Honey stared up at her with big, innocent puppy eyes.
“Magda . . .” Damion said from behind her.
She released the nymph. “Just stop.”
Honey tilted her head. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Magda almost laughed. Every part of her hurt, all the way down to the marrow. Honey was supposed to be the one feeling like this—grieving—so why was it Magda?
“No,” Magda said, her tongue salted by the tears flowing over her lips. “Everything’s fine. You’re perfectly fine.”
Honey smiled widely and it was like a ghast blade straight into Magda’s soul. Another person she had failed to protect.
She pushed up to her feet, wiping her face with her sleeve, though the tears continued to pour. “We have to leave as soon as we can.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the venom,” Damion said, taking up his swords and rising. “And... the body?”
“What body?” Honey asked.
Magda swiped more tears from her cheeks with her fingers, ignoring Honey’s question. Ouda had obviously damaged Honey much more deeply than Magda had realized to make her so oblivious.
“I don’t know.” She turned to Honey. “What do imps do with their dead?”
Honey twirled her hair around her finger. “You know, I never asked.”
“We’ll bury him,” Damion said softly, “as is our way. He was one of us.”
“We have no way to dig,” she said.
“What about the semargl?” Damion asked. “Think he could manage it?”
“I’ll ask him,” she said.
Damion placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not just because he was a Prince,” she said, voice snagging in her throat, vision blurred, heart aching.
“REST A WHILE.”Damion gave her shoulder a squeeze and then started up the slope.
“Here,” Honey said, trotting over to him and giving him the gourd. “Take this with you.”
He gave Magda an apologetic look and then headed upwards again.
She hung there, feeling as though she might just drop to the ground and never get up, but Honey drifted closer, humming again.
“Oh look, more came,” she said, reaching down and plucking a clutch of delicate white flowers from the edge of the water, roots and all. She waved them at Magda, bright-eyed. “Better not let these go to waste.”
Magda did her best to focus through the tumult. Raging at Honey wouldn’t do them any good. It wasn’t the nymph’s fault she was like this now—so vacant. At the moment, Magda was envious.
“No, better not,” Magda murmured.
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to call them,” Honey said, hips continuing to sway. “I’ve only seen them once, when I was very young. An asp caught one of my sisters in the ankle when she was picking apples. We’d never had asps in our forest before, but Ouda said...” Honey’s eyes darkened, her swaying stopped, and for the briefest of moments, she looked like her old self again. But then she shook her head and her hips began to rock once more. “Nettle knew. She’s quite old. She says the gods showed her, but none of us believed that. I mean, she’s old, but not that old. But she called it up,”—Honey waved the lacey white flowers—“and it came. It’s really so... plain, isn’t it? I mean, not the showiest of flowers at all. And to think that it can—”
“Magda!” Damion stumbled back into view.
Her tears dried up in an instant. She darted up the hillside, unleashing her daggers, fearful Ilene had returned. But Damion hadn’t drawn his swords. He simply stood there, his face pale. She retracted her daggers as she crested the slope.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “The venom didn’t—”
