Galfreya could only shake her head in admiration as, from the safety of Tatiana’s conference room, she and the other council members watched Christiana work the war chief of the buffalo. After her first meeting with the shadow back in the mall, Galfreya’d had Edgan find out what he could about her. So she knew Christiana was physically capable of carrying out the threats she’d made to the queen’s guard earlier. Now she realized that the shadow was smarter than most would give her credit for—at least those who didn’t see past her brash and cocky manner.

“How did she do that?” Tatiana asked as the buffalo army dispersed. “Minisino wasn’t going to listen to any of them. Not Anwatan’s father or Joe. Not Raven. Not even Ayabe—and when was the last time anyone saw him? But she just waltzed in there and the next thing I see is Minisino standing alone on that plain and the threat gone.”

Galfreya shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“She’s a shadow,” Granny Cross, the other seer said. “They’re both more and less than the rest of us.”

Tatiana turned to her. “How so? I can see how there might be more to them, but in what way are they less?”

“Consider their origin,” Granny Cross replied. “Born from what another has cast off, they carry inside them the conviction that they were never meant to be, and that what they are will always be of less worth than their twin. It’s why so many of them fade away like the Eadar, except what they need to sustain them is a belief in themselves, rather than the belief of others.”

Tatiana nodded, her gaze going back to the scene playing in the between.

“That one will never fade,” she said.

Granny Cross made no reply, but Galfreya could see in her eyes that she wasn’t as certain herself. Unless Granny Cross’s seer vision had shown her something the rest of them couldn’t see, Galfreya tended to agree with the queen. This shadow was so sure of herself that it would take a battalion of self-doubt battering away at her night and day for a year, and even then she would probably prevail.

As Galfreya returned her own attention to the between, she was just in time to see Christiana’s approach. A moment later the shadow appeared back in the fairies’ conference room as suddenly as she’d left. She stood on the middle of the table once again, her arms spread wide and grinned at how every one of Tatiana’s guardsmen had either a sword or crossbow pointed at her.

“What?” she asked. “No parade? No ‘All hail the returning hero!’?”

The guardsmen didn’t lower their weapons until Tatiana made a dismissive movement with her hand.

“How did you do that?” she asked Christiana. “How did you get the army to disperse?”