“Still got that toad?” she asked, charging up the slope. Lavana’s rigid weight was harder to handle than pulling an unconscious human from the surf—something she’d had to do numerous times as a lifeguard.
“Yeah,” he said.
The added weight of Lavana gave her more momentum than she’d expected. She stumbled down the slope at a tripping run. Ouda had refastened herself to Honey’s face, feeding on her like an algae-eater stuck to the glass wall of an aquarium.
Ouda’s entire face had been overtaken by her mouth. Her nose and her eyes were gone. She didn’t flinch when Magda threw Lavana down on the ground next to Honey.
Kaelan’s hand lost contact with her for a second and she sank into a brume before he clamped down on her again, breaking her from Ouda’s trance.
Along with the paralytic whine, a terrible gulping sound issued from Ouda’s throat. But Magda didn’t allow herself to think about what was being taken from Honey.
Ouda’s hands were both flat on the ground on either side of Honey’s body. Magda shoved Lavana over until her hand covered Ouda’s. Again, Ouda seemed to take no notice.
Magda straddled Lavana in a crouch, flicking out her ghast blade. Kaelan crowded behind Magda, his breath ragged. A churning melee of emotions flooded out of him into her: fear, panic, sadness, worry, anger, and most strangely... relief. But she let them flow through her and out again without giving them consideration.
“Okay,” she said. “As soon as she breaks free, shove that toad down her throat.”
Without waiting for his acknowledgment, she stabbed Lavana and Ouda through their hands with her ghast blade and then released it, pinning them together. Ouda snapped back from Honey. Kaelan released Magda as he chucked the toad into Ouda’s gaping mouth.
Magda experienced another second of immobility before Ouda’s whine died.
Ouda’s oversized mouth shrank, her pale eyes reappearing, her free hand grasping at her throat. Her neck distended as the toad struggled, no doubt unleashing a flood of glue-like goop. Before Ouda could shut her mouth, the toad scrambled out and flung itself free.
Magda threw herself back as Ouda jerked against the blade piercing her hand. At the same moment, Lavana’s eyes began to flutter and then they snapped open. She bolted upright, screaming.
Damion stumbled out of his trance.
Kaelan was dragging Honey away from Ouda and Lavana who were grappling, both pulling against the blade skewering their hands together.
Magda seized the front of Kaelan’s tunic. “You get her out of here and then you come back for us.”
She released him and set free the rest of her blades.
Kaelen gathered Honey to his chest. The shadows bled out from between the trees and surrounded him. He and Honey vanished.
From over the hillock, the voices of Lavana’s warriors grew louder.
Damion rushed to her, gaze flicking between her, Lavana, and Ouda.
“What in the—?”
“A dozen warriors coming over,” she told him.
Confusion dissolved into a hard smile. He started to back up, kicking one of Kaelan’s swords as he moved. He slid his own blade into his vault, stuck his foot under Kaelan’s sword, and flipped it up into his hand.
In gleaming afternoon light, the slender, curved blade was blinding.
The first of the warriors came over the ridge. She reached down and picked up Kaelan’s other sword, still in its sheath.
“Here.” She tossed it in his direction.
With one fluid motion, he put away his other sword and caught Kaelan’s. He gave them a twirl.
“These are too good for an imp,” he said.
She didn’t have time to respond as she darted forward to meet the first warrior. Weak, tired, covered in toad goo as she was, she met each of his blows and knocked him unconscious.
The timed strikes, the silence that filled her head, the measured cadence of her breath, all returned to her in an instant. Yet, she was slower and weaker than she had been when she’d last fought in the Lands. Her training had not been lost though. Her body remembered.
