an idiot.” He rose. “Ish, I need you to translate for me with the village leader. I have to apologize, make restitution to him somehow for the unhappiness I’ve brought to Itzamnál. Everyone, we leave when Noriko pronounces the engine ready.”

By the time the sun rose they’d been in the air for half a bell.

Harris stared at the wooden ceiling above his bunk. Angus Powrie’s beret was tucked away in the storage drawer beneath him. Noriko had been too numbed by events to think about it, but he knew that the royal family of Acadia would want to have it—tangible evidence of the death of their enemy. But it felt strange to take a trophy from a man he’d helped to kill.

A hand parted the curtain. It was Gaby, dressed in her yellow nightshirt. Her expression was grave.

“Hi,” he said.

“I want to make a deal with you.”

“Shoot.”

“As soon as we get back to Neckerdam, you go home to New York.”

“And?”

“And once everything is done here, I join you.” She blinked. “We give it another try. Us.”

He thought about it. “You want me to leave you ­behind? Why?”

“So you’ll be safe. So you’ll get away from all this craziness. It’s doing something very bad to you, Harris. That whole thing with that athletic cup was just too weird. You have to go home.”

He studied her face, the features that he held in so many corners of his memory. He wondered what she would have looked like in a bridal gown. “No.”

“Yes, Harris. It’s what I want you to do.”

“Sorry.”

“Why not?”

He stirred, restless. “Gaby, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Do it anyway.”

“Okay. For years and years now, I’ve kind of defined myself by fighting. Harris Greene, Great Fighter. People would look at me and that’s what they’d say. I really was, you know. So you want to know why it was I lost so much?”

“Why?”

“Because they expected it. They wanted it. I could see the other guy’s eyes, and he wanted me to lose. The crowds wanted me to lose. It’s taken me all this time to figure out that I was just giving them what they wanted. Maybe just so they’d like me better.”

“What does this have to do with what I was talking about?”

“I’m not going back to New York just so you’ll like me better. Turn my back on Doc and all the rest? Maybe cost him the little bit of an edge I could give him? What would that make me?” He paused to consider his next words. “Gaby, I’ve decided that I really love this place. I’m not going to let Duncan Blackletter wreck it. I’m not going to throw the one fight that ever mattered. And when it’s done, I’m going to stay here.”

“I’m not. I’m going home.”