Author's Note: My apologies for the re-upload, but I accidentally posted an un-edited version of this chapter. Enjoy.

Nine o'clock. The enlisted mens' barracks and mess hall stood across a narrow walkway from those of the officers. Tails's quarters-which were adjacent to those of his father's and Sonic's-were dark. Though Ketteler damn well knew that Tails would have honored his sentence without an armed guard at his door, Ketteler posted one anyway.

The young fox was chagrined to learn that his jailer was Obergefreiter Smygwie, a sour hedgehog from Posen, which the corporal insisted on pronouncing as "Poznan". Despite his lowly rank, the man was about thirty, with a slight grey tinge to his thick toothbrush mustache. Whenever he got hold of a bottle of schnapps or vodka from the Russian market beside the American Legation, Smygwie liked to tempt one of the younger enlisted men-often Lindbergh-with a shot or three. He would then drain half the bottle himself, and then proceed to mock his guest with all the tender mercy of a firing squad. When sober, as he was now, the corporal was simply taciturn. He sat cross-legged in front of the door to his superior's quarters, cleaning his rifle and idly listening to Tails's soft footsteps on the smooth, darkly-lacquered wood floor.

Inside his quarters, Tails paced. He wore a thin white shirt and thin black trousers; most of his proper European underclothes were too heavy to be comfortable in the heat of a summer drought. Exhausted as he was, Tails couldn't sleep: the little kitsune girl's face, her dark eyes wide with terror as she aimed her German pistol at him, appeared every time he closed his eyes. He saw her head snap back from the full-power rifle cartridge, saw the spray of blood, saw the way she'd spun and fallen like a drunk man throwing a punch.

You will burn.

A snarl appeared on Tails's face. Just when he'd thought the Boxers couldn't sink lower on the moral scale, they deployed children, their own fucking children, as soldiers. Not soldiers, he thought, cannon fodder. Daylight, combat, rushing Lindbergh to the hospital, and his focus on putting out the fire, had pushed the little girl's death to the back of his mind. Now, with nothing to do but wait for daybreak and his duties, it came after him.

Verily I say unto you, it would be better that you be cast into the sea with a millstone tied to your neck.

I didn't kill her.

You may as well have.

I didn't kill her. Wesreidau did.

You ordered the assault, didn't you?

Yes.

So you ordered her death. You're just as culpable as he is.

No. The contradiction tasted too much like a lie to satisfy him. How could I have known she was even there? That tasted more truthful. But it wasn't enough.

You didn't need to withdraw the mirror. You could have looked longer, found another way to Lindbergh, called for backup; there's a thousand ways you couldn't have killed her.

Tails leaned against the wall beside his bunk, hands over his mouth as he squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to think about something else; his father, then. Seven years ago, on that awful sleet-deluged night, Amadeus had closed the Bible on Tails's desk. "Miles," he'd said, "do you remember when we went to Narvik?"

Tails had sniffed out a "yes."

"When we stood at the top of those sea cliffs and looked into the ocean, did you want to jump?"

Tails had shaken his head. "No."

"Did you hear a little thought that suggested it, somewhere in the back of your mind?"

Tails had paused to think. Then he'd then nodded understanding.

"That's all it was," Amadeus had said, "You've done nothing wrong."

You are unelected. You stand condemned.

His father had told him he was innocent; but Tails had never been sure. It was like that little thought, but a thousand times more powerful, and echoed through his mind like an artillery barrage in a cave.

You will burn.

A long, deep breath, in; then a long, shuddering sigh, out. This technique seemed to be the only thing that could slow his racing mind. I did what I did. I can't undo it. Long breath, in; then out. Long breath in; then out. The breaths, combined with that implacable truth, allowed the young fox to finally collapse on his bunk. His eyes closed.

-urn.

Vater. He was glad that was one of God's many titles. Vater invoked safety; it invoked Amadeus. Father, please. Gnade bitte, Vater.

Sleep began to spin a silky cocoon around his mind, obscuring the little kitsune as she spun and fell, spun and fell, over and over. The image grew dark. Then it disappeared completely into the blackness of sleep.

Then he heard the shots.

Crack, crack, crack.

His eyes flicked open. During his training in the art of war, Tails had been taught how to identify weapons from the sound alone: though somewhat muffled by the walls of the German Legation, there was no mistaking the report of a broomhandle. Their deliberate nature told him that they were a signal, an SOS. He stood up. "Did you hear that?" he called to Smygwie.

Several more shots: the broomhandle again. Shouts from the French Legation across the street.

Smygwie grunted. "Sounds like your brothers decided to pay us a visit."

A hoarse, loud whisper from a familiar voice. "The hell do you think you're doing?"

Chu felt his heart in his mouth as he spun around, aiming the Peacemaker into the shadow of the Tartar Wall. In the gloom, he made out the outline of Knuckles. The click of a closing shotgun action told him that the echidna was armed. For a moment, he didn't say anything.

Crack, crack, crack.

"Shit."

Instinct took over. Chu found himself running down the alley, onto the street.

