of the stairs.
“Oh, Captain? That’s my cousin over there. The one your thugs grabbed when they beat me. Just in case you want to tell her what you told me.”
When I got to the third floor, I heard steps behind me. I turned.
It was Ileana. She was looking drop-dead gorgeous.
“Cody, please,” she said, and held up the key to Gregor’s rooms. “Gregor loaned me this. Come in here with me.” She unlocked the door.
“What for?” I said.
“I need to ask you some things,” she said.
I snapped on the lights.
“Okay. What?” I said.
“Cody, don’t you see what is happening? You have won,” Ileana said. “This place is open and people are sharing it. My mother is here, and I am here. And Captain Prentiss is here. To join you. After tonight, Crossfield will start to mean something different to New Sodom. We are grateful to you, Cody. All those Burgundians and Mercians who did not want this war. You have saved us from each other. From ourselves. This victory is ragged around the edges, but it is yours. Do you not see this?”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say. So for a while, I stood there thinking about it.
“Please, Cody,” Ileana said finally. “Say something.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I really get you people.”
“And yet, if I were ever to do as much for my people as you have, I will be remembered as a great queen,” Ileana said.
“I’m sure you will be,” I said. “Listen, I should get back.”
“Cody, please forgive me,” Ileana said.
“Well,” I said. “Forgive you for what?”
“For … for … Damn it, Cody Elliot, you know what for, or you should.”
And she started to cry.
I put my arms around her, trying not to notice how wonderful that felt.
After she’d stopped, and blown her nose, I said, “Ileana, I don’t need to forgive you. And I don’t think you did anything that needs forgiveness. You disagreed with me, but that’s just two people disagreeing. Maybe you think you need forgiveness for breaking up with me, but I don’t. I mean, it hurt like hell. It still does. But—”
And then she kissed me.
“You were talking too much,” she said.
We just held each other for a while.
Under our feet, the music stopped playing. It wasn’t the end of a set, either. It was in the middle of a song.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Bet I know who’s here. Excuse me.”
We went down the stairs and heard voices coming up.
“… illegal assembly … trespassing … evidence …”
When I got to the main floor, I saw five cops standing by the wigwam. They were surrounded.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “’S’up?”
“We don’t want to arrest anybody,” the first cop said. “We’re just here to break this up.”
“Break up?” I said. “We just got together.”
“Don’t get smart,” the second cop said. “We know what you’re doing here, and we don’t want a lot of trouble. We just got orders to shut this thing down like it never happened, okay?”
“But it did happen,” I said. “It is happening.”
“And it will continue to happen.” Mr. Shadwell came over, walking on his hind legs. “Officers, xhere is somexhing unique about xhis night,” he said. “A tectonic shift, if you will. Xhe very earxh is moving under our feet as we stand here. Now xhe men who give you your orders recognize xhis, but xhey don’t know what to do about it. So xhey sent you to do somexhing about it for xhem. In my opinion, xhey should never have put you in xhis position.”
“Look, Rover, nobody asked you,” the second cop said. “Back off before you get in trouble.”
“Back off from a fight for freedom of speech?” Mr. Shadwell said. “I’d sooner burn my master’s degrees.”
And he showed his fangs.
He seemed to get taller all of a sudden, or maybe the cop just looked smaller because Ms. Shadwell was standing on the other side of him now and licking her chops.
“Hold on, everybody,” I said. “How about if you guys just arrest me and let the evening go on? I’m the one who cut the yellow tape.”
“You lie!” Gregor was beside me all of a sudden. “I cut the tape. Arrest me.”
“You damn well did not,” I said.
“Actually, it was me,” Turk said, coming up on my other side. She put out her hands in front of her. “Cuff me.”
“You were not even here,” Gregor sneered. “You deserted us. You have no claim to be arrested.”
“Arrest me, then,” Mrs. Warrener said. “I have an illegal piano over