In the middle heavens, three armies of angels clashed: the dark, strange forces from the forest, hidden by a mist; the bright avenging cherubim of Adrienne's son; and her own pitiful array.

Through the clash, through the ferments of shattering matter and dissolving spirit, she saw Nicolas, and he was dying. His forces were collapsing around him, and fire ate toward his center. Airships fell from the sky and alchemical artillery burst asunder, split by the very energies that motivated them. Nicolas was losing the fight for his life.

High above the battlefield, something else was forming, something Adrienne recognized. The keres was opening its wicked eye. For the moment it was nothing, just the nucleus of the vast, destroying storm it would become. But she recognized it.

For an instant she was paralyzed. She could not let Nicolas die. She could not let the keres spring to life. And her son's strange enemy was ignoring the waking god.

“The keres, Uriel. Stop it from forming!”

I—The pause went on, too long. Very well. Farewell, Adrienne.

Grimly, Adrienne stretched out her aetheric fingers to the heart of the maelstrom, where Nicolas lay dying.

Apollo!

He took me by surprise! The Sun Boy sounded desperate. He cinched my power, somehow. Many of my servants do not know me. I'm going to fail, unless I can form the dark engine.

That will slay us all, Nicolas.

Better that than this! I cannot fail!

Let me help you. I have power. Together we can stop your enemy.

I am the Sun Boy! The prophet!

I am your secret friend. Let me help you.

For torturous moments, nothing happened, and then matterless fingers closed in hers.

And there came a jolt, like a breath of God, and Adrienne saw a tree rising into the heavens. No, not a tree but a tower, Nimrod's tower— or Jacob's ladder—and high above, at the very top, a light that might be God, at long last might—

Then the images dissolved. Her son swelled like a thunderstorm, like a great wave of the sea; and she felt herself rushing with him, an arrow in flight, the charge of a huge cavalry. She saw the enemy in the woods as Nicolas saw him—a great horned man, shaggy, wrapped with serpents.

Satan! Nicolas cried. Lucifer!

They met, and the devil's power snapped. He was strong, yes, but Adrienne and Nicolas were more powerful than heaven.

Red Shoes blinked at the sky, not understanding at first. Not understanding why he was still whole and alive, why his enemy had withdrawn even as he tasted his flesh. His masterly plan had been destroyed at a stroke, his power scattered to the winds, the power of the snake within him snuffed to a mere glow. The hand of the Sun Boy had done all that. His power was without limit.

And yet Red Shoes lived. The Sun Boy had turned away, as if from a gnat. The airships had fallen from the sky, long lines of horizontal lightning and sputtering plumes of flame, one-eyes and Long Black Beings turned against themselves.

The iron people were under attack by someone else—a small fleet of ships, yes, but someone or something powerful came with them. In his otherworld sight, two spiderwebs now stretched across the sky. At the center of one was the Sun Boy, at the center of the other, the unknown. But whoever it was was connected to the Sun Boy in strange ways.

Once he had traveled with Blackbeard, the Charles Town king, and Thomas Nairne, who ruled that city now. Nairne had ventured that the enemy of his enemy was his friend. Blackbeard had scoffed.

Red Shoes agreed with Blackbeard. One man like the prophet was one too many. Two was two too many.

And he, of course, made three.

He shook back his pain—there were three webs, after all. He was still a spider, if a crippled one. Thinking him defeated, they had forgotten him. That would prove to be a mistake.

He noticed that the strands linking the two sorcerers were strengthening. Maybe he could be of some help, there.

As the serpent's power uncoiled, in the rushing colors that the aether made perceptible to Adrienne, Nicolas’ face appeared, and his eyes widened in shock. Overhead, Uriel screamed, and the keres whirled away into nothing.

You! Nicolas shrieked. I know you now! I remember you! You left me! You aren't my friend. You aren't my friend!

Nicolas, no! I helped you!

You tricked me. Destroyed my engine. You aren't my mother!

I am! You remember me, you say! They took you from me! I searched. All these years, I've searched.

No. And with that his face withdrew, and death replaced him.

She saw it form, and she understood. It split from Nicolas like a shard from a crystal, and roiled and shaped, becoming a black, winged skeleton, a mockery of Uriel and his kind. It flew.

It passed through her point of view, and she understood something else. It was going to kill her body.

You, she said. You tried to kill me before, back in Saint Petersburg. You sent that death, too.

I am he who makes angels, Nicolas said. And you serve the devil. He escaped me, just now, when I could have slain him. Because of you! You tricked me!

I am your mother, Nicolas! I gave birth to you.

