The crowd parted, men leaning backwards to clear a path as if they were afraid to touch him. When he reached Angeline’s feet, he stared up and her and asked, “May I say a few words?”

The room held its breath, and Angeline took a deep one. Then she said, “If they’re helpful words, then you should probably share them.” Then she hopped down off the bar to linger at its end with Lucy O’Gunning and Briar Wilkes, retreating to the little knot of femininity that accounted for every woman Rector knew of in the underground save for Mercy Lynch, over by her daddy.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Yaozu murmured. He turned around and jumped backwards onto the bar with a quick little leap that left him sitting on its edge. He climbed to a standing position and assumed Angeline’s spot at the center of everyone’s gaze.

“All the way here from King Street Station, I considered this problem—and I considered what we know. We know the broad strokes of their plan, yes. But we need more information before we begin countermeasures. First we should spy on the newcomers and make sure we know their strength and their resources.”

Someone complained aloud, “But they’re going to blow us up!” and immediately shrank in upon himself, as if he wished he hadn’t said anything.

“A valid concern, yes,” Yaozu conceded. “However, the strategic use of dynamite is more complicated than throwing the sticks down a hole and lighting a match. I know of this man, Otis Caplan. He isn’t an idiot, and he’ll want to use his explosives wisely. He’ll survey his intended targets and take his time selecting them.”

Andan Cly asked, “How much time, do you think?”

“Houjin said they had no plans before tomorrow night, when their reinforcements arrive, so we can assume we have another day or two. Perhaps forty-eight hours. And when they do make their move, they’ll attack the Station, not the Vaults. It’s their primary goal, and the only firmly occupied place they’re aware of.”

A reluctant but positive hum considered this, and accepted it.

“This is not to say that we should dawdle. We need men—or women”—he quickly amended—“who are familiar with danger and prepared to come very close to it. We need people who can move quietly, and who know the area with great precision.”

Doctor Wong frowned. “But the north side,” he said in heavily accented English. He switched to Chinese to ask the rest of his question, and Yaozu replied in kind. Then, to everyone else, Yaozu said, “It’s true that the area is a wasteland—that’s why our enemies chose it. If they’d been smart enough to fix the hole in the wall, even with a flawed, temporary barrier, we might not have noticed their presence so soon. But their carelessness is our good fortune.

“So that leaves the question: How many of you know the north wall area well enough to monitor it, and the men who’ve settled in there?”

Angeline let out a little cough.

“Obviously Princess Angeline is familiar with the terrain. Anyone else?”

Houjin’s translation provided a soft echo.

A burly man with a fluffy beard put up his hand. “I knew the spot, years ago. I knew it well. I worked at the sawmill, before it burned. My boss had a home up there.”

Intrigued, Yaozu asked, “And you regularly visited your employer’s home?”

He shrugged. “I was a foreman. I delivered messages and supplies to Mr. Yesler. I saw the tower while they were building it. The park layout’s pretty straightforward,” he assured the room at large. “Several streets, all running alongside one another. They dead-end … well, at the wall, I suppose. But they used to dead-end at the park, right around the tower.”

Angeline added, “And the wall runs right behind that tower, over the cemetery. Cuts it in two.”

The lumber man said, “All right, I can imagine that.”

“What’s your name?” Yaozu asked.

“Terrence Miller. By coincidence.”

“Excellent. Anyone else? We have Princess Angeline, and Mr. Miller.”

Captain Cly was elbowing Houjin, who finally gave in and said, “I remember everywhere we went, and could find my way around. I’m good with directions.”

“That you are,” Yaozu said approvingly. “You’ve only been there once?”

“Just the once.”

“Your recent visit probably makes you as good a guide as Mr. Miller, who hasn’t been in years, if I judge his implication correctly. Between the three of you, could you make a map? Something we could pass out to those who might join you?”

Angeline told him, “We could. We will.”

“Good, good. We’ll need to educate a few chosen people about the terrain.”

“Only a few people?” Lucy O’Gunning asked.

“For now, only a few. And if possible, we should send out a party this afternoon. We can’t waste time.”

“But then what?” Lucy pressed.

He paused. “It depends on what we learn. If we can take a few days to gather ourselves and ready our defense, so much the better. If we can’t, then we rush our plans and hope for the best.”

“So you do have a plan?” Houjin sounded positively hopeful.

