“Demonreach?” he asked.

“Couldn’t find a name on the books,” I said. “So I made up my own.”

“Demonreach,” the Gatekeeper mused. “It’s . . . certainly fitting.”

“So?”

He gave me a tight smile. “It wouldn’t help you for me to say anything more—except for this: one of your facts is incorrect. The ley line you speak of does not go throughthe island,” he said. “This is where it wells up. The island is its source.”

“Ah,” I said. “Wells up from what?”

“In my opinion, that is a very useful question.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And you aren’t going to give me anything else.”

He shrugged. “We do have other matters to discuss.”

I glanced back at my unconscious friends. “Yeah. We do.”

“I am willing to accept that your intentions are noble,” he said. “But your actions could set into motion a catastrophic chain of events.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “What I do know is that you don’t kill a man for a crime he didn’t commit. And when someone else tries to do it, you stop them.”

“And you think that this will stop them?” the Gatekeeper asked.

“I think it’s my best shot.”

“You won’t succeed,” he said. “If you press ahead, it will end in violence. People will die, you amongst them.”

“You don’t even know what I have in mind,” I said.

“You’re laying a trap for the traitor,” he said. “You’re trying to force him to act and reveal himself.”

A lesser man might have felt less clever than he had a moment before. “Oh.”

“And if I can work it out,” the Gatekeeper said, “then so can the traitor.”

“Well, duh,” I said. “But he’ll show up anyway. He can’t afford to do anything else.”

“And he’ll come ready,” the Gatekeeper said. “He’ll choose his moment.”

“Let him. I’ve got other assets.”

Then he did something strange. He exhaled slowly, his living eye closing. The gleaming steel eye tracked back and forth, as if looking at something, though I could only tell it was moving because of the twitches of his other eyelid. A moment later, the Gatekeeper opened his eye and said, “The chances that you’ll survive it are minimal.”

“Yeah?” I asked him. I stepped around him and hopped off the dock and onto the island, immediately feeling the connection with Demonreach as I turned to face him. “How about now?”

He frowned at me, and then repeated the little ritual.

Then he made a choking sound. “Blood of the Prophet,” he swore, opening his eyes to stare at me. “You . . . you’ve claimed thisplace as a sanctum?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How?”

“I punched it in the nose. Now we’re friends,” I said.

The Gatekeeper shook his head slowly. “Harry,” he said, his voice weary. “Harry, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

“I’ve given myself a fighting chance.”

“Yes. Today,” he replied. “But there is always a price for knowledge. Always.”

His left eyelid twitched as he spoke, making the scars that framed the steel orb quiver.

“But it will be me paying the price,” I said. “Not everyone else.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. We were both silent for several minutes, standing in the rain.

“Been longer than five minutes,” I said. “How do you want it to be?”

The Gatekeeper shook his head. “May I offer you two pieces of advice?”

I nodded.

“First,” he said, “do not tap into the power of this place’s well. You are years away from being able to handle such a thing without being altered by it.”

“I hadn’t planned on touching it,” I said.

“Second,” he said, “you must understand that regardless of the outcome of this confrontation, someone will die. Preferably, it would be the traitor—but if he is killed rather than captured, no one will be willing to accept your explanation of events, no matter how accurate it may be. Morgan will be executed. Odds are excellent that you will be as well.”

“I’m sure as hell not doing this for me.”

He nodded.

“Don’t suppose you’d be willing to lend a hand?”

“I cannot set foot on the island,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because this place holds a grudge,” he said.

I suddenly thought of the drag-thumplimp of the island’s manifest spirit.

Damn.

He turned to the dock behind him and flicked a hand at the air. A neat, perfectly circular portal to the Nevernever appeared without a whisper or flicker of wasted power. The Gatekeeper gave me a nod. “Your friends will awaken in a moment. I will do what I can to help you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He shook his head. “Do not. It may be that true kindness would have been to kill you today.”

Then he stepped through the portal and was gone. It vanished an instant later. I stood there in the rain and watched the others begin to stir. Then I sighed and walked back to them, to help them up and explain what was going on.

We had to get moving. The day wasn’t getting any younger, and there were a lot of things to do before nightfall.

Chapter Forty

We worked for three hours before I started dropping things, tripping on nice flat ground, and bumping into other people because I’d forgotten to keep an eye out for them.

“That’s it, Harry,” Georgia said firmly. “Your sleeping bag is in the cottage. Get some more sleep.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said.

“Harry, if anything happens to you, we aren’t going to have anyone we know looking out for us. You need to be able to focus. Go rest.”

It sounded awfully good, but my mouth opened on its own. “We’ve still got to lay out the—”

Will had come up behind me in complete silence. He pulled my arm behind my back in a capable, strong grip, and twisted carefully. It didn’t hurt, until he leaned gently into me and I had to move forward to keep the pressure off. “You heard the lady,” he said. “We can finish the rest of it on our own. We’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

I snorted, twisted at the waist, bumping Will off balance with my hip, and broke the lock. Will could have broken my arm and kept hold of me, but instead he let go before it could happen. “All right, all right,” I said. “Going.”

I shambled into the cottage and collapsed onto a sleeping bag that lay on top of a foam camp pad.

Four hours later, when Will shook me awake, I was lying in the exact same position. Late-afternoon light slanted into the half-ruined cottage from the west. Morgan lay on his own pallet, made by stripping the foam mattress from the bunk on the Water Beetle. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady. Will must have carried him up from the boat.

“Okay,” I slurred. “I’m up. I’m up.”

“Georgia has been patrolling the shoreline,” he said. “She says there’s a boat approaching.”

My heart began beating a little faster, and my stomach fluttered. I swallowed, closed my eyes for a moment, and imagined a tranquil tropical beach in an effort to calm my thoughts. But the beach kept getting overrun by shapeshifting zombie vampires with mouths on the palms of their hands.

“Well, that’s useless,” I said in sleepy disgust. I got to my feet and gathered my things. “Where’s it coming from?”

“West.”

“He’ll have to sail a third of the way around the island then, to get through the reefs,” I yawned. “Where’s Georgia?”

Claws scraped on hard-packed earth, and a large tawny wolf appeared in the doorway. She sat down and looked at me, her ears perked forward.

“Good work,” I told her. “Molly?”

“Here, Harry,” she called, as she hurried into the cottage. She held a crystal of white quartz about two inches thick and a foot long in her hands.

“Get to work, grasshopper. Don’t hesitate to use the crystal if things get dicey. And good luck to you.”

She nodded seriously and went to Morgan’s side. She reached out and took his limp hand, frowned in mild concentration, and they both vanished behind one of her wonder veils. “God be with you, Harry,” she said, her voice coming out of nowhere.