Author's note: adjusting for inflation, $100 in 1900 is approximately $3300 in 2023.

Fifteen minutes passed like five minutes, in strained silence. Amy barely tasted the food, though its warmth in her belly was enough to keep her just short of panic. Only just. The awkward silence attenuated as she tried to avoid Sonic and Amadeus's eyes. Neither man said anything as they ate, but she could practically hear their thoughts: What the hell are they doing, and why was she covering for them?

Sonic ate deliberately, his eyes periodically flicking toward the ceiling, then to her. The mute accusation she felt from those eyes frankly pissed her off. She held his gaze in defiance.

Knuckles had the baby in the crook of one great arm, fast asleep. Sensing the tension, he scooted his chair slightly closer to Amy. He looked as if he were going to say something, and then he looked down at the baby. He stayed silent.

Why was she covering for Sally? What had Tails even done? Had he cracked, and Sally was trying to calm him down? He seemed a little old to be doing that.

Tails's words clanged around in her mind. "Both of them are dead, because of me!"

Both of them. The little red panda, and who else? Who else died because of him? Was he talking about Ketteler? She dismissed the thought immediately: even if he was speaking metaphorically, or maybe what of would happen when the Boxers heard what Ketteler had done, she couldn't see the young fox having such a violent reaction to the prospect of that murderer's death.

A more likely scenario pulled at her. Had another kid joined the Boxers during the attack, and gotten himself killed? Had Tails actually pulled the trigger on the kid? She hadn't heard any details of the fight, but that possibility now made too much sense. Even if he had, she forbade the idea of hating Tails for that. Unlike Ketteler, Tails was defending himself, defending her, Sally, the baby, his father. He needs to hear that. Father Above, he needs to hear that. If Sally hasn't told him that, I will. But is he going to listen?

She crunched thoughtfully on a forkful of tangy sauerkraut. And how could she fuck up a simple distraction that badly? She'd meant to tell Amadeus what she'd told Tails, to try to get some insight into what she should tell him. In her mind, that would have given Sally enough time to deal with whatever was going on. But it hadn't worked out. Her tongue had slipped, and the German officers had promptly outmaneuvered her before she could realize where she'd messed up. She decided not to barter for more time–that would only increase suspicion–but what the hell was she supposed to do now?

Amadeus checked his pocketwatch, before glancing at her. Amy was sure that he was going to say something; instead, he silently scooted back from the turntable and got to his feet.

Sorry, Sal. Whatever you guys are dealing with, deal with it quick.

When the old fox disappeared up the stairs, Sonic relaxed. He would have preferred to speak with Tails himself, but on reflection Amadeus was definitely more suited to speak with both his son and that fiery missionary. Whatever was going on upstairs, it was now up to him to diffuse the tension that had built up at the table.

"Where did you get that belt?" Sonic asked casually, knowing full well where she got it, and who gave it to her.

Amy only slightly relaxed, still uneasy and angered by the silent accusation that Sonic had turned on her. She touched the buckle and lightly ran the tips of her fingers along the belt. "It's one of Tails's belts: he says the buckle's made of gold and silver."

Five days ago–after they'd met with the American Legation garrison, to figure out who would defend which sections of the Tartar Wall–Tails had shown him Amy's harmonica. The lieutenant was grateful, but also a little confused by the gift. "That was probably all she had to give," Sonic had said, "I checked. It seems the fire started at the chapel, but then caught the ammo cache as it spread."

Tails had started, and looked over the harmonica in wonderment. "All she had, for saving her friend." Then his face had set with purpose.

"He gave you his parade belt?" Sonic grinned. "I wouldn't wear that in town, if I were you."

Amy looked down at the buckle. "He's telling the truth?"

"I'd hope so: between the buffalo hide belt and the buckle, that cost him four hundred marks." Sonic fished a fat, stubby cigar from his breast pocket and a matchbox. He lit it on the first try. As he took a drag, Sonic's eyes screwed up to an invisible point in the ceiling. "If the exchange rate now is the same as it was two years ago, I would say that's a hundred American dollars." Amid the blue ropes of smoke from the cigar and the white cloud from his lips, he shrugged. "Give or take a few cents."

Knuckles and Amy gaped, then looked at each other, then the belt in utter bewilderment: to think, she'd spent the whole afternoon wearing a small fortune around her waist!

Sally had managed to pull herself together enough to finish her story. She told him everything; losing her father's pistol factory; becoming a glorified accountant, only to be dismissed a year later; and to her own surprise, she'd even confessed that the morning she'd met Vanilla, she'd resolved to do as her father did. Through the telling, Sally had then realized that she'd never actually mourned any of those losses, and Vanilla's death had caused all of it to fall on her, all at once.

