A day later, Amadeus managed to convince Ketteler to drop the lockdown. Five days later, just before dawn, Blaze arrived in person to sort out all the details on her end. Yes, she would personally announce Ketteler's arrest at the "meeting", but there was one change to Amadeus's plan: instead of twenty Qing soldiers guarding the ministry, there would be forty. "Public relations," she'd explained, "The Empress wants to assure the city that she is the one in control here."

Amadeus didn't like it, but he had little choice: he only had eighty men under his command, and none of the other legations would be willing to reduce their own defenses, not for Kettleler's sake. He didn't even bother asking Knuckles to recruit from the pool of missionaries and their converts at the Fu, either. That left him with sixty men to guard the German Legation perimeter and the section of the Tartar Wall behind it, and less when he factored in the ten that were asleep at any given time.

When Amadeus asked her for news regarding the expeditionary force, she told him: "That's the other reason I'm here. Your allies have shelled the Taku forts, just south of Tiantsin." She handed him a slip of paper. "The Empress regrets that, under the present circumstances, she cannot guarantee the safety of the Quarter's residents."

Amadeus read the paper carefully, his heart sinking. A declaration of war, in all but name. No. There's still time. Nothing official has been declared, by anyone. What was the international press's term for it? A police action. I can still salvage this. If she gets Ketteler, and even myself, she can– Out loud, he said, "How much does this change things for the immediate future?"

"Not much at all," Blaze replied.

"Excellent."

Two hours later, in Ketteler's office, Amadeus told the bellicose porcupine: "Saber-rattling, sir. My contact tells me that the English and Japanese have landed, and they should be linking up with our forces and the Russians within the hour."

Ketteler, more sullen than angry, brushed the letter off. "And the Americans?"

"Them as well. The majority of the force is English and Japanese."

Ketteler nodded, satisfied. "So, our so-called Divine Empress can neither hold the coast nor Peking, no matter what she does." He snorted. " Saber-rattling. Face-saving, that's what it is. She'll be thrown out within the week. With that in mind…" He drew a paper from his typewriter. "This meeting is an opportunity."

Amadeus took the offered paper, saying: "Concessions, Herr von Ketteler?" He began to read.

"More than concessions, Herr Oberst," Ketteler said, "Indemnities, land grants, shipping lanes, the works."

Bold demands from a wanted murderer. He read more carefully, and dropped into his usual advisory role. Amadeus gave the paper a careful second read. Yes. This might actually do, when it's all over. He made a mental note to copy this list of demands, and use it to draft a treaty. There was no question in Amadeus's mind that the combined armies of America, Europe, and Japan would crush the Qing, once they landed in force. Just as easily as the Qing may crush us, Herr von Ketteler.

Once again, the title of "Von Ketteler" rankled the old fox. When his own father was young, a man with a "Von" to his name instantly commanded respect: it didn't simply mean your family had land and peasants to work it. It meant that you were part of the Prussian aristocracy, that you came from a line of men who fought alongside Fredrick the Great, men who defied the tsars and the Bonapartes alike; it meant that you had a legacy to live up to.

Whoever the Kettelers were in the past, this son of their line shamed them. It also shamed Amadeus, whose family came from a line of unlanded but skilled men; men who proudly served that same aristocracy in the courtroom and on the battlefield; men who desperately craved the title "Von Prauer" but could never quite amass the necessary wealth to join their landed masters at the table.

Amadeus decided to excite Ketteler's greed, if only to keep Ketteler's mind off of any security concerns he might have on the way to the meeting. He handed the paper back to Ketteler, then said: "It's a decent start."

Ketteler looked annoyed. "'A decent start?'"

"You haven't gone far enough, I'd say."

It wasn't often that Ketteler looked shocked. He did now. "What would you add?"

What Amadeus said next would have horrified both Sally and Vanilla. "Double the indemnity, and make it payable in silver," Amadeus said, "The Qing economy runs on it. Within a year or two, it will force them to find alternative means of payment, which we could name when they admit that they can't take the pressure."

Intrigue replaced shock. "What alternative means do you have in mind, Herr Oberst?"

