Big Dan glared at him. When Gathlen was still alive, he and Scantaglen had made it their personal crusade to torment his nephew, and it seemed Scantaglen planned to continue the practice. Big Dan had thought it might build Rabedy’s character—make him stand up for himself for a change—so he’d let it go on, but Rabedy had yet to stand up for himself and Big Dan grew tired of the endless baiting. And after all, while there might not be much to his nephew, he was still family.

“At least Rabedy’s learned some part of the shapeshifting spell,” he told Scantaglen, before turning his dark gaze on the others. “That’s better than the rest of you pluiking lot. I don’t know why I bother with any of you.”

Scantaglen cast his gaze to the ground, apparently cowed, but Big Dan knew he was unrepentant. It was a bogan’s way to give ground to the more powerful, biding a moment of weakness. And there was always a weakness. The trick of being a boss was to never show it.

“You and you,” Big Dan said, pointing to Luren and Geric. “Go with Rabedy and see what you can find.”

The three bogans stepped away, out of this little pocket of a world. Big Dan toed the girl’s T-shirt with his boot, then walked over to the trunk of a nearby tree. There was blood on the bark, wooden spikes on the ground at its base, holes in the trunk from which he assumed the spikes had been pulled. Odawa joined him, his passage as unerring as always. Just once Big Dan would like to see him stumble.

“He was dead when I hung him on that tree,” the blind man said.

Big Dan nodded. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t matter anymore. The doonie was alive now.

“How did you find this place anyway?” he asked. “A doonie’s hidey-hole is supposed to be impenetrable.”

The blind green-bree shrugged. “I came upon it while I was swimming.”

“Swimming? There are no rivers near here.”

“There are always rivers,” Odawa told him. “If you know how to see them.”

Big Dan gave another noncommittal nod.

“Your water clans probably have the same ability,” the blind man added. “I wouldn’t know,” Big Dan said. “You’re the first I’ve ever spent any time with and you’re not even close to kin.”

He was just a great big pluiking green-bree, maybe blind, maybe not, but for damn sure too full of his own importance.