Sanhe began to scream. Amadeus saw Chu, then Knuckles in pursuit with the shotgun. Mistaking Knuckles for a Boxer-because who else could be sneaking around like that, armed?- Amadeus leveled the broomhandle, gave Knuckles a lead of about three feet, and fired three quick shots. Luckily for Knuckles, the old fox had misjudged the distance that he'd needed to lead: the bullets snapped past the echidna's nose as he ran.

Knuckles kept running as Amadeus emptied the magazine in his direction. He and Chu disappeared back into the darkness between the Spanish and Japanese Legations, running so fast that Liao-dao barely had time to get out of their way. Knuckles's heavy footfalls pounded the dirt behind Chu, much, much closer, until the big cat made a hard left onto Chang An Street, at the back of the Spanish Legation. He heard the echidna trip as he tried to follow, heard a steady stream of epithets, and then the footfalls once again, coming closer, closer!

Ahead he saw the Chang An bridge over the canal with its lone yellow streetlight, and the Imperial City wall looming behind the eclectic houses that stood in its shadow. He would cross the bridge, lose Knuckles in the-

When Knuckles grabbed his shoulder and pulled, the cat's momentum almost knocked them both to the ground. The older, rested echidna grabbed the exhausted Chu down a narrow side alley, slammed him against the bricks of the Spanish Legation's rear wall, and pinned him there by the throat. Their eyes met.

When Knuckles spoke, his voice came out low and menacing. "Come back to burn down another church?"

"Maybe," Chu snarled, "You pulling guard duty like a good little soldier?"

Knuckles answered with a right hook to the cat's jaw. "I saw you and your buddies skulking around. What are you up to?"

"You think I'd tell you, foreigner?" Another punch. Chu spat out a tooth, tasted warm copper in his mouth as he tried to wrench himself free. Another punch, then another, and another. His mind fuzzed with the pain. Knuckles let go of his throat, and Chu felt his back scrape against the brickwork as he slid to the ground. When his vision focused, he saw that Knuckles had picked up the Peacemaker and was pointing it at him.

"Now listen," Knuckles growled, "First, I'm not foreigner. Second, you know why I haven't blown your head off yet?"

Chu spat out another tooth. "Why?"

"I owe you." After a long moment, Knuckles let the pistol fall to his side. "I owe you."

Chu blinked. His eyes narrowed as he tasted those words. "You owe me?" Did the spell break? Then why chase me and not just... "You owe me? How?"

"You let Sal go." Knuckles uncocked the hammer of the pistol.

Chu's eyes widened. The chipmunk's alive. She's still alive. She still has him. Chu felt his skin crawl. That's no mortal woman. That was a demon wearing flesh. If she could come back from the dead, or perhaps just walk out of a fire that would consume anyone else, or however she'd survived, what other powers did she possess?

Knuckles misread the dumbfounded horror on Chu's face. "I'm not drunk anymore, Chu. Shangdí Himself showed me the way out of that life. He also says to treat people the way you want to be treated." He tucked the pistol into the belt of his brown robe. "So let me say this: whatever you planned on doing, drop it, go home, and stay there."

"Go home." The words dripped from Chu's lips with acidic black irony. "There's no home to go back to. Your Shangdí and His coven dried it all up. The orchard's gone; all we had when I left were three goats and a muddy well."

Knuckles's eyes scrunched shut as he shook his head. "I'm sorry that happened," he said, "but it's not my fault, and it isn't Sal's."

Chu's mind had cleared. He dragged himself to his feet. "So what the hell do you want me to do?" he spat, "Go back and starve?"

Knuckles sighed. "I don't know. I just don't want you here."

Chu shook his head in disgust. "It absolutely is your fault, and it's the fault of those witches you serve."

"You're not listening, Ch-"

"No, you listen to me. It's bad enough that you left to lay tracks for the foreigner, bad enough that you started drinking and forgot our ancestors, and now you think that the foreigner's cult is what got you sober?" He spat out a gob of bloody mucus. "You're a disgrace to your parents, their parents, and their parents' parents, and their parents. They're the people you owe, not me." He began to walk away.

"Chu?"

Chu kept walking west down Chang An Street, deciding to make his way to Tiananmen Square.

"Chu!"

Chu paused but didn't turn around.

"Why did you let her go?"

Chu looked back at his former childhood friend. He considered telling Knuckles exactly what had happened after Knuckles ran away, that he hadn't let that witch-that demon- go, and that she had tricked both of them. But something in Knuckles's face, and that pleading note in how he called his name, told him that it was pointless. That demonic woman now had his mind wrapped around her fingers. Instead, Chu said: "I didn't." He turned away from Knuckles, and kept walking.

An hour passed before Tails heard his father's voice say: "Obergefreiter. I wish to speak with my son privately."

Smygwie's curt reply. "Jawohl, Herr Oberst." Boots on wood, leaving. Then silence.

"Miles." Amadeus's voice, solemn through the door.

So, no ranks. They would be speaking as father and son, not Oberst to Leutnant. "Yes, Vater?"

"Are you decent?"

"Just a minute." Tails turned on his oil desk lamp, allowing some light into the room. He pulled on a shirt and socks. "What happened out there? I heard shots."

