He paused before speaking—but then, he damn near always did. “Perhaps there is reason. Add to your list of upset balances such things as open warfare erupting between the Red Court and the White Council. A Seelie crown being passed from one young Queen to the next by bloody revolt, and not the will of Titania. Wardens consorting with White Court vampires on a regular basis. College students being taught magic sufficient to allow them to become werewolves. The Little Folk, Wyld fae, banding together and organizing. The most powerful artifacts of the Church vanishing from the world—and, as some signs indicate, being kept by a wizard who does not so much as pay lip service to the faith, much less believe.”
I scowled. “Yeah, well. When you put it like that.”
He smiled faintly.
I held up my hand, palm out. “I swear to you, by my magic, that I am not involved with those lunatics, except for trying to put out all these fires they keep starting. And if questionable things surround me, it’s because that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re as outclassed as I usually am. You have to find solutions where you can, not where convenient.”
The Gatekeeper pursed his lips thoughtfully, considering me.
“Look, can we agree to a short truce, to talk this out?” I said. “And so that I can keep my apprentice from drowning?”
His gaze moved past me to Molly. He frowned and lowered his staff at once. “Five minutes,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. I turned around and got Molly hauled back onto the boat. She never stirred. Once she was safely snoozing on deck, I went down the dock to stand in front of the Gatekeeper. He watched me quietly, holding his staff in both hands, leaning on it gently. “So,” I said. “Where’s the rest of the Senior Council?”
“On the way, I should think,” he said. “They’ll need to secure transportation to the island in Chicago and then find their way here.”
“But not you. You came through the Nevernever?”
He nodded, his eyes watching me carefully. “I know a Way. I’ve been here before.”
“Yeah?” I shook my head. “I thought about trying to find a Way out here, but I didn’t want to chance it. This isn’t exactly Mayberry. I doubt it hooks up to anything pleasant in the Nevernever.”
The Gatekeeper muttered something to himself in a language I didn’t understand and shook his head. “I cannot decide,” he said, “whether you are the most magnificent liar I have ever encountered in my life—or if you truly are as ignorant as you appear.”
I looked at him for a minute. Then I hooked my thumb up at my ridiculous head bandage. “Dude.”
He burst out into a laugh that was as rich and deep as his speaking voice, but . . . more, somehow. I’m not sure how to explain it. The sound of that laugh was filled with a warmth and a purity that almost made the air quiver around it, as if it had welled up from some untapped source of concentrated, unrestrained joy.
I think maybe it had been a while since Rashid had laughed.
“You,” he said, barely able to speak through it. “Up in that tree. Covered with mud.”
I found myself grinning at him. “Yeah. I remember.”
He shook his head and actually wiped tears away from his good eye. It took him another moment or two to compose himself, but when he spoke, his living eye sparkled, an echo of his laughter. “You’ve endured more than most young people,” he said. “And tasted more triumph than most, as well. It is a very encouraging sign that you can still laugh at yourself.”
“Well, gosh,” I said. “I’m just so ignorant, I don’t know what else to do.”
He stared at me intently. “You don’t know what this place is.”
“It’s out of the way of innocent bystanders,” I said. “And I know it better than most of the people who are on the way.”
He nodded, frowning. “I suppose that is logical.”
“So?”
“Hmm?”
I sighed. Wizards. “So? What is this place?”
He considered his words for a moment. “What do you think it is, beyond the obvious physical and tactical terrain?”
“Well,” I said. “I know there’s a ley line that comes through here. Very dark and dangerous energy. I know that there’s a genius loci present and that it is real strong and isn’t very friendly. I know that they tried to start up a small town here, linked with the shipping interests in the Great Lakes, but it went sour. Demonreach drove them away. Or insane, apparently.”
“Demonreach?” he asked.
“Couldn’t find a name on the books,” I said. “So I made up my own.”
“Demonreach,” the Gatekeeper mused. “It’s . . . certainly fitting.”
“So?”
He gave me a tight smile. “It wouldn’t help you for me to say anything more—except for this: one of your facts is incorrect. The ley line you speak of does not go throughthe island,” he said. “This is where it wells up. The island is its source.”
“Ah,” I said. “Wells up from what?”
“In my opinion, that is a very useful question.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And you aren’t going to give me anything else.”
He shrugged. “We do have other matters to discuss.”
I glanced back at my unconscious friends. “Yeah. We do.”
“I am willing to accept that your intentions are noble,” he said. “But your actions could set into motion a catastrophic chain of events.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “What I do know is that you don’t kill a man for a crime he didn’t commit. And when someone else tries to do it, you stop them.”
“And you think that this will stop them?” the Gatekeeper asked.
“I think it’s my best shot.”
“You won’t succeed,” he said. “If you press ahead, it will end in violence. People will die, you amongst them.”
“You don’t even know what I have in mind,” I said.
“You’re laying a trap for the traitor,” he said. “You’re trying to force him to act and reveal himself.”
A lesser man might have felt less clever than he had a moment before. “Oh.”
“And if I can work it out,” the Gatekeeper said, “then so can the traitor.”
“Well, duh,” I said. “But he’ll show up anyway. He can’t afford to do anything else.”
“And he’ll come ready,” the Gatekeeper said. “He’ll choose his moment.”
“Let him. I’ve got other assets.”
Then he did something strange. He exhaled slowly, his living eye closing. The gleaming steel eye tracked back and forth, as if looking at something, though I could only tell it was moving because of the twitches of his other eyelid. A moment later, the Gatekeeper opened his eye and said, “The chances that you’ll survive it are minimal.”
“Yeah?” I asked him. I stepped around him and hopped off the dock and onto the island, immediately feeling the connection with Demonreach as I turned to face him. “How about now?”
He frowned at me, and then repeated the little ritual.
Then he made a choking sound. “Blood of the Prophet,” he swore, opening his eyes to stare at me. “You . . . you’ve claimed thisplace as a sanctum?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How?”
“I punched it in the nose. Now we’re friends,” I said.
The Gatekeeper shook his head slowly. “Harry,” he said, his voice weary. “Harry, you don’t know what you’ve done.”
“I’ve given myself a fighting chance.”
“Yes. Today,” he replied. “But there is always a price for knowledge. Always.”
His left eyelid twitched as he spoke, making the scars that framed the steel orb quiver.