Tarvek almost couldn't take his eyes off Otilia, even when the Baron hoisted his father onto one shoulder. She stood, but didn't sheathe her sword, looking around. "They certainly should not be here," she said. "But where shall we go?"

"How fast are your troops getting here?" the Lord Heterodyne asked. He picked up Agatha in the same arm he'd been using to haul Tarvek's father around, and Tarvek tried not to shudder. "I'm not sure which direction is less of a fight. Are you going to have an airship on the ground by the time we get out, or should we head back to the portal?"

"There should be several airships on the ground," said the Baron. "Quarantine procedure."

"Ah. Right." The Lord Heterodyne frowned. "Anevka. We should get Anevka. Tarvek, where's her room?"

Anevka. She'd be hiding in her room, probably with a knife ready in case anyone did break in. If he told her it was safe she'd come out, but he was fairly sure it wasn't safe - he'd just declared himself a rival to the Baron, they were going to kill him. But they wouldn't kill Anevka over that, they wouldn't need to, she wasn't claiming Europa. Unless they decided to just clean up all the loose ends, now they'd discovered what his father was doing. Otilia… Otilia would protect her, if he told her to, maybe, even if she'd only accepted him provisionally, but it was better not to risk it. If he took them to Anevka's room he could signal her to run, but she might be safer if he just didn't….

Tarvek blinked, realising he'd been staring and not answering. His thoughts were too slow, everything felt weird and broken and he had to pull it together like a jigsaw. But maybe not answering was the best thing he could do anyway.

"Tarvek?" The Baron dropped to one knee, which seemed improbable, and then reached for Tarvek's head with the hand that wasn't bracing his father and ran a hand through his hair in exploratory fashion, at which point Tarvek realised he'd only been getting within reach to check for injuries. "I don't feel anything," he added. "Are you hurt?"

Agatha said, in a very strange tone of voice - a little too loud and flat and still ringing - "He thinks you're going to kill him and his sister."

"Oh for..." the Baron began, and then sighed. "I am not going to kill you. Or her. I'm concerned about leaving a twelve year old girl in a war zone."

"He's really not," Agatha added, leaning down a little toward him, "but he said I wasn't supposed to tell you."

Tarvek looked at her in complete bewilderment. "But he only found out just now, how would you know what he's going to do about it?" He shouldn't be ignoring the Baron to talk to Agatha, but Agatha was trustworthy.

She gave the Baron a look that may have been meant for apologetic and then said, "When I asked him about the hostages, he said he wouldn't really hurt any of you but if the parents knew that they'd be more likely to start wars."

"Oh," said Tarvek. That made more sense, although he wasn't entirely sure the Baron had been telling the truth, much less whether it still applied. "I don't think my father cared very much."

"I'm sorry," said Agatha, even though she was the one his father had been trying to kill.

"Your father's misplaced priorities aside," said her uncle seriously, "you will not be harmed. Either for anything he's done or for apparently being the Storm King." He glanced upward. "If it helps, I'm pretty sure Otilia's not planning to let you out of her sight for a while."

"And you won't hurt Anevka?" he asked. He looked at Otilia. "You won't let them?"

"I will not let them," said Otilia. "Nor do I believe they would try."

"...I'll take you to her," Tarvek said, making up his mind.

The Baron looked at all of them and said, "I'll go with them. You take Agatha and Gil. I'll find you."

"Take some of the Jägers with you if the rest of your people aren't in the halls yet," said the Lord Heterodyne.

"I'll tell them you said so." The Baron stood up to pass Tarvek's father to one of the Jägers, then looked down at Tarvek. "Lead on, then."

The halls were full of Geisterdamen and Jägers and...people. Not that the Jägers weren't people, or the Geisterdamen, just...he'd been expecting them. The sight of Sturmhalten guards with their throats slashed...the sight of servants and townspeople...they must have been ordered in by the Geisterdamen, why else would they be here? When the Baron shouted for Jägers to fall in with them Tarvek flinched back. One of them had blood smeared up his claws to the wrists.

The Baron tried demanding surrenders, then swore under his breath and looked down at Tarvek. "Will your people listen if you tell them to stand down?"

"No," said Tarvek. "They're..." He broke off for a moment, the Baron killed revenants, but they were about to die fighting Jägers anyway. "They're revenants. The Geisterdamen control them. But..." Earlier, wedged between cupboards, it had nearly worked. "They might listen to Agatha."

