I do. I tell him about my first meeting with the bogans and Lizzie’s rescue, and then how she and Jilly disappeared from the hotel in Sweetwater. He sits up straighter at the mention of Jilly’s name.

“I’m sorry to be the one to be telling you this,” I say.

Instead of responding, he first gives Chloë a questioning look.

“I didn’t know until only a few moments ago,” she said.

Nodding, he turns back to me.

“Please, go on,” he says.

I try to be quick about it, telling them how I’d met first Whiskey Jack and then Joe, of going to Tatiana’s fairy court and discovering Odawa’s involvement with the bogans, though I’m still not sure exactly what it had been. Safe passage through cousin territories is the easy guess, but I’m sure there was more to it than that.

“I’ll have to have a little talk with Odawa about Jilly’s disappearance,” he says when I’m done.

“But the war . . .”

Lucius sighs. “You know I’ve been through this before.”

I nod. “With Joe, the last time the local cousins had a problem with Tatiana’s court.”

“That was only the most recent crisis of many. If it’s not the aganesha hunting cousins, then it’s one of the clans taking out some fairies. It doesn’t matter. We get it all smoothed over and have a few calm years, then everything just starts up again.” He pauses before adding, “I’m truly tempted to sit this one out.”

“And there’s Jilly to consider,” Chloë says.

Lucius nods. “Yes, there’s Jilly.”

“But so many innocents will die,” I say.

That old, dark gaze of Raven’s settles on me.

“Nobody’s innocent,” he tells me.

“You know what I mean.”

That gets me another sigh.

“But some,” he agrees, “are more innocent than others.”

“It wouldn’t take you long, would it?” I try. “To have a word with Minisino, I mean. To stop this.”

“I’ve only to wave a hand and everything will be set right? After all, I made the world.”

Something in his voice, in his eyes, tells me it’s not that simple. He’s amused at my naivete, but there’s a sadness, too. And under that, an anger, though it doesn’t appear to be directed at me.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling I still have to be careful, though I’m not sure exactly why. “It’s just . . . you’re Raven, aren’t you?”

“I am and I’m not. Raven the World-Maker, the Creator, the one who pulled a world out of the darkness . . . somewhere inside me . . . some-when . . . I suppose I was him. But now I’m just Lucius Portsmouth. An old corbae who’s perhaps outstayed his welcome in this time and place.”

“But . . .” I start.