“Peta, how can this be? I held Bramley. I felt his body as still as a doll’s.” I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “My mind is clear of all the tricks Cassava pulled, all the manipulation. But that scene remains. It happened. I know it did.”

“You are sure he is dead?” Peta asked softly, as gently as she’d ever been with me.

Tipping my head back, I stared into the canopy above us, the branches that swayed in the breeze somehow clearing my mind of doubt. “Yes. As much as I wish it were otherwise, I will not be fooled by this trick. But where the hell is he, then? Why would they put his body away from our mother’s?”

Shazer trotted in and head-butted my back. “Because it is a distraction. You cannot chase two quests at once. You know Ash is alive. You know Bramley is dead. Who will you choose to find? The one you can save? Or the one you will never save?”

I tightened my jaw, even though a part of me howled to go after Bramley, still seeing him as that little boy from my past. “Ash.”

“Then let’s go. I have things to tell you that are pertinent.” He snorted and shoved me toward the archway.

Peta leapt for his back and he shied to one side. “Claws, cat, you have claws!”

She hit the ground, shifted and sprung again, this time tangling her much tinier paws into his mane. “Sissy.”

He grunted. “I’m a delicate flower.”

I burst out laughing at their exchange, knowing that was the exact reason they did it. “You two are fools.”

Shazer glanced back at me. “You finally have a minute to listen to me?”

I waved at him. “Why not? Can’t make things worse, can it?” The look in his dark eyes sent a shiver through me. “Please tell me that things can’t get worse.”

He slowed and I caught up to his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

I waited for him to speak, feeling time slip past. If the mother goddess was right, I had to get moving and remove the stones from the other rulers; I had no doubt Blackbird would be plotting a way to remove them. Then again, that wasn’t really why I was in a hurry. Without Viv’s help, finding Ash was going to be damn near impossible and I knew it.

So did she.

Shazer bobbed his head. “You realize I’m not really a familiar to you? That there is a bond between us, but it is not like the bond you and Peta have?”

I nodded. “I noticed the feeling between you and me is different, yes.”

“It is because I was created. Peta was born. And I was never truly tied to you. I stay because . . .” His body rippled in a big shake that almost unseated Peta. She grunted and dug her claws in. He snapped his teeth at her before continuing. “I stay because I feel more loyalty to you than I do my creator. Even when you didn’t know me, you put your life on the line to heal me; to save me from the coven. That loyalty has grown, even while you were gone. The need to stay with you and protect you as best I could for your sake, and, I think, for my own as well.”

“All right,” I said, confused as to why this was so important.

He tipped his head. “There is more to it than that. The person who created me also created something else. The stones you are going in search of were made by my creator.”

Obviously he’d been listening in on my conversation with Peta. Not that I minded.

“All right.”

“He was always hidden in a cloak when around me, not unlike the way that donkey’s ass Blackbird covers up. He was cursed, Lark. For the things he created, the things he was powerful enough to do. The Spirit Elementals saw what he was up to, and knew he had to be stopped. They contacted a powerful witch, and they created a curse.”

“Why wouldn’t they just kill him?” Peta asked the question, beating me to it. I nodded at her in approval.

He shook his head. “He was too strong. There was no one that could stand against him, and even then the elementals were at each other’s throats. There was no peace and he took advantage of that rather looming fact.” Shazer’s eyes went thoughtful as if seeing the past in front of him. “He created the stones first, and they were meant to control others. Out there in the world, they are able to control those who wear them.”

I frowned and plucked at a long strand of grass as we approached the Rim. “But that would mean your creator is still alive. And from what I understand, you are rather—”

“Old,” Peta spit out.

Shazer snorted and laughed. “Yes, I’m old. Thousands of years, the same as the stones. And my creator is still out there, I am sure of it. Maybe he sleeps, maybe not. But he is alive.”

My mind went to the man in the graveyard; he’d plied me with Spirit while he hid his intentions. The timing was far too coincidental for my liking. “Tell me about the curse.”

“He’s not able to directly attack another elemental. That is why he created the stones. He could use the wearer of them to attack those he thought needed to be punished. I will say this, Lark. If he wakes, he will not be easily dealt with. He is beyond dangerous; he is the deadliest of any elemental ever born.”

I swallowed hard. “Why might he wake?”

“If the stones are all brought to him, together, the curse will be broken. And that would be a very, very bad thing. Because then he could attack any elemental directly with no more need to work in the shadows.”

We stepped into the Rim as he finished speaking.

Shazer’s words were heavy on my mind, adding to the weight on my shoulders. “One more reason then to find the stones and take them to the mother goddess for safe keeping,” I said.