She was right, of course, but that hadn’t stopped Edgan from checking. All that was to be found there was the information he’d downloaded himself when he got back from the oak copse.

“Why do you think this Odawa won’t travel by the between?” he asked.

Mother Crone smiled. “Maybe he really does enjoy walking at night.”

Edgan snorted.

“But more likely he’s avoiding someone,” she went on. “It’s not so easy to hide your presence once you leave this world to walk in another.”

Thinking back on the conversation he’d recorded, Edgan said, “This is corbae business. That’s who he’s hiding from.”

“Probably.”

“Maybe we should we tell them. They would owe us a favour then.”

“They would. But I’m curious . . .”

Her voice trailed off. Edgan waited patiently for her to finish her thought and share it with him.

They were in the central part of the mall, sitting on the stairs leading up from the food court. Below them fairies were dancing and gossiping, but Mother Crone looked past them, her gaze on the night that lay outside the mall’s glass doors.

“If they’re walking to this place . . .” she began.

“Sweetwater. Yes.”

“How far is it?”

Edgan shrugged. “A few hours by foot.”

He’d come back to the court when he realized he had time to give the information to Mother Crone and still catch up to the bogans and their mysterious companion before they reached Sweetwater, if she thought he should. He had no reluctance to go by the between. Truth was, like most fairies, he preferred it because it meant there was no chance he’d run into any of the green-brees on their own lands. The between belonged to no one and everyone. And while Mother Crone was right—it was impossible to hide your presence there—the reverse was also true. It was easy to sense the presence of others and so keep out of their way.

“I don’t trust bogans,” Mother Crone said. “Especially not Big Dan. And I wonder why anyone would ally themselves with them. They’re hardly formidable.”

“They’ve been trying to fill the shoes of the hard men these past few years,” Edgan said.

He saw her eyes fill with memory.

“Now they were dangerous,” she said.

Edgan nodded. “But something in the wild and the green swallowed them whole and never spat a bit of them back out.”

“And you think the bogans are trying to take their place?”

“You should see the way they swagger about—they’re worse than ever.”

Mother Crone gave a slow nod. “I’ve not really been paying much attention to them. Are they feuding with the corbae?”

Edgan shrugged. “No one much cares for the blackbirds.”

“They always struck me as minding their own business.”