id with only the goal of making him Were again, because she knew that no matter how mad she made him, she could fix that with a little time and a willingness to get beaten up when the time came.  It all made perfect sense now, and he had to admire her audacity.  Then again, being able to again think like a Were-cat made everything clear.
	But it still didn't excuse it.  Just because he could understand her actions didn't mean that he was going to forgive her for them.  And unlike the last time, when she baited in into a fight that made him lose his anger against her, he had no intention of making it nearly so easy for her this time.  He wanted her to feel like he did, like she was being overwhelmed by the will of someone else.  She had overwhelmed him with her obsessive need to control his life, and now he was going to repay her by not giving her any chance to let her work back into his good graces.
	"Papa, why are you being mean to Mama?" Jasana asked in a tiny little voice, not even looking at him.
	"Because she had it coming," he said in a furious hiss.  "You'd better be patient, Jesmind," he said with seething disgust, "because it's going to be years before I can look you in the face without wanting to rip your head off.  So just stay clear of me."  He turned his back on her.  "And may every god there is help you if I find out you turned me, Jesmind.  I'll come after you, and there's nowhere in this entire world you can go to hide from me."
	Tarrin stalked away, towards the door, but Kimmie jumped to her feet and called his name.  "What about us?" she asked plaintively.  "Are you going to shut us out too?"
	"Until I know who did this, none of you come anywhere near me," he said over his shoulder.  "I'll kill you.  As far as I'm concerned, you're all guilty, even if you didn't do it."
	"Not even the children?" Kimmie gasped.
	"Not even the children," he growled.  "I won't be good company until I find out who did it.  I won't punish them for my own temper."
	"Cub!" Triana said quickly as Tarrin reached the door, ducked under it absently.  She took a step forward, but a withering glare from the male stopped her dead in her tracks.
	"I said none of you come near me, and I meant it," he said with an evil look, then he remembered what he came here to do in the first place, or at least one of them.  "If you want to be of any use to me, Triana, you'll do as I ask."
	"What do you want?" she asked cautiously.
	"The Goddess wants Sarraya here.  I know you can bring her quickly."
	"I can have her here by tomorrow morning."
	"Then do it."
	"I will, but only if you agree to one thing."
	He turned and looked at her, a single eyebrow rising in curiosity while his face showed his irritation, almost anger, that she would dare bargain with him right now.
	"I can feel it in you, cub.  You're stronger, alot stronger.  Things are different for you now, and you're going to have trouble with it unless you get some serious instruction.  You need to be taught."
	"The Goddess warned me about it," he said bluntly.  "Until I calm down, I don't think I could stand to be in the room with you, Triana."
	"This goes beyond spats of temper, cub.  This is important.  Unless you get some training, you're going to hurt yourself, or even worse, someone else.  We can agree to meet and not kill each other, because if we don't, you're going to have an accident."  She looked at him.  "Have you done anything yet?"
	"I Conjured this," he said, touching the vest.
	"Did you mean to do it?"
	The question took him off guard, and caused a little of his anger to bleed off. "Now that you mention it, no," he admitted.
	"That's what you have to be careful of, cub," she said with intensity, almost desperation, in her voice.  "When you're at the level you're at now, the power comes to you even when you don't want it to.  You have to keep a tight rein on your emotions, and don't let your mind wander too often, or you'll miss the telltale signs that warns you that it's reaching for you.  You could slip, and it's going to act on whatever it finds in your mind, no matter how outrageous or disastrous it may be."  She put her arm out, reaching towards him.  "I know you're ticked, cub, but be careful.  Keep an eye on the All, and be watchful for the sense of it.  If it seems to be getting close to you, that's the sign that you need to get your mind under control, and do it fast.  You can't stop it from touching you until I show you how it's done, so you have to make sure that it doesn't do anything you don't want it to do when it does.  So please, for everyone's sake, be careful of that."
	Tarrin could appreciate the frankness of that warning.  Druidic magic had no limitations.  The only limits came with the Druid using the power, and if he tried to do something that required more magical power than his body could withstand, it would destroy him.  Tarrin understood that danger, but it was the thought of Druidic magic running wild that frightened him more.  He'd had experiences where Druidic magic unleashed through him with no control, and the results had been nearly disastrous.  The All was notoriously fickle and unpredictable, and any time a Druid lost control of a spell, just about anything could happen.  Very rarely were those wild misfires beneficial to the Druid, or anything in his general vicinity.  He saw her warning for what it was.  It was no ploy or attempt to get into his good graces, it was a very serious, very sober warning from a master Druid to an acolyte Druid about the very real dangers of the demanding magic they commanded.
