“Archie thinks that we have a spy in our midst,” Adelia said with a crooked grin. Hero looked sharply at Archie.

“A spy?”

“Oui,” Archie replied, her brows high. “I inspected the Gate while ’oundstooth was talking to that ’illbilly ranger. It was sturdy, intact, no recent welding that I could see. And we all know that a ’ippo isn’t going to reach higher ramming speeds overland than in the water.”

“What’s your point, Archie?” Hero asked, not unkindly.

“My point is: if the Gate was not broken, then ’ow exactly did a single feral bull escape the Harriet and find us? Just the one? Not enough for us to notice and change course? I’ll tell you how: Monsieur Travers snapped ’is fingers, and that guard let it out. I’d guess that ’appened on the same day we ’it the road. The only question is, who was gone long enough to send a telegram?”

Adelia, Archie, and Hero looked at each other. None of them wanted to be the first to speak.

The doors to the lounge swung open, and Houndstooth strode in briskly. “Well! Why the long faces, you three? And where’s Calhoun?”

Adelia rattled the ice in her glass. “I’d imagine ’e’s at the blackjack tables,” she said, plucking out an ice cube and pressing it to her neck. “Ay, it’s too hot.”

“You alright, Adelia?” Hero asked.

“Si, si, it’s just—nobody ever told me that having a little girl would make me so hot all the time!”

Houndstooth, being a gentleman, said nothing; he kept his eyes averted from Adelia’s ripe belly. Hero, having no such compunctions, laughed heartily. “Get used to it, ma’am. We have a saying where I’m from—boys will make you cry, but girls? Girls will make you sweat.”

* * *

The lamps that lit the riverboat inside and out had come on by the time Archie found Cal on the casino floor. He swayed gently on his stool, and it was readily apparent that bourbon, rather than the rocking rhythm of the boat, was what moved him. Archie pulled up a stool beside him and mentally tallied the cash that rested in stacks on his side of the felt.

“’Ow are you doing, there, mon ami?” she asked softly. Cal swung his head around to her and grinned broadly. Blood was seeping through the bandage over his left ear. He had two toothpicks in his mouth. One was fresh; the other was chewed nearly to splinters, as though he’d forgotten to discard the old one.

“Archie! Or should I say, Regina?” He leered as he said her name, and she thought she could guess what pun he thought he was making.

“Actually, cherie, it’s Regina. Rhymes with Pasadena.”

His leer dissolved, and he became morose so quickly that Archie feared he would fall off his stool.