Through the small windows of the lockup-normally reserved for soldiers who'd gotten drunk and started a barracks brawl-the fifth morning of June shined down. Sonic took a long drag on his cigar, and channeled all of his weariness into a glare. He slowly turned that glare onto each occupant of the cells before him. Only one of them was awake, the old boar. He glared back. Unspeaking, the two men matched glares for a solid five minutes.

As he glared, Sonic went over the list of questions he would ask all of them, once Ketteler and his interpreter had arrived. How many of you were skulking around last night? Sonic thought at him. How many men? How many women? How many children? How many weapons do they have, what kinds? Do you answer to a superior? Who does he answer to? Where do you usually meet each other, what time? Though Ketteler favored using "harsh persuasive methods" in the interrogation of prisoners, Sonic knew such measures were a waste of time: it was far better to assault a captured enemy with an endless litany of repeated questions. Still, the mere threat of violence did soften some people up, which was why Sonic had a billy club and his broomhandle hanging from his belt.

Koschorreck had told him that Ketteler had tripped and broken his nose, but Sonic quickly realized that probably wasn't true. The state minister had been far too eager to court-martial Amadeus's "mongoloid bastard" over something as mild as a miscommunication. especially one caused by the fog of war. That Tails had received any kind of discipline, told Sonic that Amadeus had somehow needed to placate Ketteler. The porcupine's broken nose gave him a pretty good idea of why he'd needed placating in the first place. The thought made him smile, despite the glare on his face. How on earth could Ketteler reduce a junior officer's character to a pair of twin tails?

The boar's glare morphed into a look of wary confusion, then fear. He slowly backed up until he hit the rear wall of the cell. Sonic held the strange half-smile, half-glare, enjoying the effect it seemed to have on his prisoner. He had changed out of his sooty, combat-torn garb after locking up these Boxers, showered away as much of the soot as he could, and then finally gotten a few hours of sleep. Upon waking, he'd donned the tropical khaki uniform he usually wore while on-duty. Three days ago, when Ketteler had dispatched him and Tails to investigate another report of Boxer harassment, Ketteler had insisted they wear their much heavier grey uniforms; in Ketteler's mind, it made them look more "intimidating."

Sonic thoughtfully puffed out a stream of oaky tobacco smoke. When they had not found the Boxers in question, he and Tails had gone to the market to haggle with the vendors, from which they'd bought the snake liquor and a few other trinkets. Bookish as Tails was, Sonic was glad that the lad seemed to enjoy such excursions. Probably because it gets him out of Ketteler's sights for a few hours. The smile slowly disappeared. The boar's fear ebbed with it, but Sonic noticed that he stayed at the back of the cell.

He took another long drag. On their way back to The Quarter, Tails had spotted the Boxers surrounding the chipmunk-Sally, that was her name!-and they'd promptly sprung into action. Then the mail runs to the missionaries, then the fire, then the cleanup...He shook his head. All of it began three days ago. Lack of sleep made that incident in the market seem like it happened three years ago.

In any case, he was glad that things would quiet down soon. While he was at the American Legation, Sonic had learned that the Brits and the Yanks were sending an expeditionary force by rail, and that the other nine nations of Legation Quarter would augment that force with their own troops. Unfortunately, the telegraph lines had been cut before anyone could discern the extent of those extra forces.

Sonic could make an educated guess: the majority would be British Royal Marines, probably pulled from Australia and Hong Kong. The Yanks, battle-tested after taking the Philippines from the Spanish last year, would probably add several companies of their own. The whole force could be assembled in Tiantsin within two weeks, and could relieve Legation Quarter within three days after that. At least, that's what the American captain had told him; Sonic hoped it was true. A siege was inevitable, but it would be a short one before help arrived.

Two weeks, at least. Can we really hold out that long? He allowed his hard gaze to wander from the old boar, to the adjacent cells containing the otter brothers. So far as he could tell, the Boxers practiced chaos instead of discipline, and as a force were something to be harnessed, rather than commanded. Both he and the Qing military had dispersed them easily enough, but something did trouble him: how would the Quarter fare, if the Qing military wholeheartedly backed the Boxers? How would that climactic battle between East and West play out?

About ten feet to Sonic's right, the heavy oak door to the lockup opened. Ketteler stepped through, with his obsequiously-stooped interpreter close behind. "Herr von Ketteler," Sonic greeted, switching the cigar to his left hand in order to properly salute the state minister.

