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."
He closed his eyes. He felt one more little piece of his heart break away and go drifting into the void. "Funny. I've said this once tonight already."
"What's that?"
"I love you. And good-bye."
He waited for her to leave.
She didn't. He looked at her again.
She was smiling at him, the gentle smile she would save for him in the moments they were closest. He hadn't seen it in a long time. It made his chest ache.
She bent down to give him a kiss like warm silk. It sent an electric charge to his fingertips and toes. He took her head in his hands and sustained the kiss.
Gaby drew back, still smiling, then climbed into the bunk with him. She reached up to draw the curtains closed.
"Gaby—what the hell's going on?"
She brushed her cheek along his. "Do you remember my uncle Pete?"
"Another one of your dizzying non sequiturs. Pedro, right? The cop? Yeah. I met him when he came up from Mazatlán to visit you. He told funny stories about his job."
"My favorite uncle. When he was young, he went to the university. He was going to be a poet. I read some of his poems. They were wonderful."
Harris put his arms around her and pulled her close—gently, afraid that she might evaporate. No, she was real; he could feel the warmth of her through the nightshirt. He felt himself grow hard beneath his boxer shorts. He didn't adjust himself to conceal it from her. "Baby, I don't understand."
"They talked him out of it. His brothers and his father. They said it wasn't manly. Poetry, I mean. So he became a cop like the rest of them. Sits on his lawn furniture and drinks beer and watches the clouds go by, and wishes he were flying up there with them. When I met you, you were so much like him, always dreaming. You could always make me laugh."
"Leave our sex life out of it, okay?"
She chuckled and kissed him again. "The problem was, there was never a direction I could point at and say, `That's the way Harris is going. That's who he is.' You always just did whatever I wanted. Whatever anybody wanted. I waited and waited for you to become you, and you never did. After a while you were part me, part Uncle Pete. There was no such person as Harris."
"So you dumped me because I was putty in your hands."
"Uh-huh. I don't want putty, Harris. I push all the time. How am I supposed to respect someone who doesn't push back? And now you do." She ran her hand through the hair on his chest.
"Gaby, what would you have done if I had taken you up on your deal just now?"
"I would have watched you go home and then cried a lot. Because I decided I wasn't going back. I'm staying here, too."
"You lied to me."
She smiled down at him. "Damned right I did. I reserve the right to do that. Now, why don't you shut up for a minute?" She tugged down the waistband of his shorts.
He arched to make that easier, pulled the shorts the rest of the way down, kicked them free. He ran his hand up the smooth curve of her leg, carrying the hem of her nightshirt up with it. She wore nothing beneath it. She helped him pull the garment off and discarded it to the side.
Skin to skin, for the first time in forever. She leaned down to brush her lips across his; he stroked her from the nape of her neck to the swell of her behind, luxuriating in the feel of her. She reached down to take a hold of him and moved down to guide him into her.
"Gaby, I don't want to spoil this—"
"So don't talk, dummy."
"— but we're lying in an open compartment."
"Oh, yeah." She smiled at him. "Harris, this is the fair world. If anybody's listening, they can stuff cotton in their ears, or cheer, or sing along if they want. I can take it if you can." She began to move atop him.
A few steps away, Alastair listened until he identified the noises faintly audible over the engine growl. He rolled over, pulling the pillow around his head. "Well, it's about time," he grumbled.