“Figure that out,” the blind green-bree had said, “and you’ll have the trick of it. The change is in your blood. It remembers, even if you don’t.” And when someone—Rabedy thought it had been Luren—asked how that was supposed to be possible, Odawa added, “Anything’s possible . . . if you want it badly enough.”

Rabedy considered that.

If you want it badly enough.

He hadn’t wanted to go hunting cerva. He’d wanted to be able to change, yes. That he’d wanted badly. But clouding that desire was the sure knowledge that the new shape would be used for killing. Big Dan had made that plain, right from the start.

Maybe that was what had stopped him partway, turning him into a bogan with a dog’s ears and tail.

It was different now. Now he wanted to help. Now he wanted to do whatever he could to make up for the wrongs in which he’d played a part. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t wanted to do it. He hadn’t spoken up loudly enough to stop it. He hadn’t really spoken up at all. He’d just gone along with the others, following Big Dan’s lead.

He needed to make up for that.

And that, he realized, he wanted more than anything he’d ever wanted before.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the thundering sounds of the buffalo in the valley below. When that didn’t work, he used the sound. Breathed in time to it. Twinned his pulse to the rhythm of drums and hooves. Concentrated. Focused.

If you want it badly enough.

He didn’t want this. He needed it.

The change is in your blood. It remembers, even if you don’t.

Yes. It wasn’t something strange and different. It was something he’d always known, even if he hadn’t realized he’d known it.

It was . . .

The change is in your blood.

He could do this. He could. He wasn’t some useless bogan. He was . . . he was . . .

When it happened, it was almost anticlimactic.

One moment he was a bogan, eyes shut, brow furrowed, as he concentrated. The next, his clothes became air and blew away on the breeze. He fell forward onto his hands, propelled by a sudden twist of his spine. Except his hands were paws. Fur covered his body. Everything smelled and felt and looked different, but so familiar.

He lifted his head, laughing, meaning to shout, “I did it!” It came out as a yelp and a bark and a joyous howl. He chased his tail for a moment, spinning in a wild circle, then remembered the why for this change and sped off into the forest, heading to the place where a gang of bogans had ambushed a deer, bringing her down with a flight of barb-tipped arrows.