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might have done. It will be a long time—years, perhaps—before I can cast spells as effectively.”
    Des frowned. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t we able to make it work? It seems to me the situation is a simple reverse.”
    “A reverse, yes,” Righteous Drum agreed, “but not simple. We did not belong to your world, but we could claim—through the Earthly Branches that had been removed from the Lands—a kinship with this place. It was that kinship that persuaded the dragon to aid us—that, and many other things too complex to bring up at this moment.”
    “I suppose,” Des pressed, “we could claim the same type of kinship to the Lands, more strongly even, since you four were born there and the rest of us have ancestral claims.”
    Righteous Drum shook his head, sorrow on every line of his dignified features. “I wish that were so, but we cannot eliminate the fact that your ancestors were exiled—barred, banished—by simply choosing to ignore it. Not only were your ancestors exiled, they were exiled with their own concurrence. That makes the severance even stronger. We did not agree to our exile in the same fashion, but we have been barred nonetheless.”
    “You have checked?”
    “We have,” Righteous Drum said.
    His tone was level, holding nothing of the fury and despair Honey Dream recalled from that horrible day, the one immediately following Waking Lizard’s arrival with the news that their allies had been defeated, the day they had tried to connect to the Lands and failed.
    “Still,” Des said, his tone almost pleading,“surely since you did not agree to be exiled, you could provide the final footing for the bridge. Isn’t that possible?”
    “Perhaps,” Righteous Drum agreed, but he looked as ifhe was tasting something very sour, “but highly unlikely. Our enemies in the Lands will have taken actions to prevent that very thing. We might fight our way to the very borders of the Lands only to find ourselves blocked. This is one reason why seeking to establish the Nine Gates, rather than constructing another bridge, might be a better course of action.”
    Honey Dream was astonished to hear her father’s normally resonant tones drop, so that he sounded as if he were making a confession. “Remember, Honey Dream and I have left family behind in the Lands. I have living wives, children. She has sisters and brothers. Waking Lizard has outlived his wives and children, but he has relatives and friends.”
    “So does Flying Claw,” Honey Dream said, hearing the defiance in her own tone and moderating it. “And since our enemies have apparently risen to power, we must fear for those we have left behind. At best they could be held as hostages against our good behavior. I don’t want to think about the worst.”
    Des Lee nodded, and Honey Dream remembered that although he was divorced from his wife, he had children about her own age.
    “I understand your urgent desire to return home, but since we’ve eliminated the amulets we captured from the prisoners, and the option of building a bridge seems less and less possible, then we are left with the Nine Gates.”
    Des took in a deep breath. “And making those is going to be more difficult than you might imagine.”
    “Why?” Righteous Drum said. “Albert Yu spoke as if the creation of these gates was among the lore your ancestors had preserved.”
    Des shook his head, not in disagreement, but indicating that he could not speak further.
    “Wait until the others return. Shen Kung is our Dragon, and our greatest authority on the odd variation of magic we inherited. Pearl may be a Tiger, but she is far more magically sophisticated than she often leads one to believe. AndAlbert… Well, the Cat has always been a little outside of the usual.”
    There was that in his tone that made his polite refusal quite final, and Righteous Drum did not press. The discussion turned to purely theoretical matters.
    Fine
, Honey Dream thought.
Then while you