His laughter was crystal music. I gave birth to myself. My mother is the wind, and God is my father. I am the union of flesh, spirit, and the world. Who dares to speak to me so?

I am your mother.

No. They told me to expect you, but I didn't recognize you. I thought you were my friend. But I have no friends.

They? Swedenborg? Golitsyn? They are liars!

They are my servants, Nicolas answered, as the angels are my servants. They cannot lie to me.

Adrienne! It was Uriel, shrieking again. At once her vision split, her son's face fading as the ship reappeared. A sky full of flame, the steady thrumming of guns, lurching impacts of enemy fire. A nearby sailor shriveling in a cocoon of flame.

And the death, stooping on her. And Uriel falling upon the death from above, like God's great hawk. The aether screamed about her.

Gritting her teeth, she strengthened the forces connecting her to Nicolas, but he was fighting her, withdrawing—and then, from outside, something grabbed, tripled the affinity between them and they slammed together, she and Nicolas. For an instant she saw his face again, and then for an eye blink saw through his eyes. She saw Swedenborg, a laboratory, a brittle-looking device—

Then white light. Uriel reappeared, his form shredding apart, but the death was not to be seen.

“I told you,” the seraph said faintly. “We are undone. I am undone.”

And he was. “Finish what we started.” He sighed, then fell apart. All her servants tore apart, as the ship beneath her lurched sickeningly.

She awoke to the world of matter, to screams of despair, the deck of the ship tilting. Two of the globes that supported it had flickered out and crashed amongst the crew. The other two were almost bursting. For an instant, her sense of déjà vu almost paralyzed her: this had happened before, at the siege of Venice—when she had lost Nico the first time.

Now her son hated her. Now he wanted her dead.

In that instant she might have welcomed death, but she was vaguely aware of Crecy and Hercule, shouting at her. She should save them, if she could, if it was possible. Gathering what remained of her strength, she grasped the two malakim as they struggled free of their prisons, held them where they were by sheer force of will.

The ship bucked again, and an iron clamp seemed to close on her arm. She understood suddenly that she was dangling in space. Crecy's face above her was a study in determination.

“Help yourself,” Crecy gasped. “My grip —”

Two globes would not support the ship, of course. Below her feet, the great river hurled by, and then a rushing green, closer each instant. She felt Crecy pull harder, screamed as her arm came out of the socket, and then she lost even her tenuous grip on the malakim. She suddenly had no weight, and she heard Crecy's shriek of despair come from far away. Then everything in the world broke. The ship, her bones, the air.

Red Shoes sagged against a tree, recovering his strength, watching the storm recede. Triumphant war whoops went up all along the river, and musket fire beat an unsteady tattoo. He fumbled out his pipe and Ancient Tobacco and lit it with one of his few remaining shadowchildren. He watched his hand shake, not believing that it was his own.

“Are you well?” Grief asked.

“No. I am not. I am not well. I—” He tried to stand, but it was suddenly too terrible, all of it.

“Kill me,” he groaned. “Kill me now, before I grow strong again. Before the power grows in me again.” Tears streamed down his face, and he dropped the pipe, falling to the ground and curling up like an infant. “Kill me,” he whimpered.

But she didn't kill him. She sat and rocked his head in her lap, stroked his head.

“Your heart came back?” she asked.

“Yes,” he gasped. “It may go again—kill me.”

“No. I will keep you, with or without a heart.”

Some time later, he heard warriors coming.

“Help me stand,” he told her. “Help me lean against this tree. I will not have them see me like this.”

Together, they managed it. Heartbeats later, he recognized Minko Chito coming along the path.

“Victory,” the chief said. “We will cover our scalp pole from top to bottom.”

“It looks like victory,” Red Shoes told him, forcing the words, the stupid, useless words.

“Smells like it and feels like it, too.”

Red Shoes shook his head. “It isn't. We've barely touched their army, and we lost how many warriors?”

“No telling,” Minko Chito grunted. “Not as many as they did. That is victory, isn't it? We are few and we attacked many, and they came out much the worse.”

“I failed, which means we lost. Do you know what they will do next? Salvage their big guns, mount them on the opposite bank. Shell and burn this forest until nothing remains alive while they finish building their bridge. We surprised them—we won't get that opportunity again.”

“The Sun Boy survived?”

“Yes. I overestimated my power.” That was putting it mildly, but it was the truth.

Minko Chito shrugged. “We kept them from crossing once—we can do it again.”

“No. They will kill us all, and we will slow them only by a few days.”

“Then what? Return home?”

“Even worse. No. The best we can do is to make them go where we want them to go.”

“Where is that?”

“New Paris.”