"Tungsten and nickel. We will claim exclusive, permanent mining rights, in exchange for the rescinded indemnity."

Ketteler grinned as he swallowed the bait. "The Kaiser's navy would very much appreciate that." He began jotting notes. "Go on."

Amy set the baby in the crib, buttoned up her shirt, and picked her back up again. She noticed the thin dribble of milk off the kid's chin, then wiped it away with her thumb. She made a silly face at her. "Now don't chuck it back up, okay?"

Sahne burped affirmatively and offered her a toothless grin. Amy decided that was a good sign.

A knock on the doorframe behind her made her jump. It was Tails; he looked exhausted, his eyes somewhat sunken and intermittently blank. His khaki uniform and fur was covered in a fine layer of earthy yellow grit, and the faint smell of male sweat and tobacco hung in the air around him. Despite all of that, there was a benign softness to his expression that hadn't been there before. "May I come in?"

Amy relaxed somewhat. "Sure."

Tails stepped through, held his arms out for his little sister as he did so. "May I hold her?"

Amy handed the baby to him. "Keep her head up, that's it. You look a little rough today."

"Oh, I was just relieved from watch," Tails answered, " Herr Hauptmann put me on night duty." He yawned, and began making faces at Sahne, babbling at her in German. Amy managed to pick out of the jumble: " Kliener Hitterntrit. Bist du, ja, du!" He nuzzled his sister's nose. The baby giggled.

Amy wondered if that was how Amadeus interacted with him, at that age. "'Little'..what?" she asked.

Tails reddened slightly. "My apologies. I shouldn't have said that around you."

She shrugged. "Roi de Prusse."

Tails stifled a laugh. "Point taken. I called her 'Little Ass-Kicker.'"

Amy grinned. "Well, that fits. Vanilla was always complaining about how much she kicked." She felt a pang, but it struck her that the mention of Vanilla didn't cause her quite as much pain as it had days ago.

His face grew serious. "How is your head?"

Unconsciously, Amy adjusted her quills to further hide the stitches. "Not too bad. It only hurts when I go to wash my hair."

Tails nodded. "May I look it over?"

She'd diligently monitored her injury every morning for signs of infection, and cleaned it as carefully as possible. Still…"Go ahead."

Tails handed the baby back to her, and carefully parted her quills to look. Though he towered over her–or perhaps, because he towered over her–she relaxed fully, standing still to let him examine her scalp. "When's the meeting?" she said quietly.

Tails hesitated. "Three days from now." He made a satisfied "Ah," then said: "You've healed well. The stitches should be ready to come out now." He looked back into the hall. "Mei? Mei, can you look after Sahne for a little while?"

He led Amy to the infirmary. In his mind's eye, he saw Ping, dead on the operating table, as he held the door for Amy. He paused. So did she, as if she'd seen the apparition as well. Then, as Amy entered and seated herself on the edge of the table, the image–to him, at least–was gone.

Tails was quick. He gathered up tweezers, a razor, a bottle of carbonic acid, and a handful of rags. He then found a burner and a small pot, then went out to find some water to boil the tweezers and razor. After switching on the burner, he turned back to her. She was messing with her quills. "Amy?" Their eyes met.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I stormed off like that, after," he nodded in the table's direction, "After that."

She cocked her head.

"You were right. Ping's death was never my fault. And I shouldn't have been so rude with you, when you tried to tell me that." He glanced back at the water. Small bubbles were forming at the bottom of the pot. He turned the burner down a notch, to give himself time to get the apology off his chest. "I was…God, I don't know what I was thinking, but I wasn't thinking straight. I just–" He fumbled.

She made a little sniffing sound, like a stifled laugh, but much softer. A small, sad smile touched her lips as she scooted off the table and came around to him. "You don't have to chew on it." She leaned against the counter beside him, glancing briefly at the pot. "I've been there." Then she admitted: "Guess I still am."

He nodded, unconsciously mirroring her posture as he faced her. "Over Ping? That was his name, wasn't it?"

She shook her head. "Vanilla."

