“I don’t think so,” Jack says. “This has gotten too big for that now. You think Tatiana would be so concerned if it was just some little skirmish between a few bogans and cousins? You can bet that somewhere out there in the bush cerva are mustering.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were at the blessing ceremony—you saw the buffalo soldiers there.”

“Do you really think they would break the truce?”

Jack shrugs. “Anwatan’s not the first cousin to be killed by aganesha in the past few months. And the buffalo have a new leader—a hard-line warrior type. You know the kind.”

I do. The buffalo lost more than most of us when the aganesha landed on our shores to start their long, bloody march inland.

“The funny thing is,” Jack adds, “I’m not sure I want to stop them.”

I know exactly what he means. I don’t want to pretend that everything was perfect before the aganesha’s arrival, but things only seem to have gone downhill since then. Maybe what this world needs is a good cleansing.

“But see,” Jack says, “that’s where we’d be wrong. We’d be letting our personal feelings get in the way of what’s really important, which is that we take care of each other and this messy old world we’re living in. Because that’s why Nokomis put us here, right?”

I give a slow nod.

“Even,” he goes on, “when we feel we could really do without some of the people who are making the mess.”

I nod again, more reluctantly this time.

“So that’s why we need to get this business of Joe’s settled, because we need Joe on this. But he’s not going to be worth a damn while he’s worrying about Jilly.”

“And if we’re too late to help Jilly?”

Jack shakes his head. “Then we’re screwed because you don’t want to see the hurt that’ll go down if Joe loses it.”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “He’s not one of the original People. He’s not like Cody or Raven. He’s not even of one blood.”

“Canid and corbae,” Jack agrees. “But he’s got something old and dark in him. Some piece of the long ago that Raven didn’t use when he made the world. Don’t know what it is, and I doubt Joe does either—that’s even saying he’d admit it’s there—but if he gets turned around and goes all hard and looking for payback, that piece of the dark’s going to come roaring up through his soul, and we won’t have Joe to deal with anymore. We’ll have something new and a hundred times more dangerous.”

I give Jack a long, considering look.

“And this is who we need to make peace?” I finally ask.