“Well?” Flor persisted.
“Do it,” Magda said.
The air around Kaelan rippled. And then he was himself again.
The tension in Magda’s chest eased slightly and then constricted tighter than ever. She was getting annoyed. He had infected her with this idea that they needed to talk about everything. Now she felt as though, in spite of everything they’d discussed the day before, they hadn’t talked at all.
Flor gave her nose a quick brush between her thumb and forefinger, like she felt a hair or a cobweb drifting across the end of it. Magda smiled. Cae had had the same tick. She’d forgotten about it.
Flor’s silvery eyes skated up Kaelan and down again. “I see you know who’s in charge,” she said. “But are you loyal?”
“Flor—” Magda had also forgotten how it was with a Pixie matriarch. Everyone said that Flor had gone mad with grief, shutting herself away in the cottage on the meadow, but she seemed as astute and commanding as ever.
“You be silent,” Flor said, shooting her an arrow-sharp glance. “You’re not Radiant yet, girl.” Her gaze fixed on Kaelan again. “Well?”
“Am I loyal to what?” he asked.
“To whom, and by that, I mean her. Your Rae.”
Before he could answer, Flor turned back to Magda. “I don’t like not being told why his true identity must be obscured.”
“Because he’s being hunted,” Magda said.
“By whom?”
“The King,” Magda said.
Flor’s eyebrows rose. “Whatever for?”
“A prophecy,” Magda said. “The King fears him. An oracle foretold Kaelan would make the King bow.”
Flor’s eyes honed in on Magda’s face with acuity, as though she could pierce straight into Magda’s thoughts.
“I see.” Flor’s cheeks drew in, and then her gaze zipped down and over Magda. “That armor used to be your mother’s.”
“Yes.”
“It needs to be cleaned and repaired,” she said. “Come along.” She spared Kaelan one last critical look before she turned and led the way back to the two-story manse of gray stone, nestled under a blooming white stardust tree.
“Why did you tell her about the prophecy?” Kaelan asked, drawing near to Magda as they followed.
The warm of his breath on her neck brought back the memories of when he’d touched her at Eris’s. For some reason, those few moments had been resurfacing in her mind all day. She shoved them aside.
“Because we need to tell her as much of the truth as we can if we want to enlist her help.”
“Sorry about that,” Damion said, falling into step on her other side. “You’re never going to believe what’s been happening. Where’d you get that armor? What’s that?” He pointed to the saddlebags hanging on her shoulder.
“My inheritance,” she said, shrugging it off her shoulder, into the crook of her arm, and then handing it off to him. He slowed a step as the weight of the treasure fell into his hands.
A grin spread across his face.
Behind them, Honey drifted like a ghost.
“How is she?” Magda murmured to Damion.
“Oh, she’s just fine,” he said. “You know, grows flowers, hums her little songs, talks to the dead.”
Magda and Kaelan stopped as one.