When she was done, she'd wept, while Tails sat silent beside her with his arm draped over her shoulders. Then, remembering that he needed to unburden himself just as much as she had, she pulled herself together again. "Alright," she said shakily, hoarse with grief, "I've talked enough. You can speak freely."

Tails simply stared at her for an agonizingly long time. The scientific look was gone, replaced by that same blank, wide-eyed expression she'd seen in the bathroom.

"Tails?" Sally asked.

Slowly, that blank face turned down toward the floor again. Just when she thought he would never speak, just when she began to stand up to check for anyone coming up the stairs, he spoke. His voice came out flat. "I killed a child."

It sounded so ridiculous, and Sally responded to it promptly. "You did not kill that boy. If you think so, d-"

"Not him. Not directly." His face hardened, and the words began tumbling out of his mouth. "After I brought you to the hospital and got the bullet out of your back, I returned to the fire. My father put me in charge of the fire wagons, and some Boxers decided to block our way as we were coming back to the Quarter. They wounded one of our men and ran, so I took four others and chased them down. Our path took us up an intersection, where three more Boxers waited for us, with guns."

His gaze went from the floor, to her. "A family shot at us. There was a little girl, a kitsune, with a pistol like mine." He sniffed, the way one does after taking a big bite of horseradish. In his mind's eye, he saw the little kitsune girl again. He saw the spray of her blood, heard the shot behind him, and saw and how she twisted and fell, twisted and fell, spinning, spinning, spinning, over and over and over, like a grotesque ballerina. "She died first."

Sally resisted the urge to put a hand to her mouth. "You shot her?"

"One of my men did."

After a moment, she then said something that surprised him. Deliberately, and not unkindly, she said: "And because you were the commanding officer, you believe that her death is ultimately on your head."

"I…yes." His head slightly cocked in falconish curiosity.

"My father was a soldier, too," Sally explained, "he had stories like that."

Amadeus Prauer made it to the top step. His son's quarters were fifty feet down the hall and to the left. He could hear their voices. Despite the warm coffee he had consumed, he felt strangely cold. His light footsteps grew lighter. His hearing sharpened.

"Why would he tell you?" Tails asked.

"He never told me. Not like this, like we're doing. Sometimes he would host card games in the dining room, with his old West Point friends, and he always brought a bottle of whiskey to the game. As they drank and played, he would tell everyone stories." She huffed out the lump in her throat. "Sometimes they were funny, or inspiring. Sometimes, they were like yours."

The young fox nodded slowly. "I see." He paused to gather his thoughts. Where to start? "You're a missionary. You know the Bible better than most." He swallowed. "You know what Christ says of those who harm children?"

Sally thought she remembered, but then blanked. She shook her head, confessing defeat.

Tails enlightened her. "Matthew 18:6. 'But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.'"

Her eyes widened, but her voice remained steady. Part of her wanted to correct him on what that verse actually meant, that it was a stern warning to teachers against causing new believers to sin; but she intuited that wasn't what he needed to hear now. Instead, she asked: "What stopped you?"

Tails hesitated. He considered telling her what he'd thought after putting the gun away, of how life would be for his father and little sister if he did pull the trigger. But something in his heart told him that wouldn't suffice. She wanted the truth. In a small, pained voice, suddenly feeling like a little boy again, he said: "I don't want to go to Hell."

Amadeus Prauer's fist had been halfway to the door, when it froze in place. He hadn't heard that forlorn note in his son's voice in years, but he knew it. In fact, he hated it, because it betrayed a wound in his boy's heart that Amadeus had never been able to determine, much less heal. The instinct to protect his boy clashed with the moral conviction that he shouldn't be spying on Miles like this. Miles was a man now: if he wanted to confess his sins, he had a man's right to privacy. But still, Amadeus stood there, listening.

Sally's eyes scrunched shut. My father is not in Hell, my father is not in Hell, my father. Is not. In Hell. You've wept. Now be strong, and hear him out.Taking his hands in hers, she asked gravely: "Is that why you call yourself worse than Judas? Do you believe that her death puts you beyond forgiveness?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Then why did you say that, then?"

He hesitated.

"There is only one unpardonable sin," she said softly, "Only one. And I guarantee that you haven't committed that one. No one has, in almost two thousand years."

Amadeus smiled. Vanilla wasn't here to help his son, but her successor was giving it her all. Vater. This woman is a blessing.