"Not supposed to be mindless," the Baron said. "Gotterdammerung." He added at a roar, "Take it easy on the townspeople if you can!" then grabbed one of the Jägers by the shoulder. "You. Go tell Barry. Find Agatha a loudspeaker if you can. Move!" He hoisted Tarvek left-handed and sped up, muttering, "As soon as we get out of here I am blanketing the entire town in C-gas."

Tarvek shuddered, although C-gas wouldn't kill anyone. It could be a lot worse. He just wondered what the Baron would do to them when they woke up. He wanted to close his eyes now he didn't need to see where he was going, except at junctions, but it would feel wrong. These were his people even if he'd never been able to do anything for them (even if he'd brought the people here who were killing them). It seemed as if he should at least watch.

"It's a knockout gas," the Baron snapped, as if Tarvek didn't know. Maybe he wasn't supposed to know that? He couldn't remember right now. "It's the best I can do."

They'd nearly reached Anevka's room when Agatha's voice rang out, sounding fierce, very determined, and more than a little annoyed at having to do this when she was already tired and probably wanted to build things. "Everyone from Sturmhalten stand down and stop attacking people, right now. Everyone. Oh, right, Uncle Barry. Geisterdamen too! Stop attacking people and put down your weapons." It sounded so much like her that it felt like a splash of normal reality in the middle of a horrible dream.

Their whole group slowed slightly, watching, and most of the fighting stopped. The townspeople looked relieved and mostly turned to run; a few threw themselves backward from the Jägers and just huddled. (The Jägers facing them grinned so hard Tarvek could see it from almost directly behind, but they backed off.) A few of the Geisterdamen shook their heads, blinking, and then shrieked and attacked anyway... it didn't go well for them. Tarvek finally let himself look away, for that.

"We're here," he said, and the Baron stopped.

"This door?" When Tarvek nodded, he knocked sharply.

There was, not surprisingly, no reply. "Anevka?" Tarvek called. "It's..." He stopped to swallow. "It's probably safer to come out than to stay in there, the Baron's here, but it's okay." Sort of. He hoped.

"The Baron?" Anevka asked, sharply. He could hear things being pulled away from the door, though.

Tarvek shut his eyes. "You were right to be suspicious. Seffie was right. The Geisterdamen did want to sacrifice Agatha." It might help, if they knew Anevka had suspected but not known, and warned him to keep alert. He made himself say, "Father was going to help. The Baron and the Lord Heterodyne came to rescue her. F-father's been taken prisoner but Otilia swears she won't let anybody hurt us."

Anevka opened the door. She'd got dressed, trousers and top in case she needed to climb to escape, hair pulled back in a braid, and he was pretty sure there was a knife up her sleeve. She looked at him, still being carried by the Baron, and at Otilia standing behind them with her blood splashed wings, and at the Jäger bodyguard. She looked young and bewildered and behind that he could see the calculation and behind that she really was scared, and confused, and angry although he wasn't sure yet at who. "I'm really in no danger?" she said to the Baron, voice soft.

"If you try to stab anyone you may suffer some slight bruising," the Baron replied, possibly having guessed at the knife himself, then shook his head. "Neither you nor your brother will be harmed."

Anevka's eyes narrowed slightly and she said, in something far more like her normal voice, "Thank you. And from the recent announcement I take it the Lady Heterodyne is still alive. What are you going to do with Father?"

The Baron grimaced and then said, "I don't know yet."

Anevka tossed her head. "Fine. I don't care anyway. Of all the stupid things to do, a Heterodyne visiting us and he tries to kill her!" She blinked hard and then stepped out of the room and looked up at Tarvek. "And I suppose he got you involved somehow, you look awful."

"I-" Tarvek swallowed. "She's my friend." He was so tired, he could barely think what was safe to say and what wasn't, but his mind wouldn't stop working anyway.

"It's been a long evening all around," said the Baron. "Let's go."

"Idiot," said Anevka, falling in beside them, looking around at the dead with a cold pinched face. "I'm not going to blame you if you stopped him. How do you think it would have gone for any of us if he'd succeeded?"