Ketteler's voice was muted by the bloody handkerchief pressed to his nose. "Herr Hauptmann," he greeted, "So, you've finally caught some of these scoundrels." He looked disdainfully at the boat and the otters, the latter of which were awakened by the loud squeaking of the door's poorly-lubricated hinges. "Have they said anything?"

"Nothing I can understand," Sonic said.

Ketteler looked around. "Where's your subordinate?"

"Oberst Prauer has him at the Tartar Wall with the Yanks, building barricades."

Smygwie came in behind them, with a heavy satchel slung over one shoulder and a medical kit in his left hand. The satchel contained a jug of good schnapps, which Sonic intended to loosen the prisoner's tongues.

Ketteler nodded, as if to confirm something to himself. "Good. Let's get on with it."

"Stay...where you are."

Blue eyes stared down the black barrel of the Peacemaker.

"Please."

Chu's large, rough thumb cocked the hammer. The barrel touched her forehead. She stared up at him. His eyes were wide and distant, staring through her.

"Lift the curse."

He shook his head. Vanilla's voice in her ear. "Why do you still carry that thing?"

"It's all I have left of him," she lied.

Vanilla's warm hand on her shoulder. "No it isn't. Look here."

As if looking into a pool of water, she saw her Chu's face morph into her own face. The barrel trembled, growing warm against her forehead.

"See? That is what you have of him. And nothing less."

Sally stared. "Dad, no."

Chu no longer held the Peacemaker. As it lifted from her forehead, she saw thar it was now in her father's slender hand. She tried to raise her hands to grab the weapon, but she couldn't: her arms were somehow pinned to her sides. "Daddy!"

Chu's rough, huffing voice. "Stay...where you are."

Her father's study, with its trio of massive bookshelves filled with a thousand volumes. Blood and cordite filled her nose. Facing the great multipaned window that overlooked the Hudson River and the great apple tree, he sat at his wide cherrywood desk, his back to her. A half-filled white page curled over the top of a massive black typewriter.

"Dad, stop!"

"Stay where you are."

Click.

She saw him slumped over that wide, wide desk, the Peacemaker on the floor beside his sturdy, low-backed chair.

"DADDY!"

A coughing fit brought Sally to full wakefulness. Knuckles was leaning over her, plainly worried. "Sal?"

The coughing fit took about thirty seconds to subside. Before Sally could try to speak, Dr. Mordecai was at her side with a pencil, notebook, and a bottle. He poured a bitter-smelling, syrupy red-orange liquid into a shotglass. "Drink this," he ordered, handing it to Sally.

"We don't drink," Knuckles said sternly.

"She needs this, both for her throat and shoulder," Dr. Mordecai replied, "A lot of pain is coming, after all that thrashing she's done."

"We don't drink," Knuckles growled, "God's rules."

Dr. Mordecai appraised the huge echidna. "This isn't whiskey," he explained. "It's laudanum."

Knuckles didn't budge. "Yeah? Smells a lot like whiskey to me."

Sally squeezed Knuckles's heavy forearm, shaking her head. "It isn't," she rasped. To Dr. Mordecai she said: "We're Quakers."

When Dr. Mordecai spoke to Sally, his keen eyes remained on Knuckles. "Would chloroform violate your policy of abstinence?" Then he looked down at her. "No, don't speak anymore. Your throat's in poor condition as it is. Nod yes or no." Sally shook her head. "Good. I will return momentarily." He turned on his heel and left them.

Gingerly, she retrieved the notebook. She wrote: It's not whiskey: whiskey actually tastes good. Then she remembered that Knuckles couldn't read English, despite Vanilla's best efforts to teach him. She bit back the curse on her lips, letting it out as a sigh. She began to say something to Knuckles, when she noticed the butt of her father's Peacemaker peeking out from the folds of his robe. Her eyes widened. "How did you-" Her shout was cut off by harsh, deep chest coughs. Knuckles realized what she'd seen, and tucked the weapon deeper into his clothes. He then cinched his belt tighter, to make sure it didn't move.

By the time the coughing fit passed, Dr. Mordecai had returned with a bottle of chloroform and a clean rag. "This may knock you out, but it will reduce all inflammation and dull most of the pain. Three deep breaths through the rag, understand?"

