“Excuse me?” Damion said.
“Damion, you and Honey are going to find Flor. Tell her what’s going on, explain to her as best as you can, try to convince her. Kaelan and I are going to take care of the money problem. Then we’ll meet you at Flor’s cottage. Assuming that we can enlist her assistance, we’ll travel to the Spire from there.”
“Wait. Where are you going exactly?” Damion asked.
“None of your business,” she said. “Honey, call Anqa. Where’s Gur?”
At the mention of his name, the semargl rose from where he’d been hidden among the grasses, slashing his tail across the tops of them, sending dust and pollen into the air.
“You want me to look like Damion?” Kaelan asked uncertainly.
“If we’re spotted, he’s the most logical person for me to be seen with,” she said.
“I don’t think logic applies to anything that’s happening here,” Damion said.
Magda folded her arms. “Kaelan?”
He sighed, studying Damion for a moment, and then closed his eyes.
A warping lens fell over him. He shortened, but grew broader across the chest. His hair turned long and dark, plaited back from his face, which paled. The white crisscross of scars slashed his broad cheeks, around his full lips, along his strong flat nose. Finally, the distortion dissolved.
A second Damion stood beside the first.
Damion’s brow dropped. His chest seemed to expand. The sticks in his hands sliced down through the air, poised on guard at his sides.
Kaelan, as Damion, edged away, like he feared those sticks might be aimed at him.
“There I am,” Damion said darkly.
Magda inspected Kaelan and then Damion, except for the clothes, the two were identical. Yet the hostility in Damion’s look suggested he felt otherwise.
Honey drifted closer to Damion, inspecting Kaelan. “No. He does not bear himself like a warrior. That makes all the difference.”
Damion’s shoulders fell, the hardness of his face, softening. “Yes, well, he is still more an imp than a Prince, and not a warrior.”
“Clearly,” Honey said. “Any knowledgeable person would see him as an impostor right away.”
Damion’s sticks dropped into the sand and he nodded.
Magda felt an inexplicable urge to hug Honey again. Kaelan, on the other hand, was scowling.
“With any luck, he won’t need to fool anyone,” Magda said, charging over and snagging Kaelan’s arm, dragging him away. “We’ll meet you at the meadow, sunset tomorrow.”
“And if not?” Damion asked.
“We will,” she said.
Hero raced out of the grasses, bounded up her leg and back, and then settled onto her shoulder.
Gur strutted closer. Magda gave Kaelan a bit of a shove towards the semargl.
“Oh, your coat,” Honey said, hurrying forward, grabbing up Endreas’s coat, and holding it out to Kaelan.
He frowned at it and her.
Magda took it. “Thank you, Honey. We’ll see you soon.”
“WHAT ARE WE DOING BACK HERE?”Kaelan asked that afternoon, when Gur once more bore them into the very same cave they had camped in nights before.