Tarvek swallowed and stopped to really think about that for the first time. Agatha would have been dead, of course. And the Mistress... and the Other would have been walking around in her body. Would anybody have been fooled? How good was the Other as an actress? How convincing could she possibly be when she'd last seen Agatha as a baby? The Lord Heterodyne would probably have noticed something and... Tarvek wasn't sure if he could get any madder, but he didn't want to see it if he could.

"I couldn't do very much," he said. "He didn't want to listen."

"He usually doesn't," said Anevka.

They hurried back through the castle again, Anevka stepping daintily clear of the blood, eyes cold and lips pressed firmly together. Otilia hovered over her, eyes scanning the corridors for threats, but they seemed to be almost empty, now, of anything but corpses and wounded Jägers — who smiled and waved them on, assuring the Baron that "ve heal qvick, und effrevun is underground".

Outside the castle there were far fewer signs of fighting. The Geisterdamen really must have retreated down instead of out. There were Wulfenbach troops herding confused and frightened townsfolk into groups, but little sign of bloodshed.

Agatha's voice started echoing through the town again, this time coming from all directions from the airships that surrounded and hovered over Sturmhalten, which did not add a sense of normalcy. The Baron took them out the city gates and made directly for the nearest airship, where they found Agatha shouting into the public address system with the Lord Heterodyne standing over her giving her voice coaching so she didn't strain her throat, although Tarvek wasn't sure she was exactly staying on script.

"Stop fighting, stop fighting, I'm getting so tired of this, STOP FIGHTING!"

"A sentiment after my own heart," said the Baron, although he presumably didn't share the one that led Agatha to launch herself off the stool to hug Tarvek.

Tarvek held onto her gratefully. He could feel himself shivering, although he wasn't sure whether he was cold, or scared, or anything really. He just felt hollow.

Gil stopped stalking around the edge of the room and came over to hug them both, although he glanced up at the Baron first and Tarvek hoped desperately Gil wouldn't decide to tell what Tarvek had figured out. This was bad enough as it was. Gil caught Agatha as she and Tarvek both slipped somehow from exhaustion, and the Lord Heterodyne crouched down by them apologetically. "I'm afraid we still need you, Agatha," he said, sounding tired enough himself that it was hard to remember how frightening he'd been just a few minutes before.

"But I have to build..." Agatha frowned. "I have to..."

"Later," her uncle said gently. "This is the best way to stop them right now. I don't think it should be much longer. The Geisterdamen have apparently gone underground, and most of the townspeople aren't fighting without them to push it."

"Good," said Otilia. "Send her to bed as soon as possible. I will take the rest of the children to one now."

As Agatha climbed onto the chair, Gil squawked, and Tarvek tried to formulate an argument against this plan, a Jäger crashed in through the door, blood soaking his shoulder and something bloodied-white stuck into it. "Master Barry!" He pulled another white thing out of his knee and waved it, even as he staggered against a wall, and Tarvek recognised the object with a sick lurch as part of a slaver-wasp warrior. "Vasps all down de tunnels."

The Lord Heterodyne turned, and Tarvek decided he was scared of him again.

Wasps down the tunnels. It was a town full of revenants and Geisterdamen; of course there turned out to be wasps in the tunnels. Sick and furious, Barry yanked the remaining wasp-leg out of Gorb's shoulder and turned to Klaus. "All the Jägers. Gas masks. If this is where they're keeping them all..."

"How many would they have?" Klaus asked, even as he pulled over the radio to relay the order.

Barry shook his head. "I can't guess. But four hives are enough to overrun a town."

"They don't want to overrun a town," Anevka said grimly. "They meant to overrun Europa. They have a cavern in the deep tunnels."

Klaus swore and pulled the radio over. "All Jägers are to report for gas masks. Get them out of the tunnels. All burrowing squid are to be dropped in a three kilometer radius and go straight down. No gaps in the circle. Black level items one to ten need to be brought to me immediately." He put the radio down and turned to Barry. "That should collapse the tunnels, if we're lucky before any of them get through. You were already thinking poison gas?"

"They've got another army in every engine," Barry said. "Taking their air's our only chance short of destroying the city. Agatha-" He knelt by her stool. "Tell everyone to come out of the gates. I know you're tired, but this is important. It will save lives."

