“So, does this have anything to do with what happened to Geordie?” she asked.

“What makes you ask that?”

“Just answer the question.”

Galfreya let her gaze go to the queen for guidance and Tatiana shrugged.

“We don’t know for sure,” Galfreya said. “Part of what’s happening here is tied up in a problem we’ve had with a gang of bogans. So far, we know that they’ve been hunting cerva and kidnapped a pair of human women—one of them being Geordie’s friend Jilly.”

“And now they’ve got him.”

“We don’t know that. The first I realized something had happened to him was a few moments before you arrived.”

“And now we must ask you to leave,” Tatiana said. “We have business to conduct that concerns only us.”

Christiana shook her head. “Hold on a minute here. You’re still not telling me what happened to Geordie.”

“He’s gone,” Galfreya said. “And that’s all we know. He’s either . . . dead or disappeared into some world that we can’t access.”

Christiana gave a slow nod. “And you have to deal with these cerva before you can try to find out.”

Galfreya almost laughed. The shadow girl spoke of the problem at hand as though it were simply a matter of adjusting the bass and treble controls on a stereo system.

“Yes, that’s about it,” she said, rather than trying to explain the sheer volume of complications that were involved.

“So what’s your plan?”

“As I’ve already told you,” Tatiana broke in, “this is our concern, not yours.”

Christiana glanced at the queen and cocked her eyebrow again.

“You don’t think I could help?” she asked.

“I don’t see how anyone could help us at this point,” Tatiana told her.

Christiana smiled. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Minisino’s the new war chief of the buffalo cerva, right?”

Tatiana gave her a slow nod.

“Well, he and I go way back. Stop treating me like some lower life form and maybe I’ll talk to him for you.”

“And then what?”

“Then you’ll help me deal with whoever hurt my brother Geordie.”

Tatiana studied her for a long moment before giving a royal nod.

“Help us with the cerva,” she said, “and we will do all in our power to help you in return.”

“Fair enough.”

“You really think you can just talk to Minisino?” Galfreya asked.

Christiana smiled. “I might not have to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, there’s something you all seem to be forgetting here.”

Rabedy