Galfreya wasn’t so certain that was the best idea. Not with that dark look in Christiana’s eyes.

Christy’s shadow turned a little and studied the queen from over her shoulder.

“Now I see where your people get their fashion sense,” she said. “How old are you? A thousand? Two thousand? And you’re dressing like a teenager?”

Tatiana regarded her coldly. “You do understand that I have but to say the word, and you’ll be dead.”

“Well, you could give it a try,” Christiana said, as though she were Joe’s sister, not Geordie’s, “and we’ll see how it works out for you.”

“I will not have yet another—”

But Christina turned her back on the queen and focused her dark gaze on Galfreya.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” she said. “I know something just took out Geordie and there was the stink of fairy in the air when it happened.”

As soon as the words were spoken, Galfreya realized their truth. There had been the sense of a fairy present at the moment of Geordie’s—she found it too hard to consider the word death—disappearance from the world. But whether it had been a Seelie elf, or some Unseelie bogan, she couldn’t tell from her fleeting memory of the moment.

“Would someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Tatiana demanded.

Christiana shook her head without looking in the queen’s direction.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “This is between me and your little skater seer.”

“We’re in the middle of a crisis here,” Galfreya told her.

“You betcha. And if you don’t start coming up with some answers—”

Before she could finish, Galfreya opened a view into the between, and the thunder of drums and hooves pounding on the dirt filled the air. Christiana stared at the gathering cerva clans, her face expressionless.

Galfreya was unable to resist a dig: “Didn’t you even see them on your way here?”

“Didn’t come that way,” Christiana said after a moment. She turned to Tatiana and added, “What did you do to them?”

“What did we do?”

That damned shadow girl just lifted an eyebrow.

“I know the cousins,” she said. “Sure, you’ll get the odd hothead, determined to right all the old wrongs, and everybody agrees, but it never really comes to much of anything. Getting cousins to agree to something is just about as hard as getting fairy to dress their age. But this . . . “ She pointed to the ever-growing herd of buffalo soldiers. “To get that many of them riled up, all at the same time, you had to really piss them off.”

Galfreya let the view into the between close, but didn’t respond. Around the table, the others remained silent as well, waiting for Tatiana to speak or not.

Christiana gave the queen a considering look before turning back to Galfreya.