Agatha nodded, even as she looked longingly at the death ray he'd leant against the wall, and nearly upset her water cup reaching for it. Barry steadied it for her and Agatha drank, then leaned into the microphone again and started shouting.

Tarvek blinked and scrubbed a sleeve over his face. "You're poisoning them? But, the town..."

"We're getting people out first," said Klaus, grimly. "But if they've got enough wasps to control all of Europa we'll have to act fast, and we don't have time for half measures."

"But...isn't that better than being dead? They'd only be under Agatha's control," said Tarvek.

Barry bit back his first revolted reaction, because Tarvek was only a child and had grown up with this and it would not help to shake him. "Agatha does not need slaves," he said. "And Lucrezia may have had other plans for remaking herself."

Tarvek shivered and looked away at that. Otilia put a hand on his shoulder. "Come," she said. "You can't do anything more, here."

"But it's my town," he protested weakly, not sounding like he was quite sure what that should lead to himself.

Barry did sympathise with that feeling, actually, but part of his town was underground and fighting, and he'd finished checking his own mask and picking up his weapons again. Klaus and Otilia could deal with that one. He left the airship at a flat run, looking for the nearest entrance to the tunnels.

A message started to ring out around him - Klaus's voice, Agatha must be getting a break, "Travellers staying in Sturmhalten. Hive engines have been discovered inside the town. You must leave now. People are outside the gates to direct you. Please exit in an orderly fashion and make sure any children you see are brought to the gates."

The nearest entrance turned out to be the sewers, and as soon as Barry was in Greb waved a man in overalls at him - who looked fairly resigned to being waved about by the back of his harness, in the manner of someone who saw strange things every day and was seeing them now - and declared, "Hyu got a spare gas mask for dis guy? He iz a verra useful plumber."

"Yeah, sure." He could only carry so many himself but more should be getting delivered. Barry helped get the mask on the man, handing off the rest as about another thirty Jägers from Greb's squad clustered around. "We're clearing out of here as soon we can," he said. "What was so useful?"

"He knows der vay!" said Greb.

"I don't know my way around the whole deep-down," protested the plumber, "but I know the ways into it."

"Excellent." Barry's lips peeled back from his teeth in a grin that was not quite happy and probably a little too vicious for comfort, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Just as well the gas mask meant the plumber couldn't see it. "Klaus is trying to seal a ring around the city and evacuating as many people as possible. We-" He looked at Greb. "Are now trying to keep the Geisterdamen from making an all-out run for it before we can get them blocked off. When we get the signal, or the gas hits, get out."

They headed, at Barry's instruction, for the castle. The worst of the fighting would be there, where the Geisterdamen had been living, and there were already Jägers pouring in from above to stop them escaping into the town. If Barry and his cohort could come in and join the battle from underground entrances they'd have them surrounded. The Jägers clustered around Barry - the gas masks were cutting off their sense of smell and without it they had less faith in their own ability to find a trail, but it wasn't diminishing their eagerness for the fight. Or their skill, as they proved by taking down a few toothy slime monsters almost casually on the way in.

The way led down, trapdoors and ladders and slippery stairs, and the Jägers threw themselves down all these things with reckless abandon, sometimes picking up the more cautious plumber when he wasn't fast enough. Barry raced too, hundreds of memories of secret passages and death trap ridden fortresses informing his instincts as he stepped.

They stopped. A wave of soft hissing shush ran backwards and following it silence, and Barry found himself grabbed and hauled to the front, pushed against a balcony to see, marching below them, Geisterdamen. Some on huge spider mounts, most walking, hive engines being pulled along between them. Dozens and dozens of hive engines. At his back the Jägers were silent and still, intent on him.

Barry turned around. "That has to be their main evacuation," he breathed, just loud enough for the sound to escape his gas mask. It had better be. If this turned out to only be a small fraction... "New plan." He started pulling things out of his pockets and pack, passing grippers out to the Jägers and hastily rigging a few new sets. "These will grab the ceilings and walls. We get ahead of them from above, and find a place to make a stand." He took the plumber by the shoulder. "You... you tell us if you know of a good bottleneck out that way," he said in the man's ear, "and then get up to the open air and out of town as fast as you can."

The plumber gave him a very quick description of the tunnels ahead and where they narrowed and then eagerly ran. Behind them the Jägers were one by one jumping up and attaching themselves to the ceiling, masked heads tilting down to watch for the signal to go.

