We moved forward another twenty feet or so. Then Williams came to the front. His fingers twitched, but nothing happened, so far as I could tell.

“What did he do?” I asked Graham in a whisper.

“He put a barrier around the trees. She won’t be able to get out.”

Wow. Useful trick.

Graham was looking at me, puzzled. “Can’t you sense it there?”

“Nope. I still can’t see workings.”

The look of consternation on his face bothered me. I turned away.

We advanced on the stand and almost reached it before something crashed out the far side. I couldn’t see what it was at first, but eventually a terrified deer came running around toward us. It kept charging forward and then trying to leap away from the trees, only to hit some invisible wall, then picking itself up and trying again. Poor thing.

“Can’t you let it out?”

Williams glanced over at Zion.

“I think …” Zion hesitated. “I think that’s actually her. Yes. Yes, that’s her.”

Justine could turn into a deer? I turned back to look again, then leaned over to Graham. Guess he was still the go-to guy for questions, in this crowd.

“That’s a working, right? She’s changed herself fully into a deer — that’s why I can’t see through it?”

“No,” he said, watching the animal’s increasingly desperate escape attempts. “There’s no sign of a working.” He glanced at me, clearly at a loss. “So far as I can tell, it’s just a deer.”

“Looks that way to me, too,” Zion said, “but that’s what I’ve been tracking. It’s her. How do we catch her?”

Williams pulled his shotgun out of its scabbard.

“Hey!”

He ignored me. I didn’t have time to take more than a couple steps toward him before he raised the gun, aimed, and fired. The deer went down, bawling and thrashing. His hand twitched, and she stilled.

I stood there in disbelief. Why had he done that?

Williams walked over and began trussing the deer up with a coil of rope he produced from his jacket. I advanced slowly and saw that the deer was still alive. Her large, shining eye looked up at me, panicked. It took me a few seconds to speak without letting out the sob that was lurking somewhere inside.

“Why’d you shoot her? We’re supposed to bring her in.”

“Beanbag ammunition,” he said, without bothering to look up.

I looked the deer over more closely. Her left shoulder was twitching violently, but I didn’t see any wounds. Thank god.

I knelt down and took her head in my lap. I stroked her face, speaking softly to her.

“What are we going to do with her? We can’t travel with her this way.”

Williams sat back on his heels. “Beats me.”