“When he thought you were already dead. And then you killed his wife, and others close to him, too, if all the tales are true. You should have taken your battle directly to him. That would have been the honourable course.”

Odawa gave a slow nod. “And probably the wiser, too. She cursed me before she died. She cursed me to wander forever, but never reach my destination.”

“So that’s why you needed our help. If you were to hunt him directly, you would never get near to him.”

“That was my thought, to use you as a bridge to reaching the damned jay. But it seems that the curse holds true even when I use intermediaries, for I’m no closer to Grey now than I’ve ever been.”

Rabedy looked down the long grey sands of the beach to where it disappeared into the mist. He sighed.

“I can take you to him,” he said.

“And yet you thought me cruel.”

“Hurting the people around him—that’s cruel. Finishing your business with Grey . . . that’s just between the two of you.”

“And for a reward,” Odawa asked. “What do you require?”

Rabedy spat on the sand between them. “I don’t want anything. I just want this done so that we can go back to doing what bogans do, and you can go back to whatever it is that you are.”

The blind gaze never left Rabedy’s face.

“Big Dan wanted safe passage through the green and the wild,” Odawa said. “For him and anyone in his company.”

“I’m not my uncle.”

“Then perhaps I could show you how to complete your shapeshifting one way or the other so that you don’t have to walk around the way you do, caught between dog and bogan.”

He started to reach for Rabedy, but the bogan backed out of his reach.

“I told you,” he said. “I don’t want anything, and I don’t want to be beholden. I’ll figure this out on my own.”

“I meant it to be knowledge, freely given.”

“Do you want Grey or don’t you?” Rabedy asked.

The brow above the green-bree’s milky eyes wrinkled into a frown, but then he forced himself to smile.

“I want him,” he said.

“Fine. Then let’s finish this.”

Rabedy stepped closer, but paused just out of reach before the blind green-bree could put his hand back on the bogan’s shoulder.

“Remember,” Rabedy said. “I have your name.”

Odawa moved so quickly, Rabedy never saw him coming. One moment the green-bree was standing in front of him, the next Odawa had him in a headlock, arm around his neck so that neither air nor words could escape his throat.