My father’s wide nostrils flared. Step aside, Winona. This voice was a stern whip-crack of command inside my head. No defiance would be tolerated.

Father—

No. He pulled me into the hallway, then shut and barred the door to my rooms.

Slowly, my surprise dissipated, and I realized my father was accompanied by Enyeto, a cousin of the Kinslayer and one of the strongest Chiye-tanka in the Sacred Grove. He was a foot taller than my father and nearly twice as broad in the shoulder. This night, Enyeto’s flame-red hair was flattened in places and sticking up in others, as if he had been summoned from a sound sleep, but his algae-green eyes were alert.

“Guard the door,” my father ordered Enyeto aloud. “Do not allow anyone to go in or come out.”

Enyeto nodded so sharply that a tuft of his mussed hair fell forward into his eyes. With an embarrassed glance my way, he swept the hair out of his face, then put his back to my bedroom door, crossing his arms as if to mirror his chief’s intimidating stance.

Enyeto has never been regarded as overly intelligent.

Father, I said again, turning to appeal to him, but he did not listen.

You will accompany me to the Hall of Meeting immediately. He spun and marched away, his long arms swinging furiously to match his pace.

I strode quickly after him to catch up.

Chief Chankoowashtay is a wise and loving father, the best in Inworld or Out. A mountain of a Chiye-tanka, he took the mantle of both parents upon himself after my mother’s death—a task made even more complicated by his many responsibilities to the People and to containing the second horseman of the apocalypse. He will forever be a hero to me for this. But when my father is angry, it feels as if a black cloud of wrath radiates from his body, pushing away anyone foolish enough to venture too close. There are many among our tribe who fear his anger.

I do not.

But I also do not push him.

I did not try again to explain while we made our way to the Hall of Meeting. Appeals would serve no purpose but to anger him further.

As soon as we entered the hall, a dozen ancient gazes shifted to us. The Elders were already gathered and waiting. Their pillows formed the innermost semicircle, with the younger council members’ seats behind them. They sat, ancient spines stooped but proud, no longer speaking mind-to-mind with one another as they likely had been, but glaring at me. I felt their disapproval settle about my shoulders like the first freeze of winter.

I moved to take my accustomed seat with the council, but Elder Mahal stopped me, shaking her graying head.

“You will take the Seat of Guilt, Winona Treesinger,” she said, pointing a wizened finger at the empty pillow at the center of the semicircle.

A nest of snakes slithered in my stomach. My carefully rehearsed arguments regarding the encroaching evil fled, and I was left as shamefaced and flustered as a child caught in the act of disobedience. Worse yet, I had disobeyed, and so was guilty.

Every eye in the Hall of Meeting watched me lower myself onto the Seat of Guilt, folding my legs beneath me. Every movement I made felt strange, my breathing sounded too loud in my ears, and even the way I usually rested my arms on my thighs felt unnatural. I moved to cross my arms, then remembered Enyeto and placed my hands on my knees instead.

It seemed as if hours passed as I waited for the Elders to begin.

“Winona Treesinger, you have brought an outsider into the Sacred Grove of the People of Peace,” Elder Napayshni said, his deep voice croaky with age. “In doing so, you have knowingly endangered our home. The Little Brother you attempted to smuggle in unnoticed could even now be searching through your rooms, learning of our secrets, and devising plots to expose us to the world of men.”

Elder Ayiana took up where Napayshni left off. “You have committed this offense when we are at our weakest, while we still recover from the havoc and death Achak Kinslayer wrought upon the community.” Her jade eyes were too wide, showing whites yellowed with age, and her brows rose high on her leathery forehead. The tone of her voice rose nearly a full octave as she demanded, “Would you see us destroyed, princess?”

As though watching a well-crafted veil vanish, I saw the council before me—truly saw them—and realized that the disapproval and anger I had at first read in their faces was hiding a pall of fear. The council was not as infuriated by what I had done as they were frightened by it.

“No, Elder Ayiana,” I hurried to assure her. “It was never my intention to endanger anyone.”

“And yet you have done just that,” my father said, his voice sharper than an arrow’s head. “You were forbidden to set foot in Inworld, and yet you walked there this night. Do you consider yourself to be above the laws of your people, Winona? Or is it that you believe yourself to be wiser than the Elders and more capable of discerning right from wrong?”

My face burned at the accusation. “No, Chief Chankoowashtay.”

“Yet you ignored our prohibition against patrolling the forests of Earth,” he barked. “You risked revealing yourself to mankind.” He paused, frowning. “You knowingly brought a human into the heart of our Sacred Grove.”