That look of falconish curiosity came over him. "Vanilla?" Then it dawned on him. "Oh. You were her–"

"Midwife, yeah. It was all going well, until I got your sister in her arms. I still don't know what happened, but…" She couldn't meet his eyes anymore. Her gaze went to the floor. She was silent for a long moment. "Blood," she said, more to herself than Tails. "There was so much. I should've brought her here, I shouldn't have even tried to–" She sighed, jerked herself out of the grief, then looked up at him. "I'm sorry. You never knew her."

He nodded. He was nineteen, his face so young, but just then his eyes looked nineteen, going on…fifty. She knew her own face looked that way too. Gently, he took her other hand in his. His voice came out soft. "I didn't, that's true." He gave her hands a gentle squeeze. "But thanks to you, I know my little sister."

"Thanks to me?"

He smiled. "Why do you think I gave you the belt?"

She blinked, smiling a little. "What? Wh– Tails!"

The pot boiled over. He quickly turned it down to a simmer, dropped in the razor and tweezers. "My apologies. I turned the dial too far."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "You sure you're good to pull out stitches? I can wait if you–"

"I'm fine," Tails said, "If they're in much longer, extracting them will be far more difficult."

Amy nodded, glancing back at the pot as Tails turned the burner back up. "Those need twenty minutes to sterilize, yeah?"

Sally was glad that she'd finally been allowed outside the German Legation, to be away from Ketteler, that smug, self-satisfied monster, and even more glad to see that The Fu–an enormous mansion with wide grounds–had such a large populace. What Sally wasn't glad about, was the chaperone Amadeus had appointed for her. Sonic wasn't altogether pleased by this errand, either. But, orders were orders.

There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Chinese Christians camped in the wide yard in front of the building, from the front door all the way to the canal that split the Quarter in two. The inside was probably no less packed. And to Sally's surprise, on the mansion balconies and along the barricades that shielded the Fu to the north and west, she saw soldiers; they were dressed in the red-trimmed, navy blue uniform and white jackboots of the Japanese naval infantry. Each of them carried a bayoneted rifle and a full pack.

She hadn't expected that kind of generosity from the Japanese at all, and even more strangely, they seemed to be taking their guard duty with deadly seriousness. A lean brown bear, even taller than Miles, with red cuffs at the end of his uniform's shirtsleeves, marched smartly through the crowd toward her and Sonic. He stopped a meter short of them. "Identify yourselves," he said curtly.

"Sally Acorn," Sally answered, more than a little intimidated by this freakishly tall man, "I'm with the Woundwort mission."

The bear's hard expression softened a little, and he nodded. "You were burned out first, weren't you?" Then he turned his attention to Sonic. "And you?"

"Captain Von Igel, Sergeant."

The bear looked nonplussed for a moment, then nodded again. "Follow me," he told Sally, "they're by the north barricade." As the strange trio wove their way through the crowded camp, they heard snatches of Catholic chants, Quaker and Lutheran hymns, and even bits of the Psalms that, to Sally's ears, bore the distinctive lyricism of Vanilla's Mandarin translations. After about fifteen minutes, she saw a little group a few yards away from the barricade, huddled around a closed ceramic pot with steam rising from the edge of the lid. One, an old, stocky, weather-beaten and scarred alligator, looked up and met her eyes. He looked stunned. "Miss Acorn?" Several other heads turned, and their expressions matched his.

"Falun!" She grinned, rapidly stepping past the two soldiers. Falun got to his feet to meet her. A sinking feeling creeped into her gut when she noticed how everyone else stayed seated.

Falun stopped a couple feet from her to bow, and she bowed back. "It's good to see you again: when we heard about the attack on the Germans, we feared the worst." He looked around. "Where's Amy?"

"She's fine, she's with the baby," Sally answered, "Where's everyone else?"

Falun took a regretful breath before responding. "All over the place, in fives and tens. Most of the old ladies set up shop inside. Me, Xin, and Knuckles have some of the street kids, and most everyone else went back to their families."

Sally dared to hope. "But they're all here? Everyone?"

