They met in the middle of the first set of stairs, and for a long moment teetered there precariously as they hugged. "I'm so glad to see you," Caroline murmured, holding the girl tightly. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Melantha said, her voice muffled in Caroline's shirt.

"Thanks to you," the other woman said.

Caroline looked up to see the two adults coming up to her. "I'm sorry," she apologized, suddenly feeling awkward as she released Melantha. "You must be...?"

"We're Melantha's parents," the man said. "Zenas and Laurel. And there's no apology needed."

"More like thanks," a new voice came from behind her.

Caroline turned. Two more Grays had suddenly appeared, a man and a woman, coming down the upper stairs. "I'm sorry—I didn't see you," she said.

"That's okay," the Gray man said with a smile. "We weren't exactly trying to be seen."

"These are Ron and Stephanie, Jordan's and Jonah's parents," Melantha explained, gesturing to them.

"They were hiding masked up on the wall."

"Are you here to gloat?" Nikolos demanded, glaring at Melantha's family.

"Not at all," Roger assured him. "They're here to make a point. Melantha?"

Still standing beside Melantha, Caroline sensed the girl brace herself as she turned to face the other Greens. "I state here and now, Persuaders Cyril, Aleksander, and Nikolos, and Command-Tactician Sylvia," she said in a clear voice, "that I will not use my Groundshaker Gift to help any of you in an unprovoked attack against the Grays."

Nikolos rumbled in his throat. "So we have two traitors—"

"Quiet," Cyril ordered. "Let her finish."

"I also state to you, Torvald and Halfdan Gray," Melantha continued, turning to face them, "that I will not hesitate to use that same Gift in defense of the Greens if they are attacked."

"In other words, Melantha is on the side of peace," Roger said. "And she'll use or withhold her Gift however necessary to make sure that peace is maintained."

"The Peace Child," Caroline murmured, the irony of it suddenly striking her. "Whichever of you gave her that name knew what he was talking about, after all."

Halfdan muttered something under his breath. "Is that it, then? Can we finally go?"

"That's it," Roger said, nodding. "Except for the details of how we go about integrating your peoples into the same areas. But that can wait till tomorrow."

"Why not start now?" Torvald spoke up. "There are a number of fine trees that have been going to waste in Washington Square since the Greens pulled out." He looked questioningly at Zenas and Laurel. "There are also a pair of vacant apartments across MacDougal Alley from my home. Either one would make a good homestead for any Greens who wanted to repopulate the park."

Laurel looked uncertainly at her husband. "What do you think?"

"You know, I've always wanted to live in Manhattan," Ron spoke up before Zenas could answer.

"You said there were two vacant apartments?"

"You can move right in," Torvald said.

"Wait a minute," Aleksander objected. "Melantha's not going to live in the middle of Gray territory."

"That's rather up to you, isn't it?" Roger told him. "If you can get enough Greens to move back to Washington Square, it won't be Gray territory anymore. It'll be Gray and Green territory."

"I'm not sure how well our people would take to such a suggestion," Cyril said doubtfully.

"I'm sure some will be interested," Sylvia spoke up smoothly. "As a matter of fact, I was just thinking that I'd like to try city life for awhile."

Halfdan snorted. "Together with all your Warriors, no doubt?"

"No, just the few necessary to protect the Greens who'll be living there," Sylvia assured him. She lifted her eyebrows at Torvald. "With your permission, of course?"

For a moment, Torvald hesitated. "Are you really ready to trust the Greens with your life?" Halfdan murmured.

The uncertainty in Torvald's face smoothed away. "You don't start by trusting all of them," he told his brother. "You start by trusting just one."

He inclined his head toward Sylvia. "You and your Warriors are welcome, Command-Tactician," he told her. "As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier. From both sides."

"And with that, I think that we are done," Fierenzo said. "I'll go talk to Cerreta, tell him everything's been cleared up, and send the S.W.A.T. team home."

"You think they'll just let us go?" Sylvia asked, frowning. "I assumed we'd have to Shriek them and disappear before they recovered."

"I'd rather not do that if we don't have to," Fierenzo told her. "Unsolved mysteries are very upsetting to the brass. Still, as I understand it, you showed no actual weapons, did no lasting damage to either personnel or property, and had Mr. Galen's permission to borrow his yacht." He lifted his eyebrows toward Nikolos. "You did have his permission, didn't you?"

"Don't worry," Cyril said. "I'll make sure we did."

"Then I think we're clear," Fierenzo said, offering his hand to Ron and then Zenas. "I trust I'll be invited to visit you both once you're settled into MacDougal Alley?"

"Absolutely," Zenas assured him. "As Torvald said, the more the merrier." He smiled at Caroline.

"From all three sides."

49

"So what exactly did Cerreta want from you?" Fierenzo asked as he maneuvered the car through the late-night Manhattan traffic.

"Mostly, he just wanted to yell," Roger told him, sitting close beside Caroline in the backseat. "In a quiet and very civilized sort of way, of course."

"Yes, he's good at that," Fierenzo acknowledged ruefully.

"But there were a few actual questions thrown in, too," Roger went on. "Mostly concerning our precise involvement in this."

"I trust you didn't tell him?"

"We pleaded ignorance and stupidity of the highest rank, which annoyed him no end," Roger assured him. "He got particularly miffed when Caroline tried to explain that it was all a mistake, that she hadn't really been kidnapped."

"He was a lot more than just miffed," Fierenzo told him. "He was aching to find something—

anything—he could charge Nikolos and Sylvia with that he could make stick. But half the Greens had already vanished, and the half who were still there didn't have any contraband or weapons or anything else he could use against them. Not even those metal disks that Messerling and a dozen cops swore had been thrown at them during the fight. Apparently, no one could find anything but some bits of really nice-looking jewelry."

"Amazing," Roger agreed. "And of course, Shrieks don't leave any marks, either."

"Or even any aftereffects, at least not at the levels they were using," Fierenzo pointed out. "Cerreta was so desperate he was actually talking about putting some divers into the Hudson to see if they could find whatever had made those big splashes."

"There's a great use for taxpayer dollars," Roger murmured.

"Yeah, and I think Messerling realized that," Fierenzo told him. "Either that, or he decided it would be better to just let the whole thing die as quiet a death as possible."

"Getting S.W.A.T. butts kicked by a bunch of unarmed men and women will do that," Roger said, gazing out the window at the lights and the people of his city. All the accumulated tension of the past week had drained away, leaving him unutterably tired.

But they'd done it. He, Caroline, Fierenzo, and the others had actually pulled it off.

"People do tend to remember that sort of thing at appropriations time," Fierenzo agreed. "Caroline, you're being awfully quiet back there."

"I was just wondering what Cerreta's going to do to you," Caroline said as she pressed against Roger's side.

"Oh, I think by the time I walk into his office tomorrow morning he'll have cooled off," Fierenzo assured her. "For all the hoops I made the department jump through on this, we did stop what everyone expected to be a major gang war. And no matter how much sod Messerling tries to heap over tonight's escapade, the fact is that the Greens amply demonstrated just how bad the war could have been. I think he'll take that into account."