Christiana shrugged, which was no answer at all, then got straight to the point.

“I delivered what I promised I would,” she said. “More, really. So now it’s your turn to deliver. Where’s Geordie? And if you can’t give him to me, then where do I find these bogans?”

“I didn’t say we had either,” Tatiana replied. “Only that we would help you find them.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s all we can offer because we don’t know.”

“Fine,” Christiana said, though it was obvious she was anything but appeased.

Galfreya understood. Throughout the drama of what had unfolded in the between with the buffalo soldiers, her own mind kept returning again and again to worry at the mystery of Geordie’s disappearance. If he’d been killed, they should at least have been able to sense his spirit slipping out of his body. But he was just gone.

“Get those seers of yours to start working on it,” the shadow went on, as though she were the queen of this court, not Tatiana. “Get your gruagaghs and seekers and finders and whatever it takes. I made your problem go away without the loss of a single fairy life—or even your pride. Now you’d better make my problem go away.”

Tatiana sat straighter, her eyes flashing.

“We are not servants,” she said stiffly, “to jump at your beck and call. I have said we will do all we can to help, and so we will.”

Christiana glared right back at her. “Then what’s the hold up? If you think I’m just going to—”

She broke off before she could finish her threat and lifted her head. Everything about her changed. The anger drained away from her features and she grinned. It was such an abrupt and startling transformation. A moment earlier and one only wanted to slap some manners into her. Now her good humour filled the hearts of everyone in the room with an echo of her joy.

Though the others were puzzled at her sudden change of demeanour, Galfreya understood it immediately. Because she felt it, too.

Geordie was back.

She didn’t know exactly where he was, but that wouldn’t be hard to figure out. What mattered was that he was back.

“You,” Christiana said, pointing at Galfreya. “Can you call up an image of where he is? Something sharp and clear—none of your murky fairy riddles. I can’t cross over to someplace I haven’t been before unless I have a clear picture of it.”

“Here,” Granny Cross said, before Galfreya could consult her own scrying bowl. “I have it.”

As Christiana walked across the table to where the other seer was sitting, Galfreya rose from her own chair.

“Fm coming with you,” she said.

The shadow turned to look at her. “You? Why would you want to come?”

“Because I love him, too.”