"Naturally," Caroline said. "What did you do to them?"

Sylvia lifted her eyebrows. "We did nothing. A few of my Warriors overreacted when they drove off along the back way through the woods, but I got that straightened out and they were allowed to leave."

"Is that what you were doing in the restaurant and the truck, communicating with the Warriors?"

Caroline asked. "Right after you called Roger and Fierenzo fools?"

"Fools?" Sylvia frowned; and then her face cleared. "Oh. No, you misunderstand. I wasn't calling them fools. I was referring to my Warriors and their unauthorized action."

"Ah," Caroline said, her mouth going a little drier. Because that wasn't at all what she had thought at the time. She'd had the distinct and solid impression, in fact, that Sylvia was talking about Roger.

But why would she lie about it?

"I appreciate you telling me," she went on. "And you said Roger was all right?"

Sylvia nodded. "As I told you then—and then repeated a moment ago—they left unharmed. I presume that by now they're well on their way back to the city."

"All right," Caroline said, nodding. "What happens now?"

"You mean with them?"

"I mean with everyone."

Sylvia's lips compressed briefly. "The Grays have given us until Wednesday to return Melantha or face a possible attack," she said. "Since we don't have Melantha, we can't meet that demand. Our only option is to make sure their threatened reprisal doesn't happen."

Caroline felt her blood freeze in her heart. "In other words, you're going to launch a preemptive strike."

"I'm sorry," Sylvia said in a low voice. "I know what the city means to you, and I give you my word that we'll restrict the battle to Gray territory as much as possible. But it has to be done."

"It doesn't have to be this way," Caroline insisted, her tongue tripping over the words. "There has to be a way to stop this. There has to be."

"I'm sorry," Sylvia said again; and even through her anguish Caroline could sense the other genuinely meant it. "But with the Grays pressing in on us, and with Green society fragmented and Leaderless, we have no choice but to take whatever opportunities we can."

"I'm sorry, too," Caroline said. "What will you—I mean, how will you—?"

"How will we do it?" Sylvia picked up one of the sheets from the desk in front of her. "The plan is for our attack to take place tomorrow night," she said. "Late at night, when most Humans are asleep and off the streets. We'll gather together our handful of Warriors, and with Damian protected behind them we'll begin pushing southward from the northern tip of Manhattan. We'll try to take out the Grays using only the Shriek, which can knock them off their buildings if they're below the fifteenth floor or so." She grimaced. "But if they're higher than that, we'll have no choice but to have Damian bring down those buildings."

"Even residential ones?" Caroline asked.

"We find the concept of living shields repulsive," Sylvia said darkly. "I hope the Grays will be noble enough not to hide behind sleeping Humans. But if they do..." She shook her head. "We'll just hope they don't."

For a minute the room was silent. Caroline found herself staring out the window at the afternoon sunlight playing through the forest. She'd always loved trees and forests, and had spent hours walking in them when she was younger.

Now, all she could see out there was hidden death.

"I was also wondering," Sylvia said, "if you'd like to finish our chess game."

"Our chess game?" Caroline echoed incredulously.

Sylvia's lip twitched. "No, I didn't think so," she said. "Well. You may go, then. We'll be eating at six."

"Those Warrior field ration things?"

"I'm afraid that's all we have," Sylvia said. "Unless you'd like me to send someone to town for you.

If you're not in the mood for my company over a chessboard, I doubt you'd appreciate it over a dinner table."

"Actually, I would," Caroline said hesitantly. "Not your company itself, I admit, but I would like to go out."

"Hoping to escape?" Sylvia asked, lifting her eyebrows.

Caroline shook her head. "I've already promised I wouldn't try that." She paused, trying to put her feelings into words. "Roger and I went out to dinner with some friends on September tenth, 2001. It was a great evening—good conversation, wonderful food, everything just calm and cheerful and relaxed."

"And the next morning, the world fell apart," Sylvia said, nodding her understanding.

"And it's never been exactly the same since," Caroline said. "But I still have the memory of that evening to look back on."

She looked back at the window. "It's about to fall apart again," she said quietly. "I'd like to have another memory I can hold onto. Even if it's just a small-town diner surrounded by strangers."

Sylvia was silent another moment. "I suppose it can't do any harm," she said at last. "Your husband is well on his way home by now, and I hardly think anyone else up here would recognize you."

She lifted a finger warningly. "But if we do go, we'll have to wait until after sunset. That detective might have tried to set up something before he left, and if he did I want to have the advantage of darkness on our side. Can your stomach wait until, say, eight o'clock?"

Caroline's stomach was already feeling pretty empty. But she merely nodded. "Yes."

"Then I'll see you at seven-thirty," Sylvia said. "And if you change your mind about that chess game, let me know."

"A chess game," Fierenzo said flatly.

"Why not?" Roger persisted, gripping the wheel tightly as he guided the car down the highway.

"You saw the way the board was set up in the library. I've seen Caroline use that same opening a dozen times."

"Her, and half the chess players on the East Coast," Fierenzo pointed out. "I'm sorry, but it's not nearly enough for a search warrant."

"Then let's skip the search and move straight to an attack," Jonah said flatly from the backseat.

"Not if you want any of New York's Finest involved," Fierenzo warned. "We can't and won't do things that way."

"I was thinking more of Grays' Finest," Jonah countered. "Caroline wouldn't have written what she did about Damian unless she'd either seen him or Sylvia had specifically mentioned him. Torvald won't need much more convincing. I'll bet even Halfdan will go along."

Roger looked in his mirror. Seated in the middle of the backseat between the two Grays, Laurel was staring expressionlessly at the back of the seat in front of her. "You're awfully quiet, Laurel," he said.

"What do you expect me to say?" Laurel asked, her voice steady. "That I would willingly consent to my people being attacked? Possibly even destroyed?"

"We aren't going to destroy you," Jordan said earnestly.

"It would be a very surgical strike," Jonah agreed. "We'd take out Damian and that would be that."

"Maybe that's all you would intend," Laurel pointed out. "But you wouldn't be the ones in charge. Do you really think Torvald or even Halfdan would stop once Damian was killed?"

Roger shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "This really sounds weird to me," he said. "We're breaking our necks trying to keep Melantha from getting killed; yet here we are talking about a surgical strike on Damian."

"It's an entirely different situation," Jonah said firmly. "Melantha doesn't want to hurt anybody, Gray or Human. Damian, on the other hand, would probably enjoy slaughtering both groups. The Gray histories I've read concluded he was at least partially insane."

"Actually, so do our Pastsingers," Laurel confirmed reluctantly. "There was one incident in particular during the war where he deliberately targeted a cave in the Southcliff region where children and injured Grays had taken refuge, even though he knew full well there were no combatants anywhere nearby."