"Maybe we should go find her and let her know things are alright."

"She knows," Triana said bluntly. "She'll find us. Well, let's go."

He knew exactly what she meant, and where they were going. To go punish Jasana for her actions. But first, he wanted to know how she did it. Somehow, she had stolen that blood and managed to slip it into the potion without anyone, not even Triana or Jesmind, catching her. Either she had help-which was a possibility-or she was much smarter than even he thought she was.

After crawling through a narrow choked-off rockfall, they got out into the undamaged parts of the passageways. He knew where he was now, so he led his bond-mother confidently to the main staircase, which would take them up to the apartments. He wasn't looking forward to this. Facing down people he hated was much easier than looking that little girl in the eyes and standing in the face of the storm of tears and snivelling apologies that he knew was coming. Jenna was devious, and he knew that she'd resort to playing on his affection for her to try to avoid getting punished. But her crime this time was much too grave to be smoothed over by a bit of crying and a little constructive cuddling.

One thing did gnaw a bit at him though. "How did you get behind me?" he blurted.

They stopped on the staircase. Triana, smiling in a mysterious way, stepped over to the wall. He felt it distinctly when she made contact with the All, and then she pushed her paw towards the wall.

And it passed right through!

"A trick I learned from a creature called a Phase Spider," she told him calmly, sinking her arm into the wall up to her elbow. "They're subeterranean creatures, feeding off things in the network of caves below the Skydancer mountains. They could pass through solid objects, and they used it to ambush prey and as an escape mechanism. It took me nearly ten years to learn how they did it."

Tarrin whistled as she pulled her arm free and put his paw on the stone. It was unyielding to him, as he expected it to be.

"That's a neat trick," he said appreciatively.

"It was a neat trick after I learned not to get things stuck when I ended the spell," she grunted.

"Did it hurt?" he asked with a shudder.

"You have no idea," she growled, holding up her right paw. "This is about my fiftieth paw, and I lost count of how many feet I've lost about five hundred years ago. Materializing inside solid rock is very painful."

"I can imagine," he breathed, looking at the stone wall and feeling a little pang of chilly sympathetic pain ghost through his arms.

"Just one of the things I'm going to teach you, cub," she said calmly, starting up the stairs again. "When I'm done with you, you'll wonder why you ever bothered to use Sorcery."

Tarrin chuckled reflexively at that rather bold statement, but he didn't doubt that Triana believed what she said. He followed after her, his expression turning stony as he remembered what they were about to go and do. There was no place for humor in it.

As they climbed up the stairs, Tarrin's mind raced about what was to come. The fact that they knew who did it seemed to pale now in the light of two very, very important things. How, and why. The why of it seemed rather straightforward, though. Jasana had been complaining about him not being Were, and had been carefully and quietly trying to sway him. He knew because he could look back over every single word she said, and intimate knowledge about his daughter's mannerisms, things the human Tarrin didn't understand, made things clear to him when he looked back on those conversations with opened eyes. She hadn't been more obvious because, quite honestly, she wasn't sure how to try to sway him. He could see that. She was being careful because the human Tarrin was very, very much unlike the father she knew, and in a way, that protected him from the majority of her conniving. Jasana could manipulate her parents rather easily, but the change in him had isolated him from her games, if only because she didn't know how to proceed against him. Of course, since she couldn't sway him, and didn't know enough about him to try-that, or she realized that in this case no amount of wheedling, cajoling, or pleading was going to make him change his mind-she had decided to do things without his permission, and that was what worried him the most. He wasn't sure if Jasana had the ability to plan out and execute something like this, not without anyone suspecting her. And if Triana hadn't suspected her, then nobody would. He hadn't. Not in the slightest, at any time, did he conceive that Jasana had been the one to turn him. He certainly would respect her ability to try, but not respect the idea that she would be able to execute her plan. No, in this case, Tarrin suspected that Jasana had help. That was what he wanted to know. Jasana had been the one to turn him, but she may have had a little outside help to pull it off, and she was going to tell him. Jasana would know that in this situation, telling the complete truth would make things better for everyone involved. After what she saw him do to Jesmind, and that over nothing more than bad treatment, she'd realize that if she didn't tell him who helped her, if he had to find out for himself, it would be much worse for that guilty party when he did. This was going to be the one time that Jasana wouldn't be able to worm her way out of trouble.

Before he realized where he was, they were on the floor where the apartment was. His own scent was still fresh on the floor, and he realized with some surprise that he'd only been there a short time ago. After the rage, it felt like he'd been here yesterday, or even longer. He felt drained, tired, like he'd been awake for a month, but he had too many important things to do to bother with being tired at the moment.

"How do you want to do this?" Tarrin asked as they approached the door. They could be calm and rational, or go in there and start with the punishment immediately. They could be stern and unbending or at least give Jasana a chance to defend herself.

Without saying a word, Triana reared back her fist and smashed it into the door. Though it was a big, metal-bound door, it was no match for Triana's power. The door held, admirably enough, but the latch and hinges had never been made to withstand the awesome stresses that the blow to the door put on them, and they tore like fine parchment in a child's uncaring hands.

"Alright then," he said grimly as he followed his bond-mother into the apartment. Jula and Kimmie were standing up by their seats, Mist was awake on the couch but had not moved to get up, and most importantly, Jesmind was standing at the doorway leading back to her bedroom. Jasana and Eron were sitting on the floor in the corner playing with some wooden blocks that Jenna had given them.

"Mother, that was a good door!" Jesmind protested, but that protest died away when she saw the barely contained mask of fury that contorted the matriarch's usually unemotional expression. The apprehension turned into a deep frown when she saw an equally irate Tarrin just behind her, and the fact that both of them were covered in dust, and in Tarrin's case, a little blood here and there. "What happened to you two?" she asked.

"You've been fighting!" Kimmie said in shock, looking at them. "You mean you two are the ones responsible for all that shaking?"

"JASANA!" Triana absolutely roared, pointing at the little girl with a clawed finger. "Come here right now!" She pointed to the carpeted floor immediately before her imperiously, and Tarrin realized, as did everyone in the room, that Jasana's very life hinged on her immediate and unequivocable obedience to her grandmother's command.

Soberly, her lower lip trembling as her half-brother looked at her in confusion, Jasana got up from the floor and shuffled over, very slowly, deathly afraid of what was coming, but even more afraid of what would happen if she did not obey. She stood before her grandmother, head bowed, tail drooping, and her paws clasped before her in a stance of supplication. Tarrin stepped up beside his bond-mother, staring down at the little girl, feeling that same fury begin to rise up in him again. He wanted to thrash her so badly his claws actually itched to taste her blood. She was the object of his rage, but he could not satisfy it as he so desperately wanted to do. If it were anyone but her, they would be dead by now. Anyone but Jasana.