	He nodded once, eloquently.  "I will.  After you bring back Sarraya, we'll meet so you can teach me what I need to know," he said in a neutral tone.
	"I can live with that.  Just please, be careful."
	"I'll be careful," he promised, then he turned and stalked back through the door, slamming it behind him.

	He didn't have much time to think about what Triana said, but what time he had made him appreciate her warning that much more.  He did feel much closer to the All now, and it didn't seem much of a stretch for it to reach into him rather than him reaching into it.  The Weave did things like that itself sometimes, as it was an active, dynamic force, where the All was also very dynamic and, in its own way, nearly alive.  The All had a kind of animating force in it, the part of it that allowed it to interpret what it found in the mind of a Druid and decide on the manner in which the task would be accomplished.  It was why Druids had to be extraordinarily careful, for that awareness within the All had no concept of human limitation, and it often took wild liberty if the Druid didn't envision the spell exactly as he wanted it to function.  Triana's warning was a very serious one, and Tarrin was serious about heeding it.  From the moment he left the females, he kept one part of his mind on his outrage and anger, and another part kept steadfast vigil over the All, ready to warn him should it seem to come closer to him.
	That suitably done to his satisfaction, he bent to the task at hand, and that was finding out who turned him.  He was so consumed by it that even going to greet his sisters and friends seemed hollow in comparison that burning need.  Only his desire to have it out with Jesmind and his duty to carry out the will of his Goddess superseded that singular compulsion.
	That didn't prevent them from coming to him, and that was exactly what happened.  The first to find him was Keritanima and Allia, guided by Keritanima's magic.  They rounded a corner almost on top of him and gave out cries of delight, and even his anger was brushed away by the sight of them.  He embraced his two sisters tenderly, lovingly, having their scents fill his nose with the rightness of them, the perfection that he seemed to feel whenever they were together.  It took him a moment to calm them down to where he could speak rationally to them, and they spoke Selani, as was always their habit when conversing privately amongst themselves.
	"Brother, they told us what happened!" Allia said as Keritanima blurted "they wouldn't let us sit with you!"
	"I'm alright," he told them gently, putting a paw on each shoulder.  They were so different from one another, and a thousand forgotten memories of them, of the tediums of everday life in the Tower and on the road, their every expressions and moods, it all came back to him and made him love them that much more.  Both weren't without their thorns, but his love for them was stronger for their faults than it was for their perfection.
	"Who did it?" Keritanima asked immediately.
	"That's what I'm going to find out," he said grimly. "It's why I didn't come running to you as soon as I woke up.  I have to start while the trail is freshest."
	"Did they tell you what Sapphire did to Mist?" Allia asked.
	He nodded.  "Mist is alright, or at least I think she was," he said.  "All the females were in her company, so I wasn't very sociable when I saw her."
	"I can imagine," Keritanima snorted.  "Which of them do you think did it?  I think it was Jesmind, myself."
	"I'm not sure, but it may not have been any of them," he said grimly.  He told them about his talk with the Goddess, and when he was done, Keritanima whistled sharply through her muzzle.
	"That certainly complicates things, but we'll be looking for someone with a motive, brother.  Just anyone that knows about the blood is a suspect, but we can do things to narrow down the field some."
	"That's what I'm on my way to do.  Me and Sapphire and Jenna are going to where the blood is so we can see what we can find out."
	"Well, you're not doing this without me," Keritanima said flatly.  "I'm much more devious than you, brother.  I think in ways you don't, and I can be a real use to you."
	"Both of you can," he said. "Just being here is enough.  I have to keep a tight rein on my temper, and you two always did have a calming effect on me."
	Keritanima looked at him in a strange tilt-headed manner.  "You're...different, brother," she said hesitantly.  "I didn't sense it before.  I guess I was too excited.  But I can feel it now."
	Allia looked at him carefully.  Then her eyes turned sober.  "Even I can sense it," she agreed.  "He is like a lodestone within the Weave, drawing its light to him."
