Rabedy managed to change hack into his bogan shape, fully clothed, though the clothes were a poor fit. The trouser legs were too short, the shirt tight around the shoulders, its tails far too long. But for the moment, it was the best he could do. It was much harder to speak. He couldn’t even get one word out to respond to the cerva spirit’s question, to explain why he had summoned her.

“Uh . . .”

Seeing her in her human form, her killing seemed far more a murder than it had when she’d been a deer.

He knew there were bogans who would as happily cut a flank steak from a human as they would from an animal, but he wasn’t one of them. Even Big Dan wasn’t. Truth was, Rabedy would just as soon live on vegetables and fruits and nuts. He rarely ate meat and never cared for hunting. But he’d been out there in the green and the wild all the same, out with Big Dan and the rest of them, Odawa’s protection keeping them safe, though the same couldn’t be said for the green-brees they’d been hunting.

“There is something familiar about you, little man,” the cerva said.

Anwatan, Rabedy remembered hearing somewhere. Her name had been Anwatan. It wasn’t some nameless beast they’d murdered in the forest, but a cerva with a name and a family and a spirit that lived on.

“Why are you familiar?” Anwatan asked.

“I . . . I . . .”

Now was the time to use his new-learned talent, to change into a dog and flee, flee, flee . . .

Except he couldn’t. He couldn’t think of himself or his fear or what was going to happen to him. He could only try to set things right before he had to pay for his part in her murder.

“I killed you,” he said.

The cerva spirit frowned and studied him for a long moment.

“I don’t remember you,” she finally said. “They were little men like you, but their scents were different.”

“I didn’t shoot the arrows—at least not any that even came close to hitting you. But I was there. I was in that stupid company of murderers.”

She continued to study him, then slowly nodded.

“I remember now,” she said. “You stood back from the others when they ran in to finish me off. But you lifted no hand against me.”

“I was still with them.”

“And if you were,” she said, “why do you call me up now?”

“To . . . to make repayment.”

“You can bring me back to life?”

“No, I . . . did you know that the cerva are going to war over your murder?”

She gave a slow nod. “Not all the cerva. Only the buffalo clans.”

“A lot of innocents will die—your people, as well as fairy.”

“I know.”