Yaozu gave him a chilly smile. “Yes. But it’s not a plan I can enact alone. I’ll need the whole underground to assist. And that’s only fair, isn’t it? Since it’s the whole underground we mean to save. They’ll come for the Station first, yes, but they’ll come for the rest of you eventually. Or the Vaults will collapse upon themselves without my people—and my finances—to restore them.”

Grudgingly, Briar Wilkes said, “That’s true.”

“Thank you, Sheriff Wilkes,” Yaozu said with carefully presented deference. “We all must agree to work together, and we must understand that the solution will not be clean, tidy, or peaceful.”

Kirby Troost, one of the men from the Naamah Darling, said, “I think we’ve got that part figured out. I, for one, am tickled pink at the prospect of dirty, untidy, and violent. So what do you intend for us to do, anyhow?”

Cly nudged the little man gently, as if he was concerned that too much had been said. But Troost stood his ground, and stared levelly at the Chinese man on the bar.

“Mr. Troost. You’re an engineer, aren’t you?”

“Close enough.”

“I’ll want a word with you later. You, too, Houjin. I have a team of my own at the Station, but I’ll need all the mechanical heads I can put together.” Then he concluded, “Between us, I believe that we can best them. Entirely.”

Twenty-two

The city mobilized. Houjin was carted off with Yaozu—he didn’t leave with Cly’s permission, exactly, but the captain didn’t attempt to stop him. Angeline disappeared out the back of Maynard’s as soon as Yaozu had finished speaking, as if she’d forgotten something and only just remembered it, but Rector suspected that she was trying to avoid the man altogether.

The remaining crew of the Naamah Darling went up to Fort Decatur to prepare the ship for launch and reconnaissance—and a potential supply run as well, if it could be made quickly enough. Zeke vanished with the captain, as if the boy could replace Houjin (a thought that made even Rector laugh), and Briar Wilkes left right behind them. Lucy O’Gunning began cleaning the bar, Swakhammer and his daughter went out the back door chatting, and there was nobody else left who Rector knew well enough to ask, What should I do? Where should I go?

Everyone ignored him, so he went back to the Vaults. It was either that or the Station, and he didn’t know anyone there except for Bishop and Yaozu, and neither one of them seemed too likely to take him under their wing. Or even give him the time of day, without duress.

But the Vaults were easy, and not very far away. He’d figured out the path by now, and while he’d been jaunting through the facilities with Zeke he’d spied a room that nobody seemed to be using. Since he doubted that Mercy Lynch would beat him back, he let himself into the sickroom, gathered his belongings, and relocated to the other space on the next floor down.

This new room was dark, but all the rooms were dark. It was scantily furnished, but again, none of the rooms were poshly appointed as far as he knew—except maybe out at the Station, where Yaozu had enough money to appoint whatever he pleased.

Rector wondered if he ought to find his way out to the Station, after all.

The Doornails had been pretty nice to him, so far as nice went. Except maybe the nurse, who hadn’t been nice, but she’d saved his life. And maybe Cly or Briar Wilkes, who’d been none too welcoming—but hadn’t chased him out of the fort, either. But Zeke was all right, same as ever. And Houjin was tolerable, once you figured him out. And Angeline was fine by him, if you ignore the fact that he’d never expected to call a woman old enough to be his grandmother some kind of friend.

As he sat on the edge of the dry, uncomfortable bed, he asked himself what he really wanted and found no answer except a dull pang of hunger for sap, which he’d effectively concluded that he couldn’t have anymore, regardless of how much he wanted it.

(Something about the dismembered pile of bones and meat. Something about the moaning, lonely grunts and wails of the rotters. Something about being so close to it all, and Yaozu running an operation with no use for users, now or ever.)

All right then. No more sap. Not for now.

He considered sharing this unhappy conclusion with Zeke or Houjin, or even Mercy Lynch—since she was so keen to hear all about sap and its effects—but he wasn’t certain he could stick with the resolution, if in fact this was a resolution at all. He didn’t know. He’d never made one before.

All he knew was that he’d gone a stretch without sap and he was thinking clearer than he had in a very long time, and feeling better than when he’d been on the outside—persistent Blight gas be damned. He was hungry more often than not, but he’d always been hungry outside—and now he knew where to find food, and no one would swat him with a belt if they caught him taking any. He was tired, but he’d often been tired before, and now he had a place to sleep that he didn’t share with anyone else. Maybe it didn’t lock, and maybe it didn’t belong to him in any concrete way apart from possession being so much of the law down here, but it was his and no one was fighting him for it.