	"That's part of why I have to keep my temper in check," he said ruefully, then he explained what Triana and the Goddess had told him as they moved towards his room, where he was to meet Sapphire.  "I'm not sure I understand all of it, but I do know that my increased Druidic ability is dangerous," he told them.  "Triana warned me, and I believe her.  She had no reason to lie, not about something like that."
	"At least some part of your brain is working," Keritanima chided with a toothy grin.
	He let that pass.  "She told me what I need to do to make sure nothing bad happens until she can teach me what I need to know, so I should be alright, at least for a short time.  But I can feel it there, Kerri.  It's just like Triana said.  The All seems to be lurking out there, just the same way High Sorcery did back before I could control it.  It's just waiting for a chance to connect with me, and I have to be very careful to make sure not to have anything go wrong if that happens."
	"Can we do anything to help?" Allia asked.
	"Just stay near me," he said.  "I need a level head, and you two always were able to cool my temper."
	"That's no great chore," Allia said with a loving smile.
	"I hope not."
	"Brother, I must ask.  Are you happy?" Allia asked in a voice powerful with emotion.
	"I'm content," he told her simply.  "Had I had the choice that was stolen from me, I would have chosen this.  But it's the theft of it that makes me so angry.  Nobody had the right to steal it from me, and I mean to punish whoever did it.  Thoroughly," he added in an ominous tone, his eyes narrowing.
	"It can't be thorough unless we get our licks in too," Keritanima told him, rubbing her hands together.  "I have quite a few little ideas brewing.  I'm pretty sure that they're not much nicer than yours."
	"I guess we'd better start drawing numbers.  Sapphire intends to kill whoever did it.  I'm going to have to talk her out of that, because whoever it is won't fully appreciate how furious I am if they're dead."
	"He is angry," Allia mused to Keritanima.
	"Was it ever in doubt?" she replied impishly.
	"I win, sister," Allia added.
	"You did not.  Someone else turned him, so it's invalid."
	"What is this?" Tarrin asked.
	"When you went nuts on us about us fighting over what you should do, me and Allia made a little wager," Keritanima explained.  "I bet you'd stay human, she bet you'd want to be Were again."
	"I won," Allia said stubbornly.
	"It wasn't his choice," the Wikuni fenced.  "It's an invalid conclusion, so it's a draw."
	"What was the wager?" Tarrin asked curiously.
	"Oh, nothing serious," Keritanima said.  "Just ownership of Sha'Kari."
	"What?" he gasped.
	"Well, nobody lives there anymore, do they?" Keritanima said defensively.  "All the Sha'Kar left.  And it's a perfectly good place.  Lots of nice empty buildings, and someone has to keep up the maintenance on them, don't they?"
	"Don't you realize that the Sha'Kar own all that?" he said.
	"I asked Ianelle.  She said when they abandoned it, it became nobody's property.  That means it's there for whoever wants to claim it."
	Tarrin had a sneaking suspicion.  "When do they get there?" he asked bluntly.
	The fur on Keritanima's cheeks ruffled, her version of a blush.  "They should be there already," she admitted.  "I haven't gotten any recent reports."
	"Who got where?" Allia demanded.
	"Kerri's fleet," Tarrin said.  "I'll bet she sent them out to claim Sha'Kari about two seconds after Ianelle told her it was up for grabs."
	"It was more like ten minutes," she said modestly.
	"And you wagered possession of it against me?" Allia asked, her eyes flaring slightly.
	"I knew you wouldn't do anything with it, Allia," Keritanima said smoothly.  "In the end, it was going to be mine anyway, so why are we fighting about it?"
	"Get out your purse, sister," Allia said cooly.  "You are about to pay me rent."
	"But you didn't win the bet," Keritanima said stubbornly.  "When Tarrin was turned before he made a choice, it invalidated the whole thing.  We don't know what he really would have decided, since he never got the chance to think without the Cat influencing him, do we?"
	"That's nothing but a flimsy excuse for you to weasel out of your word," Allia accused.
	"What would you do with a place like that, Allia?" Keritanima asked.
	"I thought it might be a nice place for me and Allyn to spend our honeymoon," she said simply.  "I have  some very pleasant memories of some places there," she added with a wicked little smile.
	"You proposed?" Tarrin asked in surprise.
	"Not yet," she admitted with a slow smile.  "And don't you dare warn him.  I don't want to give him any chance to run away."