She could see that he didn't believe her, but desperately wanted to. Just when she was about to share the Good News with him, as she had done with countless Chinese citizens, he said something that surprised her: "What if I've done that, too?"

She paused, herself disbelieving what he had said. "Do you know what it is?"

"Yes. Mark 3:23."

Cautiously, she asked: "When did you do it?"

"Seven years ago." Now that he'd said it out loud, Tails felt absurdly embarrassed. What was he doing? What was the point of telling her this now? He was a kid seven years ago, he should be over something like that!

She studied him, the way she might have if a long-legged, brightly-colored spider had crawled atop his head, and began spinning a web between the tips of his ears. Seven years ago. He would've been a little older than Cixin then. She herself would've been nineteen, playing tennis and learning managerial accounting at Eastman Business College. That thought gave her a strange feeling she couldn't yet place.

Looking him in the eye, speaking gently and deliberately, she asked: "You, a child then, saw Christ heal a man, knowing Him to be your rightful Messiah and King, and then you declared that He healed that man by the power of Satan, in public, to His face?"

She has him, Amadeus thought.

Tails looked thoughtful as he absorbed her words. During his year-long quest to prove his innocence and election, he'd read something from a book by St. Augustine–or maybe Calvin?–that was more or less what Sally was asking him. After discovering his fruitless quest, his father had made him donate that book, alongside most of his theological collection, to a library at the opposite end of Berlin. He'd been allowed three Bibles until he graduated officer school: one in German, one in Mandarin, and a King James Bible. Lacking repeated contact with the former texts, their words and ideas had simply blended into the fascinated malaise he felt about the whole subject.

"No," he admitted. But he couldn't leave it at that. He had to be honest, to tell her the whole truth, couldn't stop himself from telling it! "I had a thought that was blasphemous, and it was about the Holy Spirit." He deflated. "I've had it…God knows how many times it's whispered through my head. I can't stop it."

The brothel madame crossed her arms. "Do you know how ugly you look when you cry, boy?"

Tears trickled down his cheeks, even as his expression hardened again, becoming almost challenging. "If I had a lustful thought about you, or Amy, that would be adultery. How is this any different?"

It was then that Sally truly saw him, with startling clarity. Poor man. He probably thinks he's in Hell already. No matter what he does, he doesn't think he can be saved, but his heart cries out for salvation anyway. She considered telling him that he was no longer under God's law, but under grace; that the letter of the law killed, but its spirit gave life; that His mercy triumphs over His justice! But she intuited that debate would take hours as well as books she didn't have. Then something occurred to her: she could deliver the heart behind all of that information, all of that life, quite elegantly to the young fox.

"I don't know," she said slowly, gently squeezing his hands in hers, "but I will tell you this: you can still ask His forgiveness."

"I…what."

"You heard me." Her whole demeanor turned earnest, excited. "Ask Him."

Tails didn't believe it. "I've begged Him–"

"Don't beg," she said firmly, "Ask."

Miles, ask Him, Amadeus silently urged. He leaned against the wall beside the door now, listening intently.

Tails was speechless. He'd lost count of how many times he'd begged God to forgive him, to block out that awful, nagging thought. To simply ask had never occurred to him before.

Sally continued. "When you were small, did you ever beg your father to feed you when you were hungry?"

"...No. No, he..." The smell of the kitchens below struck him like a wave. Fresh sauerkraut, veal meatballs, steaming hot bread: Amadeus had made all of that himself, the night after he'd pronounced his son guiltless. His mouth watered. "I didn't. I never did."

Never forgiveness means never. Never. NEVER.

What if she was right? If he simply asked, and was refused, he wouldn't be any worse off, would he?

What rank arrogance.

He'd almost died tonight. Something had to give, of that much Tails was certain.

Never forgiveness.

She could see the young fox's hesitation battling with his hope. "You don't have to ask now," she said, "but when you're ready, we can talk again."

NEVER FORGIVENESS.

Tails exhaled, relieved. "After supper?"

She smiled, her heart warm with triumph. "Very well. After." She slowly stood, bringing Tails with her. It struck her that despite his clear Asian maternity, Tails had inherited Amadeus's height: he stood at least a foot taller than her. She let go, and approached the door. She unlocked it.

Amadeus had never considered himself a good actor; but in the service of diplomacy, it paid dividends to have an excellent poker face. He slipped one over his elated smile now, as he positioned himself to be in the middle of knocking when Sally opened the door.

Sally felt her stomach plummet. I didn't hear him, she thought, mortified, how long was he standing there? How much did he hear?

If the old fox had heard anything at all, he gave no sign. "Ah, Miss Acorn, Miles. Have you concluded your business?"