Good thing my autopilot was working, because I was not. My eyes stung. I couldn’t see, even think past the hot debris raining down around us. It was Lizzy’s hand on the stick as I shoved it forward. What had he . . . we . . . done?

Fiery missiles pocked the water, hissing into steam. A few landed in the cockpit bilge and died. Acrid smoke billowed along the cross-streets, dragging with it the raw thunder of collapse and a very bad odor.

The Macy kids unfolded themselves from under the console and gathered silently at the wheelhouse door to see their den go up in flames and shower a ten-block radius with ash and wreckage. Never mind the shattered bodies of sixty or so Adders.

No eruption of victory yells and back-slapping in the back of the boat. The devastation was too sobering. Poppy grinned bravely through her pain and Hannah looked darkly satisfied, but Daniel sat still and erect, watching the inferno eat up Herald Square as if only now facing the horror he’d brought about. Finally, Hannah set to breaking down her bow, returning unused arrows to the quiver still slung across her back. She nudged Daniel with a supportive fist, but he turned away, rubbed viciously at his face, then sat elbows on knees, staring into the ashy water washing around the bottom of the boat while I drove us out of there.

He didn’t look at me. I guessed it would be a while. He would guess how I was taking this. And what could I say to him? I didn’t understand the deal he’d made with himself. If only it had been Tom Doyle or Empire Will, someone I didn’t want so much to think well of. But it hadn’t been easy. Julian was likely right about Daniel not caring if he walked away from this righteous wrong. His burden of guilt spoke loud in the slump of his shoulders, the crushed stillness of his spine. Well, good. He’d be no better than Adders, otherwise.

“Any more speed in this tub?” Hannah demanded.

“Push her too hard, she’ll quit.” But I settled Zephyr into a steadier run. We were already at risk from the boat’s shifty fuel gauge. Better to get home and face our reckoning there than break down halfway.

Hannah eased an arm around Poppy’s back. “Fast as you can.”

At least we’d done our best to save the Macys. One less thing to feel guilty about.

THIRTY-TWO

Open water steadied me a bit. The sailor in me shoved the horror aside to focus on tide and wind direction, maybe to avoid the worst of the smoke, and the grim debris still silting down around us. I was glad to be inside the wheelhouse. Nobody told me different when I turned down Fifth for the quickest water route. We motored toward home in silence. Even the little Macys seemed lost in grisly contemplation.