He liked being one of Big Dan’s Bogan Boys, liked the way the other fairies and even the smaller green-bree spirits gave them a wide berth when the gang went swaggering about town, liked the way they could take what they wanted from pretty much anyone without argument. They were seen as hard men now, tall in the eyes of the fearful. When they showed up at a market or a revel, people were wary of them, careful not to give offense.

But Odawa, green-bree pluiker that he was, showed no respect. Gathen wasn’t even sure that he was really blind. Those milky-white eyes of his seemed to take in far too much for a sightless man. You always had the sense that he knew exactly where he was, where every bloody thing was, from Luren sitting over there on a log, picking his nose, to the small sparrow perched in the branches above their heads.

When Big Dan first let Odawa link up with the gang, Gathen thought he was meant to be their own Billy Blind, one of those household spirits who gave fealty and advice to the head man. And he’d had some good counsel at first. Like the killing of a cat and how the shaping of a rune with its entrails would steer them to the good hunting they’d had of late. It went bad the other night, but that was no fault of the ritual. That was the fault of another of these pluiking green-brees.

Teaching them how to shapechange into dogs was good, too, though none of them had quite got the hang of it yet. Rabedy Collins, who’d made the best attempt so far, couldn’t get rid of his drooping dog ears and tail, which was as far into the change as any of them had managed.

But that didn’t give Odawa leave to be so pluiking disrespectful.

“You stupid little men,” he was saying now.

Big Dan glared at him.

“Don’t be calling us names,” he told the blind green-bree. “You wanted to see Grey’s doxie, we showed her to you. You didn’t want it, you shouldn’t have asked.”

Odawa gave him a slow nod. “You’re absolutely right. I spoke out of turn.”

Gathen looked around at his companions. Was he the only one who could see that Odawa apologized only because it was what Big Dan wanted to hear, not because he meant it?

“But did you bother to notice who else was in that room?” Odawa added.

Big Dan shrugged. “Pluikers and ass-lickers.”

“Not to mention Mother Crone’s favourite fiddler, and how about the woman in the wheelchair? That one is thrice blessed—I could smell the luck on her.”

“I didn’t smell anything. Blessed by what?”

“By corbae, canid, and an old earth spirit who walked this world before any of us were born.”