But mostly it was Antoine’s flat dead black and silver aura that freaked me out. It reminded me vividly of another aura I’d seen, approximately forever ago in terms of my growth as a shaman, but not really all that long in absolute time. The colors hadn’t been the same, but no two auras were exactly the same in color anyway. It was the feeling of them: dull, slithering, dangerous.

The word came out of my mouth before I could stop it: “Sorcerer.”

Jane crunched a crawfish so hard it sounded like commentary. “No. I know witches and maybe Antoine was one in my world, but that’s no witch.”

I tore my gaze from Antoine, which wasn’t all that hard to do. Sorcerers scared me. “I didn’t say witch. I said sorcerer.”

Jane shrugged. “Same thing. Boys, girls, they all get their own name, but they’re the same thing.”

“They sure as hell aren’t.” Maybe that came out a little strongly, because Jane stopped eating and squinted at me. Gold eyes. Always gold. I hoped mine weren’t ever going to take on a permanent tint. “Witches,” I said, still forcefully, “are earth magic focused through or on a deity. They’re basically good guys. Sorcerers are blood magic and conduits for a big goddamned bad and there is nothing good about them at all.”

Jane’s ears all but perked up, even if big cats didn’t usually have unperked ears to begin with. “Witches here are different from my world, then. What kind of big bad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s all different faces of one—” I stopped right there and backed up. Jane probably didn’t want a lecture on the various faces of evil in my world, and besides, it probably wouldn’t be much help. “The one I dealt with was in thrall to a serpent called Amhuluk.”