“She does what?” Magda asked.
Honey caught up with them. “I’ve been talking to Caden,” she said matter-of-factly. “He misses you very much, Magda. He says he always knew you would grow up to be beautiful, but you have proven his imagination dull and witless by outshining even the great river of stars. He gives his consent for Kaelan to take up his former life. Though he makes some very unpleasant remarks about Elves...” Honey leaned in. “I think he’s a bit jealous. And he says, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you myself, puppy.’”
Honey gave her a small smile and then drifted towards the cottage. Magda stared after her.
“What are you all standing around for? Let’s move!” Flor called from her front door.
Damion hefted the saddlebags over his shoulder. “Honey’s been doing that since we got here. But she’s managed to convince Flor to help us. Or... Caden did. When we arrived, Flor was as bad as we always heard. But after spending most of the night talking to Honey and Caden... The old Flor is back, for better or worse.”
Damion tromped off.
Kaelan placed his hand lightly on Magda’s waist, leaning in. “Are you all right?”
Her chest struggled against the tension knotting around it. “I don’t know what to think.”
“You think she’s lying?” he asked, giving her a small nudge to start her walking again.
“Why would she?”
Kaelan gazed after Honey, eyes growing darker. “She’s not who she used to be. I don’t feel like I know her anymore.”
“She said the ghouls had done something to her.”
“Enabled her to talk to the dead?” Kaelan asked dubiously. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Neither have I,” she conceded. “But I’ve also never met someone whose soul was damaged by an empusa and attacked by ghouls.”
He made an indistinct noise in his throat.
“Regardless,” she said, shaking the eerie feeling Honey had left her with, “it appears to have worked in our favor.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s a first.”
She smiled. Hero returned from his exploration, dashing up her armor, taking position on her shoulder. He rubbed up against her neck, and she scratched his head.
“I want you to watch Honey,” she said to him softly.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just... make sure she’s all right.”
A musty, soured milk odor spoiled the air inside.
Once the house had been an elegant retreat for Flor’s noble family, but in the grieving years, it had been given over to the spiders and the mice. The front door opened into a foyer where the main staircase wound up to the second floor.
Magda ran her fingers over the balustrade, remembering all the times she’d seen Cae bound down the stairs, smiling in that wicked way of his. Dust collected on her fingertips, thick and sticky. The foyer opened into a hallway and beyond, two ornate doors. Flor heaved them open with a strained grunt.
Bustling ahead into the dining hall, she skirted the long shrouded table and pulled aside the heavy curtain. Storms of dust billowed around her.
“Don’t just stand there, help an old woman,” she barked back at them, pushing open the windows.
Damion plunked the saddlebags down on the table and assisted her, drawing aside the curtains from the tall mullioned windows, forcing open old hinges that groaned and resisted.
Fresh air swept through the house, swirling through the thick motes of dust.
“That’s him,” Honey said, gesturing to a portrait above the credenza just beside the entry doors.
“Yes,” Flor said, blowing aside a tress of grizzled hair that dangled over her face. “My Caden.”