Minko Chito looked puzzled. “So they will kill the French instead of the Choctaw?”

“No. Because there we will have one last chance to beat them.”

The chief considered that. “They won't all follow you down there.”

“I know. But it's the only thing left to do.”

He turned at the hiss of moccasins on the forest floor. It was the boy, Chula.

“One of the sky boats fell on this side,” he told them excitedly. “Some of them still live.”

“The other spider,” Red Shoes muttered.

They both gave him puzzled looks.

“Let's go and see them,” he said, leaning on Grief.

Adrienne tasted blood in her mouth and wondered what that could mean. She wondered, also, what the strange sounds all around her were. It was dark, and she was wet. It wasn't cold, but she was shivering.

She couldn't seem to remember what had happened. It was like one of those strange night terrors, when you awoke not knowing where you were, panicked, only gradually realizing that you were in your familiar room, that your sleep-addled brain had played a trick on you.

Except that somehow she felt that this place would never be familiar.

She commanded light.

Nothing happened.

She called for her djinni. There were none.

She might have slept, for she didn't remember seeing a light approach; but there it was, suddenly, a few feet away. And in its light, a familiar face framed in copper.

“Veronique?”

“My God. Adrienne.” Crecy fell to her knees in the mud— she was lying in mud!—and pressed against her. The redhead was weeping. “I'm sorry,” she gasped. “I let you go. Like I let Nico go. I always fail you, when—” She pushed back at Adri-enne's groan, and raised her voice. “Hercule! I've found her! She's still alive.” She looked back down at Adrienne, her tear-filled eyes sparkling. “Still alive,” she said more softly.

“Thank God!” Hercule shouted from somewhere unseen above her.

“Where are we, Veronique? Why does my leg—”

“Your leg?” Crecy knelt and pulled Adrienne's skirt up. It caught on something underneath—a branch perhaps—and ripped a little. Then she had exposed the leg.

Or a leg. It did not look like hers. It was strangely bent, covered with blood, and from the distorted thigh, a sort of bloody pipe protruded, the thing her dress had snagged on.

“My God,” Crecy murmured. “Dear God.”

Hercule's face appeared now. He was less religious, when he saw. “Fuck!” he exploded.

“She's already lost much blood. Adrienne, can you still hear me?”

“Yes, of course, Veronique. Where are we?”

But she was remembering, now. She had seen Nico, and then they had fallen. She closed her eyes.

“Put something in her mouth,” Hercule said. “Quickly. So she doesn't bite her own tongue.”

Fingers gently pried her mouth open, and something came between her teeth. She wanted to look and see what it was, but it seemed like far too much trouble to open her eyes again.

Then she felt a sort of grinding and scraping, and the most exquisite pain she had ever known. It filled her like the surge at the pinnacle of lovemaking, but was infinitely more powerful, drawing every muscle and organ in her body to convulse. She tried to scream, but instead ground her teeth into whatever they had put in her mouth.

“You!” Hercule shouted to someone. “You, by God, fetch me some brandy.”

For an answer, he got a bullet. She heard the gunshot, the strange, meaty sound it made. She forced her eyes open, but they were swimming with tears of pain, and she had to blink several times to see. Meanwhile, two more shots roared nearby.

When her eyes did clear, she first saw Crecy, a smoking pistol in one hand. Hercule was sprawled in the mud, quivering, his hands wrapped around his chest.

Crecy dropped the weapon and drew her sword. “Oliver,” she snarled.

Adrienne let her head loll around. There, leaning against a mass of smashed timbers and planks, stood the man who had attacked them in Saint Petersburg. He wore the uniform of Hercule's light horse and a large grin.

“Come, Crecy. Join me,” he said.

“How in God's name did you come here, Oliver? How?”

He chuckled. “It was quite simple, really. Poor dear Irena. She was as close as I could get to Adrienne without your seeing me. It seems that was close enough. How do you think I knew about your plan to flee the city? I arranged beforehand to get on board. It was sticky going, after our fight, but I managed to kill one of Hercule's horsemen and don his uniform. After that, Irena hid me. Father Dimitrov, another dear friend, helped.”

“You were Irena's lover. You killed her.”

He shrugged. “She was going to tell Hercule about us. He would have had to confront me then, and that was bringing me far too close to the two of you, who would recognize me.”

“Why, Oliver? Before I kill you, tell me why.”

He laughed. “Because they say so, Veronique. You remember how that is. It's annoying, really. The crash almost did my work for me.”

“Kill me, then,” Adrienne rasped. “Leave Hercule and Veronique be.”

