She turned to him, falling back into her warrior’s stance. But Rabedy shook his head and stepped away, into the between and back to the other-world camp where the others waited. His last view of the woman was of her kneeling beside Gathen’s body and pulling his knife from his belt, before she ran off into the forest.

Big Dan sighed when he saw Rabedy returning to the camp on his own. Something was wrong, and it didn’t take a great mind to figure out who’d be to blame. Rabedy was his own nephew, but the little pluiker didn’t have a bogan’s instincts. Not enough backbone. Not enough bogan fierceness. Big Dan had hoped that pairing him on tasks with hard men like Gathen or Straith would awaken the little shite’s natural instincts, but it hadn’t helped so far and obviously nothing had changed tonight.

He didn’t bother to stand up to get Rabedy’s report.

“Where’s Gathen?” he demanded.

“He’s dead,” Rabedy said. He looked at the ground, unwilling or unable to meet Big Dan’s gaze. “The girl killed him. Then she ran away into the woods.”

Lairds help them, Big Dan thought. Did he even realize how preposterous that sounded? A pluiking slip of a girl killed the swaggering Gathen, just like that? Like it had been nothing?

But Big Dan only asked, “What woods? Outside the hotel—in this world?”

Rabedy shook his head. “No, we took her to the Doonie Stane in the Aisling’s Wood like you told us to.”

“So she’s still there.”

“Except she’s run off.”

“She won’t get far,” Odawa said. “Except for a few glades like the one in which the Doonie Stane stands, the forest there is mostly impassable.”

Big Dan frowned. The pluiking green-bree always needed to get in his own penny’s worth. But Big Dan knew he only needed a little more patience and so said nothing. It wouldn’t be long before the green-bree had what he wanted and then he’d have to fulfill his side of the bargain, providing the token that would allow the bogans free passage anywhere they wished to go in the wild and green.

Big Dan had been dubious when Odawa first approached them. “What kind of token?” he’d asked.

“My protection,” the green-bree had explained. “No one will deny you passage.”

“We’ll not swear fealty to you or any other laird.”

“It’s not like that. If you help me, the token is yours in return. We’ll neither of us owe the other any more except for our continued respect and friendship.”

“And what makes you think it will be respected?”

The green-bree had turned those queer blind eyes on him and he felt the shiver of ancient power that Odawa usually kept hidden.

“Oh, it will be respected,” he’d said.