	"We wouldn't dream of it, but why Allyn?" Tarrin asked.  "He's not even remotely Selani."
	"You and Kerri have shown me that there is strength in diversity," she said simply.  "With the Selani strength and the Sha'Kar magic in their blood, our children will be powerful.  And I like Allyn, brother.  He's very attentive to me, he makes me laugh, and I know I can depend on him when I need him.  He'll make a fine husband, even someone my clan can accept after I've suitably trained him."
	"He's a bit soft for the Selani life, sister."
	"Don't let Allyn's demeanor fool you, brother.  He has steel in him.  His is a Sha'Kar upbringing, but he has the soul of a Selani inside.  There's more to him than you realize.  Even I'm surprised by him from time to time."
	"As long as you're not thinking with something a little south of your brain," he told her bluntly.
	"That had a say in it," she said with a smirk.
	"It would," he accused.
	"We knew this would happen," Keritanima told her.
	"What?"
	"That you'd whip him into shape," she said with a grin.  "I knew you were too much man for him."
	Allia looked at her, then laughed brightly.  "I'm too much woman for him, you mean," she corrected.
	"Humans call it henpecked," Tarrin said dryly.
	"We call it sensible," Allia said.  "He'll learn that my way is the only way.  If he doesn't, he'll have a very unpleasant marriage."
	"No wonder she doesn't want to give him the chance to run away," Keritanima teased, giving Tarrin a bright, mischievious smile.
	"Allyn won't be easy to tame," Allia admitted.  "But I'll enjoy the challenge of it."
	"Well, we forgot to say congratulations, so congratulations, sister," Tarrin told her.
	"Yes, congratulations, sister.  Now we're all married," Keritanima said with a smile.  "Or at least something approaching it.  Now we can sit up all night and gossip wickedly about our spouses."
	"We do that already," Tarrin shrugged.
	"But at least now some of us aren't left out," Keritanima said with a bright smile.
	"That was your fault.  We couldn't help it if you were a virgin," Allia told her frankly.  "We could have fixed that for you any number of times, you know.  There were any number of suitable men handy, but you were stubborn about keeping your royal chastity.  So don't complain if you missed out."
	Keritanima's face poofed out as all the fur on her face stood on end, then she laughed helplessly.  "And I thought I was dirty-minded!" she admitted.  "I submit to your even dirtier mind, fair sister," she said with a mocking smile.  "I'm yours to train in all those kinds of things."
	"If you want training, talk to Miranda," Tarrin told her bluntly.  "She's more corrupt than all three of us put together."
	"That's certainly saying something," Keritanima chuckled.  "I'm not sure it's a good thing, but it's certainly something."
	Bantering with his sisters had done much to leech off the majority of his blinding anger, but it didn't totally vent it.  He was still plenty angry, but it was again the cold, calculating anger of the human in him, the anger that would allow him think rationally without losing his ire.  Vengeful anger, his father Eron would call it.  A kind of anger he'd always warned Tarrin not to cultivate in himself, for good things rarely came of it.  It allowed him to approach the problem before them with more than a driving need to hunt down and chastise someone--anyone--in the most vicious manner possible.  Now he could follow leads, think calmly, and then let that blind fury go when he was sure of who did it.
	They met Sapphire and Jenna as soon as he returned to his room, where the two Knights still stood silent vigil.  They came out as soon as he approached the two armored men, and Jenna was swept up in the arms of Keritanima and Allia both when she reached them.  Tarrin had his memory back, and he knew intimately well now just how close Jenna was to his his adopted sisters.  Allia had become close to her before they left the Tower, and Keritanima had done so after they had returned to the Tower while Tarrin was in the desert, after Keritanima herself had returned from Wikuna.  Keritanima and Allia were accepted by his parents as an intimate part of his immediate family, and his mother often absently called them both daughter.  Sapphire still looked incensed, but at least lightning wasn't flying all over the place.
	"Are you ready, little one?" she asked in a tightly controlled voice.
	"Let's go," he said.  "Allia and Kerri are going with us.  Both of them are very observant.  They may catch things we miss."
	Sapphire looked profoundly skeptical of that notion, but sniffed indifferently and swept in the direction that Jenna pointed.
