Page 31 of Shifter's Homecoming

Trevor seemed about to argue but Graeme held up a hand and cut him off. “We never told you when we decided for certain that he was, but there’s a reason for that.” His expression went sober. “Trent wanted no one to know that the appearance of Smokey, his echo, meant he was going to die.”

Trevor shook his head slowly, his expression carefully guarded. “Die… That’s not what you told Crew echoes meant.”

Graeme nodded. “Aye. Echoes can mean many things. I told him what was relevant to him at the time.” Graeme grasped Trevor on the shoulder. “Dinnae worry. Just like Dahlia was offered a sacrifice, I believe Trent has been offered one, too, and I ken that Troy’s dream, and my dream, means he has taken it, and now we are responsible for finding him and getting him home, just like Crew found Dahlia in the other world and helped her home. It can be done.”

“Does that mean he’s dead?” Troy asked, and his voice was softer than Reed ever thought she would hear it.

Graeme shook his head. “No more than Dahlia was dead.”

Troy clutched the baby in his arms too tightly. She squeaked and he let up. Trevor looked like he wanted to take her, but knew he wouldn’t do any better.

Troy shifted Treena to his other arm and spoke softly. “IsawDahliadie.”

“Aye, and we could go into yonder cabin right now and see her alive in her bed, so keep yer head.”

“Yeah, keep yer head,” Troy told Trevor grumpily.

Graeme went on. “I’m sure the situation is quite… complicated, and we don’t have the ability to see more than a bit of it at a time. Troy, what do you think the next move is?”

“We have to find him.”

Graeme nodded. “And where does your instinct tell you he is?”

“In Canada, in the forest.”

Graeme nodded again. “Reed, did the tree tell you anything?”

Reed almost blushed, but he was perfectly sincere and not poking fun at her. “Yeah, we’re supposed to go to the point of entry and then the trail to him will… will light up for me.”

Graeme nodded like that was the most normal thing in the world. “Then that is where you go. Find him as quickly as you can.”

Trevor shook his head. “One thing that makes no sense. He says he’s never traveled. I asked him after Dahlia… you know.”

“He thinks he stopped doing it when he was young.”

Trevor shook his head. “He never told me that.”

Troy popped his brother on the arm, his voice excited. “He did tell us— remember? We were young. Six maybe. He said he… he went to the same place in his dreams every night, and he said he was there for what seemed like all day long, and he had a whole ‘nother life there, with different friends and you weren’t even there but I was—”

Trevor was shaking his head, but his expression told a different story.

Troy nodded vehemently. “You made fun of him, remember? You told him it was stupid—”

Trevor interrupted him “—no, I wouldn’t. Would I?”

“You did. And then—”

But Trevor did seem to remember. His face filled with understanding. “We were in the war camps. Grey came over … Grey punished him for talking crazy—.”

“And sometimes, he had injuries he couldn’t explain, like, one time he just woke up bleeding.”

Trevor gave Graeme a look. “You don’t think he stopped traveling?”

Graeme shrugged. “It’s hard to know.”

“Why can’t we ever get a straight answer out of you?”

“The more worlds one encounters, the more he learns that straight answers cannae reflect any whole truth,” he said.

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