Falun scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment or two, and Sally could see him counting in his head as his lips moved. "Yeah. Except for little Cixin, he's still in the hospital." He gestured at the pot. "We have some rice going, if you'd like."

Sally sent a little prayer of thanks skyward. Yes. Oh yes, Thank You. Out loud, she said: "I would appreciate that very much." As she followed Falun, she asked: "Is Cixin better now?"

Falun glanced back at her, plainly unhappy. "The glass got his eye but good. He's feverish, doesn't talk much, and he sleeps a lot, from what Knuckles told me."

I could've tried, she thought, remembering the hopeful look on Cixin's face when he asked if she could call on Heaven to heal him. I should have. If I'd had a little more faith…Stop it, she told herself, stop that, right now. You can try today. She resolved to do it, as soon as she'd seen that no one else from Vanilla's–My mission, she corrected herself–would need her help.

One of the boys, a pangolin a few years younger than Amy, scooted over to let Sally sit in the circle around the pot. Falun uncovered the lid, allowing a tower of steam to billow into the air. All the boys held up their bowls, and Falun filled each one with a thick wooden spoon. He filled his own bowl last, giving it to Sally. Lacking utensils aside from the serving spoon, they ate with their hands.

Sonic watched the little group eat for a while, noting the furtive glances a few of the boys were giving him. He began scanning the crowd immediately around them. More eyes were turned on him and the bear than on Sally: most were curious, but far more than he liked were just shy of hostile. Not that he blamed them. Keeping Sally's group in his peripheral vision, he began talking to the Jap. "What do they call you, Sergeant?"

"Kesagake, Captain," the bear answered.

"Sonic." The captain looked his companion over. "If you don't mind my saying so, you're the tallest Asian I've ever seen."

Kesagake seemed more amused than offended by the frank remark."I'm from Hokkaido, Captain. We all get tall there."

Sonic nodded thoughtfully as he scanned the crowd again. He was pleased that Kesagake was doing the same. "How many men do you have guarding this place?"

"Fifty, Captain." His confidence made it sound as if he'd said "five hundred". "The other twenty are back at our legation."

"Twenty? That's not enough."

Kesagake shrugged. "The Italians moved in with us, so it's really seventy on guard there. A few less than yours, is it not?"

Sonic nodded. "Any machine guns here?"

"No. We have rifles and pistols, some explosives. We've used the night to dig and camouflage some pits outside the barricades, and added a few spike traps. The Boxers will learn not to attack this way."

Sonic had to admire Kesagake's confidence. He didn't bluster like Ketteler did, nor did he give caveats to otherwise sound tactical assessments like Tails and Amadeus sometimes did. It was a simple statement of fact: whatever happened, the sergeant would make certain that the Boxers wouldn't get through. He smiled. "Can you show me some of the traps?"

Amy let herself relax as the last stitch came out. "You're right about one thing, when you snapped on me," she said, shaking her head.

Tails looked up from the waste basket as the silk threads fell in. "What about?"

"Ketteler. That man's a mad dog." She looked up at him. "Can't say it's not his nature to do what he did to Ping."

Tails studied her. He nodded.

"But if you're gonna blame someone for throwing them together, blame the bloody Boxers." Coming from her, the word "Boxers" sounded like a curse. She scooted off the operating table. "Do you have a mirror around here?"

Tails found one in a drawer below the burner. He handed it to her. As she checked his work over, a little root of foreboding began creeping from his belly, to his heart. "Amy?"

She glanced away from the mirror, to him. "Yes?"

The reason Sally and I were late to supper the other night, was that I was about to shoot myself. She saw me. He wanted to blurt it out and get it over with. But something, whether it was his promise to tell her when the Quarter was safe, his fear of what she might say or do if he told her now, or a simple self-preservation instinct, made him swallow it. Instead, he said: "Have you ever been to the botanical gardens?"

She shook her head. "What's a botanical garden?"

Instant, sweet relief. "It's like a zoo, but it displays plants instead of animals. I can take you there, it's just up the street."

She lit up, but then stopped and said: "Don't you need to sleep?"

He smiled. "I can afford to lose an hour or two."

She beamed. "I'd love to!"