She sat very still for a long while; then she put the trike in gear. “Back to the island, if we can. Maybe China Black will bury us in the basement for a year and a day, or however long it is before Tom finds some pleasing distraction that isn’t us.”

I don’t know why Worecski hadn’t ordered the bridge stopped up. Maybe some property of the island prevented it. Or maybe his roadblock was on the span connecting the island to the opposite bank, where there would be no place to turn off, no escape. But on the near end, the suspension bridge was unoccupied. Frances drove slowly, her head working from side to side, until finally she said, “There,” and turned off. Either we were expected, or Frances had found the street by sheer force of will.

China Black’s gate looked different in the dark, its weathered wooden slats higher, closer set, forbidding; Frances drove fifty feet past it, cursed, and backed up. It didn’t open when we turned in. Frances left the trike to idle as she went up to try it, and finally to pound on it. There was no response.

She stepped back a pace from the gate and addressed it in a clear, carrying voice, bright as buffed chrome. “I understand the reluctance — the wasps’ nest having been knocked down, I don’t suppose I’d want to be standing next to the fool with the stick, either. But at least have the decency to minister to one of the victims.”

It worked like an incantation. After a moment the left half of the gate swung inward a little. It was China Black herself who’d opened it; the eyebrows caught the light as she looked past the panel at Frances. Then she slipped through and pulled the gate to behind her. The black, high-collared thing she wore, I decided, was a robe.

She reached the trike in two long strides and peered in at me. “You’re hurt?” She stretched out a hand for my shoulder.

Of course. The blood. I’d forgotten I was wearing Cassidy’s colors on my shirt.

The passionless, ironical observer that was master of my head wasn’t mastering my body. I was as surprised as anyone when I jerked away and folded forward in the passenger’s seat, clutching my hands to my face as if to close off all the senses that worked there.

“No,” Frances said, and I felt China Black’s hand snatched away. “It’s not h — the blood isn’t Sparrow’s. But yes, that’s the victim. All I want is a way out of town, or shelter until the mess I’ve made settles.”

The foolish physical reaction was gone already. “You wouldn’t have so much trouble,” I muttered, straightening up carefully, “if you didn’t talk about me in the third person.”

But China Black was already shaking her head. “I can’t. The island was safe only as long as he wanted nothing on it. We have no defense against the kind of force he will bring; we are too few, and those are not our skills. We cannot protect you here. We can only die with you. And forgive me, but this is not our fight.”