What Yanei Ohka’s just said is enough to start a blood feud between our clan and his that could last a thousand years, because while we’ll let a lot of things slide, the one thing that no cousin will do is question another’s honour without a world of proof to back him up.

I can feel the corbae stiffen all around me. In the trees the blackbirds shift angrily. And then Raven stands up again.

He’s different this time. Bigger, darker, his eyes fathomless.

“What did you say?” he asks.

His voice is quiet—like the hush before a storm, pregnant with menace.

Yanei Ohka’s features pale. I’m guessing that he let his mouth run on ahead of his mind, and he’s only just realized what he’s said.

“I . . . I . . .”

“In the heat of the moment,” Moon Song says, her voice soothing and mild, “we all say things we don’t mean. Things we don’t think or believe. Who knows what mad place inside our heads calls them up? But out they come, damaging and hurtful.”

Yanei Ohka nods gratefully to her.

“I’m truly sorry,” he says, directing his words to Raven. “That wasn’t what I meant to say at all.”

Raven’s gaze never leaves his face. “And what was it that you did mean to say?”

“Nothing. Only that I’m ready to hear what Grey and the others have to tell us.”

He sits down quickly and tries to hide among the rest of his clan.

Raven nods slowly. He doesn’t seem to have done anything to effect the change—and I certainly didn’t see it happen—but he’s no longer so tall and forbidding. He sits down, as well, and the council goes on with more of the same. There are arguments and discussions, tempers flare, die down to a simmer. But it’s been obvious all along what the final result will be.

I wonder how they’ll choose to deal with Odawa. In situations such as this, there are usually two choices: death or banishment. The banished keep their lives, but nothing else, for they’re allowed no contact with other beings—cousin, fairy, or human—and must give their word to abide by the constraint or be hunted down and killed.

Raven has already told me that Odawa will not give his word to abide by the conditions of banishment, but the council as a whole isn’t aware of that. Raven has said nothing because Odawa might still change his mind, but considering how single-mindedly he’s come after me through the years, I don’t see that happening.

Finally, Moon Song rises to her feet.