Barry finished the last few improvised grippers and clambered up the wall, freeing one hand to point. "Let's go."

The Geisterdamen weren't moving slowly, but they weren't very fast either, with their repulsive burdens. Probably they expected the battle nearer the palace to keep their enemies busy. Barry and his Jägers scurried along the ceiling above them and proved that, like most people, even underground and alert the Geisterdamen tended not to think to look up.

When the fastest Jägers started reporting back that they'd found a stretch ahead where there seemed to be only one path, Barry started planting remote-controlled bombs at the mouths of side tunnels. He'd entertained the hope to use them to block the main path instead of waiting for the squid, but there weren't enough to do that and still keep them from scattering, and he didn't know if there was another way out should they scatter.

By the time they overtook the head of the Geisterdamen column, the tunnel was a single broad path and they could feel the vibrations of the burrowing squid. Barry stopped just short of where the diggers should come down, gathered the Jägers, and waited until the Geisterdamen had nearly reached them.

He signaled and dropped, landing in a crouch and aiming his death ray at once. Thirty Jägers ranged behind him.

Some of the Geisterdamen screamed, and only some of it was rage, because they remembered him.

Barry bared his teeth behind his mask and set off the bombs.

The Geisterdamen near the front charged while others opened hive engines. These were ready faster than the ones Barry had fought after they dropped from the sky; the first soldiers came fast and the queens spewed forth their swarms without any preparatory song. If they'd opened all of them Barry's Jägers would have been overwhelmed instantly, but these were what they were protecting - their Mistress's key to ruling Europa - and they opened only five of the dozens they had, the slavers buzzing ineffectually against gas masks while the soldiers advanced. The Jägers held their ground, there weren't enough of them to both advance and block the tunnel so they waited for the enemy to come to them.

It was very much like the fight in Aaronev's chapel. A seemingly endless supply of Geisterdamen - and now wasps, forgoing their shrill sickening song for all-out assault, slaver wings and claws battering his mask and head, warriors lunging, stabbing. A precious charge at his back that could not be forfeit, he wouldn't allow it, but now instead of Agatha and the other children it was all of Europa potentially lost if they were overrun. Klaus would try, but if they got away in secret, with this many engines...

Barry fired and fired, the Jägers clashed blade against blade with the Geisterdamen and ripped through wasp armour, and the Geisterdamen and wasps came at them, and died, and dragged the bodies back and away to attack again. Greb fell beside him, Stosh a little farther off. Barry roared wordless fury and hit a set of frequencies that stilled even the battle-noise around him, just for a second. Some of the Geisterdamen hesitated.

And in that moment, squid-blades sliced in from the ceiling behind them and churning earth thundered down to block the tunnel.

"Back up the tunnel," one of the Geisters called in her own language. "We hide the shk-mah." They knew. They could see the gas masks, they realised what that meant for them, but gas wouldn't kill the wasps still inside their hives. They had given their own lives up as lost, but if they could find a place to leave the hive engines for later retrieval they believed they might not have failed Lucrezia's charge. They were turning, even as the ones at the end threw themselves at the Jägers once again to cover the retreat.

The gas came down while they were still turning. Yellow-green and heavier than air, it seemed to creep along the tunnels like a living thing. They fell where it hit them, doubling over and sinking to the ground, clawing at their throats. The remaining wasps went down still faster, curling and convulsing with their legs drawn in like dying spiders. Some of the Jägers too slid down the walls, hands pressing at open wounds as the gas reached them. They were quiet about it, practical, simply trying to cover injuries, eyes still fixed on their dying enemies. The Jägers still standing, some with smaller wounds of their own that made them hiss as they moved, picked them up. Barry's own wounds were burning, but he bent down himself to hoist a Jäger onto his shoulders. The remaining Jägers turned to him and he realised, with a faint shock, that some of those being carried were dead not wounded.

Barry swallowed, once. Maybe he could fix that later too, at least for some of them, but this wasn't the place for either resurrection or mourning. "Out," he said, still muffled. "It'll have to be up through the gas."