	Where they kept that blood turned out to be the destination of a very long trip.  It took them nearly a half an hour to get there, a cellar in a part of the lowest basement as remote as one could get in the Tower.  It was a hallway he hadn't even known was there, and that was saying a great deal, because he and Dar and Auli had explored what they thought was absolutely everything.  He was surprised that they'd missed something, but they obviously had.  It was a large room filled with a very thick layer of dust, and under the dust was contained boxes upon boxes upon boxes.  They were stacked on the floor.  They were stacked on old, old tables.  They were stacked on heavy stone shelves carved directly out of the rock of the walls themselves.  They were piled to the very top of the low ceiling in the far corner.  And every single box had not a single mark on it to discern it from any other box.  All the boxes were uniform, made of wood slats nailed together, and all their dimensions were proportional.  Some were larger, some were smaller, but they all appeared identical to one another in that all of them looked to be perfect cubes or long rectangular boxes.
	Tarrin stared in dismay, Keritanima sneezed, and Sapphire glared at the room as if it was the room's fault that it looked that they were going to have to undergo a rather exhaustive search just to find out in which box the blood was stored.
	"Hold," Sapphire said quickly, holding an arm out to stop Jenna from entering the room.  "The dust itself is a clue."
	"It is uniform," Allia announced.  "Whoever came was careful to upset the dust so it would resettle and hide evidence of their visit."
	Tarrin's eyes scanned the thick dust, and he had to agree.  It was of an even thickness on the floor and on the boxes, giving no hint as to where the culprit had looked, or where the culprit had gone in the large storeroom.  Without giving it much thought, Tarrin wove a quick spell of Earth, Water, and Divine, a spell that lifted up faded scents and made them glow with a ruddy light.  To his surprise, not only did the spell fail to locate any recent scents, it failed to find any scent at all except dust, stone, and wood.
	Tarrin's ears laid back slightly, and his eyes narrowed.  Whoever had done it knew that someone was going to try to find out who they were, and more to the point, had known a Were-cat would be involved.  Whoever it was had absolutely erased every trace of scent in the room, scouring it completely clean, making it as if the room had never been entered by anything larger than an insect.
	"What's the matter?" Keritanima asked him.
	"The room's been purged of scent," he replied.  "Totally.  There's not even any old traces of the workers who cut the stones."
	"So whoever came along before us knew someone was going to be looking," Keritanima concluded grimly.  "And they were familiar enough with your kind to take steps."
	Tarrin turned the spell into the hallway, turning as he moved it, and again he was set back.  The only scents laid into the passage were their own.  But Tarrin realized that the purging only went in one direction in the continuing passageway, as if the culprit hadn't thought to do both sides to cover his passing, or perhaps didn't bother to think that purging in both directions would make a difference.  It did make a difference, however, because now Tarrin had a trail to follow, a trail of anti-trail, for the purging itself marked the passing of the guilty party indirectly.
	"I'm going to follow this a little," Tarrin told them.
	"Follow what?" Allia asked.
	"The purging only goes in one direction," he told Allia, pointing the way they themselves had come.  "Maybe whoever did it messed up, and we'll be able to get something where it ends."
	"A reasonable idea," Sapphire nodded.  "You follow that, little one, while we try to find clues in here."
	"I will come with you, brother," Allia offered, and Tarrin nodded in agreement.
	"Keep us posted," Keritanima said, tapping her amulet meaningfully.
	"I'll Whisper if I find something," he answered, then he and Allia started down the hall.
	Moving with good speed, for Tarrin could sense the purging as easily as he could smell Allia, the pair traced it along the meandering, confusing passages of the cellars of the Tower.  Tarrin realized quickly that whoever had done it had gotten lost more than once, for the purging would go off in two directions at intersections, and one of those trails would end abruptly, as if the culprit had realized that he was going in the wrong direction.  They went up another level, up a tiny, narrow, dank staircase that Tarrin hadn't known was there, and probably hadn't seen the passage of anyone other than the two of them and the culprit in hundreds of years.  He realized that the culprit had become lost, and was meandering around looking for something he could identify.  He could only follow behind that trail, which led him in a roundabout manner.
