She fell silent and Rabedy waited for what she would do to him now. He got a nervous tick in his cheek, and he had to plant his weight on his right leg to stop it from shaking. It didn’t help.

“This is my death,” she said, “so I should have some say in how amends are made.”

She looked at Rabedy as though expecting a response, and he quickly nodded.

“So this is what we will do,” she said. “We will go to my kin and your Queen. We will give them the names of the guilty. If we can make Minisino see reason, there will be no war, but there will be justice.”

“Will the buffalo wait?” Rabedy asked.

“We won’t know until we ask them, will we?”

Oh, this didn’t feel good, Rabedy thought. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. Why should the buffalo listen to some useless bogan’s story any more than the Queen would?

But Anwatan was right. It was her death. So it should be her decision to make.

“I’m ready to take my punishment,” he said.

“I don’t include you in this,” she told him. “If I have my way, your punishment will be to live with knowing how you stood aside while evil was done. It’s not a mistake you’ll make again.”

“No, I won’t. But—”

“I won’t argue this,” Anwatan said. “Yes, you stood by while I was killed, but you raised no hand against me, and you have enough honour to come to me to make amends.”

“No, I was going to say something else. You should know that while it was bogans who killed you, it was one of your own who gave us safe passage through the wild and the green.”

“Was it now.”

“His name is Odawa—Odawajameg, of the salmon clan. He appears to be blind—I think he really is—but he doesn’t seem to have much trouble getting around when he needs to.”

“He gave you safe passage?”

Rabedy nodded. “And taught us to shapechange the way your people do, although I was the only one with any luck at actually learning the trick.”

“Show me again,” she said.

So he did. He changed from bogan to dog, as he had done earlier from dog to bogan when she’d spoken to him. Effortlessly. So effortlessly he couldn’t understand why it had ever seemed hard.

Anwatan nodded when he stood before her as a bogan once more. This time he’d managed to get his clothes to fit better.

“There’s no scent of fairy on you after you changed,” she said.

“Really?”

“This makes it worse.”

Rabedy knew just what she was thinking. With this knowledge, bogans could go where they wanted in the wild and the green. They could creep up on unsuspecting cousins without the need of being shielded by someone like Odawa.