“No, he was too strong for us,” Walker said.

He was sitting up against the trunk of the tree he’d hit, one hand on his head. I went over to help him up, then went and untangled the strap of my fiddle case from the thorns and brush. I was moving mechanically, trying to get my mind off what I’d just seen.

I’d forgotten that Joe had both corbae and canid blood in him. Man into crow, crow into man. That had been weird enough, but I couldn’t get the image of our last view of Odawa out of my head.

“Tell me I didn’t just see a giant fish go swimming off through the air,” I said.

Joe just looked at me.

“No, come on. I know you’re all shapechangers, but he was swimming through the air.”

“There’s water in everything,” Walker said.

“Yeah, but—”

“When someone from one of the fish clans is powerful enough, he can swim through anything.”

Joe wasn’t interested in any of that.

“I didn’t know that guy at all,” he said. “Not the look of him with those blind eyes, not the smell of him.”

“I’ve seen him before,” Walker said. “From a distance. He’s been through these woods more than once, but he always kept to himself. He moved with such assurance, I would never have guessed he was blind.”

“I guess he’s like Daredevil.”

From the look they both gave me, I realized that neither of them got the reference.

“He’s a character in this movie,” I explained. “It’s based on a comic book where a guy loses his sight, but all his other senses are intensified.”

“I suppose . . .” Walker said.

“We need to make a decision,” Joe said. “Do we backtrack their trail to see if we can find Lizzie, do we follow them, or do we go back to see what Tatiana’s found out?”

“I don’t see much success in the first two,” Walker told him, “and I’d rather avoid the latter if I could. Maybe the two of you should go to the fairy court, and I’ll see where Lizzie’s trail leads me.”

I’d just as soon have done the same, but I waited to hear what Joe had to say. I figured I was here by his good graces, and it’d be up to him whether I came or went.

Joe looked away into the forest for a long moment before turning back to us.