He shrugged. “I never could figure out the exact physics, if that’s what you’re asking, but somebody tried to explain it to me once. What I got out of it is that there’s all these little subatomic particles that make up everything. You go looking down far enough and eventually you can see that everything’s just energy, not one thing or another. It just is. If you can put a name on it, you can make it be or do anything you want. It’s how we change our shapes and why we don’t stand around buck-naked when we shift from animal to human. Hell, it’s why everything looks the way it does, because of Raven putting a name to it in the long ago.

“See, there’s a reason names are so important in all the old stories. Put a name to something and you don’t just control it, you can create it.”

As she absorbed that, his gaze drifted down into the dry wash where the pups were cautiously making their way out of their various hiding places.

“They yours?” he asked.

When she shook her head, he studied them a little more closely.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can see now that they don’t have your blood.” His gaze went back to her. “How are those kids of yours?” he added.

Strong. Smart.

“No surprise there. They’d pretty much have to be, with you for their mother.”

Flatterer.

“Just telling it like it is.”

Incorrigible flatterer.

His eyebrows rose again.

“You’re waking all the way up, aren’t you?” he said.

What do you mean?

“The way you’re dealing with intangible concepts. You’re becoming a full-blooded cousin.”

Can you teach me to walk on two legs? To fly?

“You don’t have any bird blood, darling, so flying’s out. But taking a human shape? Sure. It’ll take a little while, but I figure you aren’t scared of some hard work.”

No. But it might be . . . useful to learn the trick of it.

He bared his teeth again—smiled, she corrected herself. That was what they called it. Smiling.

“Can be,” he says. “Makes life more complicated, too, but hell. Complications build character, right?”

When can we start?

“I’d say right now,” he told her, “except I’m in the middle of a crisis. It’s why I’ve come to you. You remember that sister of mine you helped me with before?”

She had to think for a moment before she found the name.

Jilly.

“That’s the one. Well, trouble’s found her again, and I sure could use your help in tracking her down.”

She hesitated for a moment and he misread her.