	The trail did, after about a half an hour, come to an end, and much to his chagrin, it came to an end just down the passage from the staircase that led down to the baths, probabably the single-most heavily trafficked passageway in the entire Tower.  The culprit had been very clever in making sure that his trail ended in the one place where it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to pick it up, for in a matter of hours any trail left behind would be destroyed by the passing of so many others.  Tarrin knelt in the middle of the passage, making two curious Sorcerers, a dark-haired woman and a Sha'Kar, go around him and look at him curiously as they passed on their way to the baths.  He put two thick fingers on the floor and realized that though the purging robbed him of the ability to identify the culprit, the purging itself may give him some information.  He sank himself into the remnants of that spell.  The ghostly vestiges of the spell may still be lingering in the rock, for here in the Tower, spells had a habit of leaving behind traces of themselves.  It was because of the very rich magical atmoshphere...flows and spells could often linger long after the Sorcerer stopped concentrating on it.  And if it were Wizardry or Priest magic, even Druidic magic, there may be some lingering trace of it he could identify.
	From the feel of it, it was rather old, maybe two rides or so, but that was all he could really tell.  The magical power of the Tower had infused whatever was left and drowned it in the ambient magical energy that thrived here, an environment just like Sha'Kari, where he had trouble sensing the more delicate things because of all the interference.  The only thing he could sense was the age of the magic, but the texture of its remnants gave no hint as to the kind of magician that created it.  It was one of the few times when he couldn't be sure about what kind of magic he was confronting.  But even if he could tell which order did it, the magic itself told him some things.  It told him that whoever did it had done it well before he intended to carry out his plan, and it showed that his target had had both the time to think things over, and more than enough time to get everything ready to keep himself hidden.  His target had had two rides to make sure that every trace of his activities had been destroyed.  The person also was either a magician or had a confidante that was one, for them to use magic to cover their tracks.  They may be looking for a single person or a pair or trio, but someone in the guilty party was definitely a magic-user.
	He realized, without much enthusiasm, that this was not going to be as easy as he thought.  They were chasing someone that obviously knew what they were doing.  Even a fool with a little magical assistance and two rides to prepare could do a good job in destroying the trail that led back to him.
	Raising his awareness partially up into the Weave, he became immediately aware of the many conversations taking place among the Sha'Kar.  He'd never noticed that before--at least not here--and he had to make a few adjustments just as the Sha'Kar did to speak to Jenna and Keritanima without disturbing other conversations, and also without letting anyone else currently bridging into the weave eavesdrop on what they were saying.
	"Sisters," he called.
	"Any luck?" Jenna's voice responded immediately.
	"It peters out in front of the stairs leading to the baths," he said sourly.  "I checked the spell itself, and it's about twenty days old.  It was made by a Sorcerer."
	"I've found some traces of that here too," Jenna told him, and Tarrin quickly adjusted what he was receiving to make it audible from his amulet so Allia could hear what was being said.  "Whoever stole the blood was very careful.  One of the crates, the one with your blood in it, was moved by Sorcery, and it's the only crate that seems to have been touched.  The culprit knew exactly where the blood was."
	"That's not a damning fact, Jenna," he said.  "My blood would be easy to detect with magic.  It's not exactly normal."
	"Kerri mentioned that.  She said she could make up a spell on the spot to find it."
	"I know.  So could either of us, for that matter."
	"Sapphire tried to use a couple of spells herself, but that purging effect has destroyed everything they could find, even Druidic and Wizard spells can't get any information.  That's a strong spell, brother.  I don't think any Sorcerer would be capable of it, not as powerful as its effect is.  I'm not even sure what spell it is."
	"I can't tell either," he admitted.  "I can only tell that it was made about twenty days ago."
	"That's something, at least.  We can always grill everyone in the Tower and find out where they were that day.  But we do know now that it has to be a strong Sorcerer that did it."
	"No, we just know that a magician had a hand in covering it up," Tarrin told her.  "We're coming back, Jenna."
	"We'll be waiting."
	Tarrin mulled it over as they went back, following a more direct route.  A magician had a hand in things, so that more or less excused all the females except Kimmie at least directly.  None of them were magicians , and more to the point, none of them would probably trust a human magician with that kind of a secret.  Mist certainly wouldn't, and as far as the collusion theory went, that left only Jesmind.  If Jesmind did it, then she had help.  He'd never get anything out of her, but if he could find whoever helped her--if it was really her--then he'd get the truth.  So, if it was an individual, it was Kimmie, but if it was a group effort, it was Jesmind.  At least right now.  He knew things would change in his mind as he got more information, and he told himself several times, over and over, not to get his mind set in stone about who he thought did it.  It could have been anyone, even one of the origin