"Ve go." They did, running into the gas until it swallowed them up into vague silhouettes. Barry followed, the gas blurring the tunnels around him. They used the grippers they were still wearing to swarm back onto the balcony, passing up the injured and the dead as they went. In the mist, sense of smell cut off, they lost track of which of them Barry was, and he was pulled towards the easiest route, had his injured burden lifted from him, and another pushed into his arms as soon as he was up, with the same rough camaraderie they used on each other.

Near the surface the gas thinned to a yellowish haze, and they entered the sewers to the hiss of it interacting with the sewage. There were monsters floating in it, belly up like dead fish. At the entrance there was machinery, people in full body suits pumping the gas down, and Barry and the Jägers pushed their way out into air contaminated by drifting wisps but not much more. The town was eerily empty, for which Barry could only be thankful. No visible corpses.

By the time they reached the edge of the town the gas had dissipated. He could see the camps, now, tents stamped with the Wulfenbach sigil set up at a safe distance beyond the walls. Airships closer in, as much to stop anyone going back as to cut off anyone coming out.

He headed for the airship nearest the position he'd left, unsure with the slightly fogged mask whether it was the same one or had replaced it. It might have Agatha on it, probably had Klaus, and either way it could get them to a lab...

The door opened and Klaus loomed out of it, which might or might not have been an effect of the fog. He took one look at the battered Jägers and said, "Everybody in, I'll take us up."

"We found what had better have been the bulk of them on their way out," Barry said, hoarse with weariness and shouting. He took off the mask and grimaced at the scent of the gas clinging to them, scanning his Jägers for triage. Healing, needed help later, urgent. Klaus's people were good, already wheeling in ice for the dead as the airship lifted, swaying. Barry dropped heavily to one knee to apply a self-pressurising bandage to an arterial wound. "We'll need to check back later. I counted more than a hundred hive engines. Agatha?"

Klaus pointed towards the microphone she'd been using earlier and once he had the Jägers stabilised, Barry stepped around the control panel. She, Gil and Tarvek were curled up in the corner, the boys clinging to each other in sleep while Agatha sprawled across their legs, both hands gripping a tiny brass death ray.

"She aims it at anyone who tries to move her," Klaus said. "Or who tries to move them."

"I'd apologise, but under the circumstances I'm not sure I can blame her." They were safe, anyway.

"I'm not sure I can, either," said Klaus.

Barry noticed several tiny objects scattered around her; when he bent down for a closer look, he realised a few were tiny walking clanks but most of them were bombs. He ran a hand over Agatha's hair, and she twitched slightly. "At least they're all right now."

"If feeling a little defensive," said Klaus. "She made all that herself. She was humming."

"Yes, she was making bombs in Aaronev's cha-" Barry's brain caught up with itself. "...She's five!"

"I'm sorry," said Klaus. "I've been working on ways to handle breakthrough, we'll get her through it."

Barry drew a long breath. She was unbelievably, ridiculously young for breakthrough, even considering Gradok, but the evidence was plain and might, come to think of it, have helped account for Aaronev losing his head. It just hadn't crossed his mind during the battle to wonder much about his five-year-old niece throwing bombs. This might say worrying things about him, on reflection, but the situation had certainly called for explosives. He squatted back down to inspect her death ray as closely as he could without disturbing her and didn't pet her hair this time. "Okay," he said. "It's... I'd really rather have avoided a traumatic breakthrough, but she's doing pretty well so far. Everything she's blown up has been headed toward an enemy at the time."

"Hopefully an absence of enemies will lead to a decrease in explosions, then," said Klaus.

"The only trouble there is if she doesn't mean something to explode she may be less likely to get away from it. At least the death ray seems to be stable when she's not using it, although..." Very, very delicately, without jarring it in her grip, Barry steadied the death ray and pried part of the exterior casing off, then removed two gears and a spring. It sparked hard enough to scorch his hand. "Ouch. I'd still let her sleep there, but it shouldn't fire now."

Klaus flew the ship in through the hatch and onto Castle Wulfenbach, landing it gently in the bay. "I'll stay here and watch them. You'd better see to your Jägers."

"Thanks." Barry hoisted the nearest of the fallen onto his shoulders while the rest began picking each other up. "When the others get back, send them on to me."

"Of course," said Klaus, and Barry headed out for the closest medical laboratory, half wishing they were in Castle Heterodyne. But Klaus built good labs and he'd put his foot down about supplying battledraught to Castle Wulfenbach. It would do.