“Attack?” Fairy pushed herself onto her elbows, pinching her lips at the pain. “I was alone the entire time you were gone. I took a nap and felt a little better, so I thought I’d try to contact Liga.”

Broomstick was on his feet now, the arrow in one fist and a sword in his other hand. “You couldn’t have been alone. This had to have come from somewhere.”

“But why shoot only one arrow?” Fairy asked.

“It doesn’t look right. Can I see it?” Daemon shifted into human form. Broomstick handed the arrow to him.

Daemon smirked. “That’s what I thought. Fairy was right—she wasn’t in any danger. This is from Liga. See the arrowhead? It’s an alligator tooth.”

Sora’s breath caught with the hope that it held answers to help both Broomstick and herself.

Broomstick hurried to Fairy’s side and helped her sit up properly. While he checked her knife wound, Daemon and Sora examined the arrow.

There was no obvious message on it, though. Sora untied the twine that held the tooth to the shaft. No paper rolled up around the arrow. No words written on the shaft itself.

“Are we supposed to do something to it?” she asked.

Daemon shook his head. “I have no clue.”

Sora held the pieces of the arrow up to her ear, shaking them to see if there was perhaps something stored inside.

Suddenly, Liga’s voice filled the air, as if he’d been waiting for them to hear his message rather than see it. Of course. Liga didn’t understand humans or the way they did things. An ordinary, written note probably hadn’t occurred to him.

“My apologies that I cannot come to earth right now,” he said, sounding as if he were standing right beside them. “I am working on a rather fascinating celestial project, and it is impossible to leave the sky.”

“What could be more important than helping us prevent the destruction of Kichona?” Daemon grumbled.

Liga’s message barreled onward. “To answer the question in Fairy’s prayer, if Broomstick has god magic in him, it will take god magic to undo it. I doubt Wolf or I is powerful enough.

“However, I have better news for Spirit—there is a purification ritual to remove the taint on her soul, although I do not know the details. You would have to appeal to an actual god—not a demigod—for the answers on how to perform it.”

They waited for more, but that was the abrupt end of the message, and the arrow’s components disintegrated into dust.

Sora looked up at the sky, both relieved that there was a possibility to save the souls of all the taigas, including her sister’s and her own, and disappointed that there were no instructions, nor a solution to Broomstick’s predicament. “Your brother has yet to understand the finer points of human conversation.”