He only smirked, waiting on her to elaborate which she struggled to not oblige. She squeezed her lips together and managed to not fill the uneasy silence with more blathering. “I am not stupid either,” he finally said and opened the book again. “And you talk in your sleep.”
There was a hitch in Amma’s chest—what had she said? From his self-satisfied smirk, she feared it might have been about the dream, thoughts of being wrapped in his arms again making her face bloom bright red, but as mortifying as that would be, it might be heaps better than accidentally divulging anything about herself.
Then again, if Damien really believed she were lying about something, he could order her at any time to tell him the truth of things—he had almost done exactly that in the Sanctum when she first absorbed his stupid talisman. Thankfully, what she’d said was specific to the moment, compelled to spill out of her against her will: she was only there to steal the scroll. If he were concerned about something, or even just curious, he could use that awful magic word and force her to tell him just about anything.
But he was already back to reading his oh-so-interesting book that didn’t even have a title for her to peek at. Amma calmed the beating of her heart, looking for a distraction, and there was Kaz. The imp had done nothing but glare at the back of Damien since he found out their path to Eirengaard had been subject to yet another detour, but he might be willing to chat.
When she said his name, the imp’s head twitched toward her in a horrifying way. Amma laughed nervously. “How are you?”
The imp bared all of his teeth, the crooked ones especially daunting in the sunlight.
“Thought so,” she said, eyeing his ear and how it looked beaten up. “Didn’t sleep well, hmm? Have a rough night?”
“I do not sleep,” the imp growled back. “Not like you anyway, human.”
Human. Well, that was better thantrollop, she supposed. Amma pitched her voice higher, like she were speaking to a small child. “You don’t ever get tired?”
Kaz grumbled something indiscernible, scrunching up his horrid face so his nostrils flared.
“Well, you sure act like you need a nap,” she lilted. “So, what do you do while everyone else is asleep then?”
“Serve my master,” he spat out.
Amma’s eyes flicked to Damien, and she frowned.
He twitched as if feeling her look of disapproval, but he kept his long nose pointed down at the book. “He is not forced to remain awake out of cruelty; imps do not require sleep in the way you or I do. But Kaz should have rested last night as he was quite busy the day before. He had the opportunity to do so at least.” Then he grunted. “And rest was certainly deserved after the impressive feat he completed at my request.”
Kaz’s terrible face changed then, eyes going watery, toothy mouth falling open, and ears perking up. His tail even unraveled from around his haunches and gave a little wag.
Amma grinned at him. “Good job, Kaz!”
The imp crumpled back into a sneer. “I do not require your praise.”
“Well, you have it anyway.” Amma continued to smile at him, and he only bared pointed teeth back, but he didn’t call her something nasty or suggest she was only good for serving one or two base needs, so she considered it an improvement. “So, what else makes being an imp different?”
Kaz grunted, but his face seemed to say he didn’t know what she meant.
“You can fly,” she offered. “What’s that like?”
“Terrifying.” He shook his head, scrunching up his nose. “But it allows me to attack silently from above.”
“That’s true,” she said, remembering. “You have some magic too, right? I bet that’s fun.”
The imp was glaring at her sidelong, but his arms uncrossed. “Minor infernal powers, yes. I can…I can do this.” His tail flicked up, and the tip of it burst into a small, orange flame.
“Oh, wow!”
Kaz snickered, flicking the fire around so that he drew a circle in the air, then it went out with a single curl of smoke. “Beyond that, my powers are limited to what my master allows and requests.”
“Geez.” Amma tried to give him a pitiful look. “Is that why you couldn’t protect yourself in the swamp? Because Damien wouldn’t let you?”
“No!” Kaz shouted even as Damien opened his mouth. “Banishment and summoning strip an imp’s powers, and they take time to restore.”
She bit her lip, eyes shifting to Damien who was grinding his jaw. “Well, I still think he should have—”
“The suggestion that arcana is wholly divine or wholly infernal is a fallacy. The existence of purely neutral arcana is proof enough of this,” Damien droned into the forest, voice heavy and put-upon as he turned a page in his book. “For instance, in my work with the wise Maribel of the earth mages, we narrowed down the source of her powers to neither the Abyss nor Empyrea nor even the earth itself.”
“Is that someone’s journal?” Amma gasped. “It must be full of juicy details!”