“It is too late for Hercule, I fear, but I am perfectly willing to let Nikki live. I am fond of her.”

“Why did you shoot Hercule?” Adrienne managed.

“Actually, I was trying to shoot you. Damn pistols are as untrustworthy as women.”

Crecy stepped forward. Adrienne noticed she was limping. “You have no more guns,” she said. “Prepare to die, Oliver.”

“You make me sad, Nikki, but I will do what I must.”

A wave of pain second only to the first coursed through Adrienne as Crecy snarled and hurled herself across the muddy, uneven ground. Crecy's weapon was not the little dress sword she sometimes wore, but a basket-hilted broadsword. Oliver was armed with a horseman's saber. Their steel moved so fast in the darkness Adrienne could see little more than the sparks they struck, for the ship had crashed in a thicket of trees and wild grapevines that throttled what little light the sky still held.

She tried to summon her servants again, but silence greeted her commands. She could see into the aether with her hand, make out malakim in the far distance, but none was tied to her, none at all.

Gritting her teeth, she crawled toward Hercule.

He was still alive, his eyes puzzled. “A moment,” he managed. “A moment, and I will kill him for you. I'm just—” He looked at his hand, covered in blood. “Damn,” he said. “Damn. He's killed me.”

“No,” Adrienne said. “No, he hasn't. You'll live.”

“Because you tell me to?”

“Because I love you.”

He laughed bitterly, which brought blood to his lips. “That will save me, then,” he murmured. “Surely I will live. But in the meantime, you might take my gun, which is beneath me, and put it in my hand, that I might defend you.”

“Hercule—” The blades rang louder behind her.

“Do it.”

She pushed under him. It was very difficult, with her whole body shivering so violently. Her fingers felt the grip of the pistol, but she could not make them close. Something else seemed to snap in her, and she fell across him.

His eyes had a mild look. “It doesn't hurt,” he said wonderingly. “You remember when we first met? I remember when I first saw you. You don't, I know. It was when you first came to Versailles, as the queen's secretary. You were so beautiful and, I remember thinking, alive. A secret sort of life, a hidden life, that I fancied only I could see.” His eyes went wide. “That hurt,” he murmured. She couldn't tell if he meant the memory or the heart she felt slowing in his breast.

“Have you got the gun?” he asked.

“Yes,” she lied.

“Shoot the bastard, then, for he'll beat Crecy.”

She turned her head and saw it was the truth. Crecy was still going, but she bled from assorted cuts, and the point of her weapon kept dropping. Oliver, on the other hand, looked warily confident. She tried for the gun again.

“My children will need taking care of,” Hercule said.

“Live and care for them, then.”

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, that is the perfect solution. But if I do not, will you?”

“Yes. But you will not abandon me, Hercule d'Argenson. I forbid it.”

“I remain yours, of course,” he said. Then his eyes went dull, and he quivered, and was dead.

She may have shrieked or cried. Afterward, she could never remember—she would remember only the feel of his heart's last feeble thump, of knowing that once again, nothing would ever be the same.

And then she remembered the cold, like a breath of Siberian air. Hercule was dead, and she would follow him soon, for the little strength she had was leaking away. She remembered them saying she had lost much blood. Veronique was going to die for nothing. Hercule had died for nothing.

Crecy cursed as her feet sucked from the mud too slowly. Oliver's saber hammered down, and though she parried, the force of his vicious moulinet drove her own sword into her forehead. She ducked and cut viciously at his legs, but he leapt back.

Crecy straightened, and they circled each other warily, Crecy wiping blood away from her eyes. In the near darkness, her forehead looked black with it.

“Yes, you've gotten slower, and weaker,” Oliver remarked. “Time was you might have beaten me.”

Crecy didn't answer, but lurched forward. Oliver parried the attack easily, feinted a cut at her head, followed with a slash at her sword wrist. The basket hilt caught it, but she grunted and retreated, her weapon arm hanging at her side.

Then Oliver did something strange. His eyes flashed red, and a malakus appeared over his shoulder; with a snarl he turned his back on Crecy and leapt at Adrienne.

It caught Crecy by surprise. With a choked curse of dismay she sprang to interpose herself. It was clear she would never make it.

Adrienne watched the blade descend as if in a dream.

A musket roared from a few yards away, and Oliver gasped and spun, then recovered. With what momentum he had left, he lunged into the woods, followed by three more bullets, and an instant later by the dark figures of men. She had an impression of painted faces, of hard, dark bodies. Then they were gone, too.

Crecy pointed her sword at something behind Adrienne. “Stay away from her.”

“Lay down your sword or die,” someone said in oddly accented but comprehensible French.