When she had done as instructed, Dr. Mordecai left to attend another patient, now leaving the two of them truly alone. The sweet, antiseptic fumes of the chloroform calmed her down enough to let her think. She pointed at the pistol, and mouthed How?

"I took it off of Chu last night."

You killed him?

"No. I caught him sneaking around here, stalking Amy and some soldier in the street. Then I took it from him and let him go."

While she was relieved that their confrontation-however it had gone down-hadn't ended in death, that revelation nonetheless chilled her heart. He probably thinks Amy's a witch like me. She mouthed, Baby? Soldier?

"She's with Amy. The soldier was walking them to the Germans' place."

Sally frowned quizzically. None of this was making sense. It didn't help that the chloroform, which eliminated most of her pain and made her fingers and toes tingle, was now starting to make her head swim. Though she knew it wasn't a good idea, she decided to speak: "Do you know why?"

Knuckles showed his palms. "No idea."

Abruptly, she kicked aside the linen blanket and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Let's find out, then." She stood up, took nine steps, and then the chloroform took over her conscious mind. She awoke thirty seconds later, in the arms of Dr. Mordecai: he'd caught her as she was falling.

"I wouldn't advise that," he said flatly, before placing her back on the hospital bed. "What's the rush?"

Sally was about to speak, when she remembered that unlike Knuckles, Dr. Mordecai could read her notes. Carefully, she wrote: My friend here says that Amy left this hospital with a soldier last night, and brought her to the German Legation. What do you know of this?

"Amy?" he asked, before remembering, "Oh, the pink one, with the newborn?" Sally nodded. "That was Colonel Prauer," he informed her, "his son brought you in. Word is that he captured some Boxers last night."

How many? she wrote.

"Four or five, I've heard," Dr. Mordecai said, "if you'll excuse me, Miss Acorn." He turned and jogged to the other end of the ward.

At the bed Dr. Mordecai stopped at, Sally saw Cixin sitting up from a bed, with a bandage over his eye and a smile on his face. She was glad that whatever had happened to him, despite everything that had occurred in the past three days, the boy had found a reason to smile at all. She mouthed Cixin?

"Glass," he said, "from the explosions, after Chu chased us off." His gaze hardened. "Sal."

Sally had put a hand to her mouth at the word "glass". In the eye, dear Lord, that must hurt. And he still smiles. Then the "Sal" and the growing frown on Knuckles's face: so, he was going to ask. You couldn't wait until I could talk, could you? You need to get it off your chest now.

"I thought Chu let you go. But he said he didn't. Was he lying?"

Sally let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. The chloroform fumes in her throat remained strong in her breath. Despite the slight dissociative euphoria they brought, she managed to focus her mind enough to shake her head.

"So what happened?"

"I tricked him," she said, "I tricked him, and I ran off. He-" Painful, harsh coughs racked her chest, and it was almost an hour before she could even breathe normally. Dr. Mordecai gave her another dose of chloroform, a single inhale this time. She had him read off her notebook, to Knuckles: I tricked him into thinking I actually am a witch, but it backfired: he shot me as I ran away, then locked me in a burning building.

Dr. Mordecai added: "Let's hope he was one of those the colonel caught." A nurse pulled him away, to see a patient in Ward 2.

Sally immediately regretted telling Knuckles what Chu had done to her. She knew the echidna had a temper, but it always came out in short flashes, easily swept aside by other emotions. She had never before seen true wrath from him, the kind that turns a man's insides to ice and deprives him of all sense.

He coldly looked at a point somewhere over her head, then out the ward window, into the late morning sunlight. "I should've shot him," he hissed, more to himself than to Sally.

She put a hand on his forearm and squeezed, then once more disobeyed Dr. Mordecai's orders by speaking: "No. You did the right thing."

Those cold purple eyes turned on her. "He knows you're alive. Do you really think he would do that for us, when he comes back here?"

Sally matched his stare, saying nothing for a long moment. Finally, firmly, she said: "If he comes back, he can't get to us now." She prayed silently that her statement would turn out to be true.

Author's Note: I will post another chapter next week, but it likely won't be ready until next Saturday. This coming Saturday or Sunday, I plan to post the opening to one of my other projects, "For You, Lili Rouge". While this story is my primary focus, I plan to update the new one periodically, and with longer chapters. I would be intensely grateful to hear feedback from all of you. Thanks!