I bit the insides of my lips together and stared down at the floor. My father spoke the truth. But he did not understand.

“Arrogance leads to disobedience and disobedience to destruction,” my father said as if he were lecturing a naughty child. “And not only self-destruction. Ripples flow outward until they reach the shore, Winona. The Kinslayer walked the same path, first believing that he knew better than the Elders—”

“I am not like him!” I shouted, unable to contain the sudden flare of rage at being compared to that monster. “Achak lost his way. He was corrupted by power and evil.”

“And you will not be corrupted”—Elder Mahal’s lips quirked upward as she sprang the trap my father’s accusation of arrogance had laid—“because you are wiser and more upright than the Kinslayer was?”

This was not going at all as it should. I inhaled deeply to calm my emotions and gather my thoughts.

“I will not be corrupted because I do not seek anything for myself,” I said. “I want only to help the Little Brothers and Sisters. There is an evil stalking them. An old spirit of Earth, I believe. I spoke to it tonight, and it seemed to know of the People. It … it seemed to know of me.”

A few heads cocked at this, and several bodies leaned forward, forearms resting against hairy thighs. I took this as a sign of interest, and continued to relate the story.

“The human is a detective, Christopher Fuller of the Missoula Sheriff’s Department. He was pursuing the creature through the Bitterroot Forest when I came upon them. He fought it, but it was much stronger, and it injured him gravely. You see my own injuries as evidence of its destructive power.”

For a heartbeat I considered telling them that if the creature had not suddenly fled, I would most likely have been killed. Then, I decided against doing so. That would only give them more cause to claim we must stay out of this fight to protect ourselves. “I brought the detective here to treat his wounds—he would have died otherwise—and to learn what he knows of the creature so I can help the humans defeat it.”

A murmur ran through the council.

“You would join with the humans?” Elder Napayshni said, disbelief clear in his face.

“To help them defeat the evil,” I replied evenly.

Napayshni’s leathery forehead wrinkled. “Winona Treesinger, this reminds us more and more of the Kinslayer. He, too, discarded logic and wisdom, choosing to lean on his own understanding and work with a human. That Hogg”—he spat out the offending name as if it were a rancid berry—“claiming it was for the good of the People. Instead of saving us, Achak Kinslayer and his pet human brought more pain and death upon us. You seek to help the humans, but from this side, you cannot know what unintended harm your misguided quest will do to those of us who remain.”

“I do not wish to be disrespectful,” I said looking from one set of aged eyes to the next as if I could convince them with the sheer depth of my sincerity, “but if this evil is a spirit of old, then is it not our responsibility to stop it? The humans cannot stand against it or any other creature of shadow—but they do try to stand against them. They fight against evil though they cannot possibly win. Perhaps this man Hogg was evil, but he was only one among many. Most humans are good and want to do good. Do you not remember that when the Kinslayer and Hogg enslaved the People, it was the humans who aided us? Was it not Yancy Lazarus and Nicole Ferraro who saved us? Should we not repay this debt to their kind? We are their only hope.”

“Winona,” my father said in a weary voice. “The weak die. This has always been the way of nature. If humans cannot fend for themselves, then they were not meant to survive. The People cannot be forever rescuing them. We are strong, but our numbers are few, and every year we are fewer.”

I opened my palms in a helpless gesture. “But if we stand together—”

“What do you think the reaction of this detective will be if you reveal yourself to him, daughter? Do you think he will gladly accept your assistance?” My father shook his head. “No, he will call you a monster. He will see you as no different from the creature you wish to hunt. The humans will turn on you. They will hunt you. With few exceptions, the world of men has forgotten us and the old ways. We must use this to our advantage and disappear into their legends and myths. It is safer that way.”

I opened my mouth to speak again, but my father raised his hand to stop me.

“The matter is closed,” he said. “The Elders have reached a decision.”

Until this moment, Elder Ciqala, the most bent and shriveled of all the Elders, had been sitting silently with his eyes closed and wrinkled head bent forward. Either he had been deep in thought or had dozed off during the discussion. Now his spring-leaf-green eyes snapped open and he raised his withered face to me.

“Winona Treesinger,” Ciqala said, “you will return the human to the world of men. Further, you will use your mental magicks to wipe his memories of the last twenty-four hours. This is the will of the council. Will you bear it out?”

I swallowed the objections in my throat. To plead my case in the face of their accusations was one thing, but to argue with the Elders after they had stated their will was a thing not done.

“Yes,” I agreed.

The Elders nodded, accepting my consent. The younger council members stood and helped the eldest to their feet.

The meeting was over, the matter decided, and I was dismissed to do as I had been ordered.