"Boxers." The door opened, and in stepped Amadeus. His white uniform was dusty, smelling distinctly of cordite. He shut the door before he spoke again. His voice was calm, but uncharacteristically husky. "Miles, you have visitors."

Tails cocked his head, in a gesture that often reminded Amadeus of a kestrel. "Visitors?"

"One of Miss Acorn's associates, the pink hedgehog Miss Rose. She has a gift for you."

Tails smiled. "Do I have time to iron my uniform?"

Amadeus's smile was smaller. '"You will. She's waiting in my office at the moment. Miles, I need to talk to you. No secrets?"

Tails inhaled. As a small boy, Tails first used that phrase when he'd asked why all the kids at school had a mother and a father, but he only had Amadeus. He'd then used it to open his inquiries into why Amadeus had brought him to Germany, and why he didn't have any brothers or sisters from Rosemary. As time went on, the phrase had evolved into a sort of password between their hearts. But it was always a question, which could be refused. After a moment's hesitation, Tails exhaled: "No secrets."

"Miles," Amadeus said slowly, "I've done something incredibly stupid."

That's odd, Tails thought. His father was hard on himself, but he was never the type to question his own intellect. He could never imagine Amadeus making an outrightly stupid decision, accidental or otherwise. Tails waited. On the rare occasions his father felt the need to unburden himself like this, he had learned it was better to save any questions until the burden was laid out for him to see.

Amadeus kept talking. "I've kept a secret from you, that I shouldn't have. Ever."

Tails felt his hackles rise. A million awful possibilities opened up in his mind, blending and shifting into a storm of fear and anger: maybe Rosemary did want to call him "son" and raise him as her own, and Amadeus was the one who initiated their divorce; perhaps his real mother wasn't a low-born whore, but some Chinese noblewoman with land, who simply gave him up; maybe Amadeus had committed some horrific crime during the war with France, something so terrible that he dared not speak of it.

Maybe he was lying to soothe my conscience.

Stop. Slow down. Listen.

"Miles." Amadeus approached his son, embracing him. Tails accepted and returned the embrace. "Miles, I should have told you at once."

"Vati, what is it?"

Amadeus looked his only son in the eyes, inhaled, then said: "Miles, you have a baby sister." The father watched the son's face: first, he saw blank incomprehension; then those blue, inquisitive eyes, so much like his own, filled with a wild, explosive joy, the kind he'd only seen when Tails had graduated officer school.

"That's..." Tails laughed, and crushed his father in a hug. "Vati, that's wonderful!" He kept laughing, couldn't stop it even as he spoke. "Why haven't you said anything, that's great news!" Just as he began to spin his father around with the hug, he saw his father's grave expression.

Amadeus steeled himself. "Her mother, she..." He trailed off. The words refused to exit his throat.

Tails's eyes bugged. "Is Miss Rose?"

Amadeus failed to hold back the rueful snort. "Oh, no. No, she's not, Miss Rose is far too young to want someone my age."

"Then who is it?" He's ashamed to tell me, Tails thought instantly. Suspicion and hurt crept into Tails's voice. "Vati, is she-" He swallowed. "Is she like my mother?" Is she a whore?

Amadeus felt the violent need to defend Vanilla from such a comparison. "No. Never. Far from it. Vanilla is a missionary, and we are married in the eyes of the Lord." The present-tense verbage of is and are stung him. "We were married," he corrected, and that somehow freed him to let the truth fall: "She died, birthing your sister."

Tails didn't know what to say to that. He let go of his father, needing a moment to taste the all various flavors that statement delivered: surprise, obviously; relief, that his father had finally found real love; grief, that his father had lost that love; joy, for his little sister's existence; and to Tails's discomfort, he tasted more than hint of resentment, at the fact that his father had kept all of that from him. "When did she die?"

"Two days ago. I found out today, from Hauptmann Sonic."

Several facts clicked together in Tails's mind. Anger made the pit of his stomach hot. He said deliberately: "So, you sent Sonic to collect your wife, but he brought my sister instead." Amadeus nodded. "Were you ever going to tell me? Or did you plan to hide her in the Quarter, too?"

"She was your mother, Miles. In all but blood, your true mother."

"So why not tell me that she was?"

Amadeus sniffed. "We-" He decided not to lie. Not to Miles. Not now. Never again. "This is what made my decision stupid: I wanted to surprise you."

"Surprise me?"

"She was meant to leave her congregation in Miss Acorn's hands by the end of next year, and I had meant to retire at the same time. She would have attended my announcement, and..." Amadeus paused to compose himself. "And all of us, as a family, would have stood before a photographer outside the gate." He shook his head, cursing himself.

Tails felt tears on his eyes. But his voice, well-practiced in the course of his duty as an officer, brooked no argument when he said: "I want to see my sister."

Amadeus's tone matched his that of his son. "You will, but after I've explained things to Miss Rose, Herr Leutnant."

After a moment, Tails accepted this. "Why haven't you told her?"

Amadeus slightly raised his chin, displaying all the stern, righteous authority expected of a senior Prussian officer. "Because it is only right that you're the first to know."