Finally, he pulled his gaze away from Honey. “I guess.” He held his hand out to her.
Over his shoulder, Magda watched Honey do a pretty pirouette with an attendant group of glowing fairies. Her laughter rang through the forest, but like her eyes, something about it was flat, transparent, brittle—not real.
Magda took Kaelan’s hand. She hoped Ouda was still alive, so that she could kill the leech-faced ghoul all over again.
When she and Kaelan had reappeared on the crest of the hill overlooking Ouda’s hollow, she withdrew her hand from his grasp. The tempest of his emotions was too much.
“How do you do that?” she asked. “Transport yourself from place to place in the blink of an eye?”
“I travel the Shadow Realms,” he answered flatly, eyes combing the hollow.
“I’ve never heard of—”
“Look.” He pointed to the dead tree. He tromped down the slope. She followed.
At the base of the tree, the ground had sunk in. The willowy impression was vaguely human-shaped and coated with a silvery substance. She crouched next to it, running her finger over the dust. It came away greasy on her skin.
“Gross,” she said, wiping her hand on her jeans.
“She is dead,” Kaelan said, in that same hard, flat voice.
She sighed and stood up. “I guess so.”
Kaelan looked at her fully. “I know what you were thinking,” he said.
“Do you?” she said, scanning the ground around the imprint and tree. No sign of her blade.
“You were hoping to find her alive. To find some way to help Honey,” he said.
“I came to look for my blade.” She turned away from him and skirted the tree. Signs of Lavana and her warriors were apparent—footprints, broken branches, some of Lavana’s blood still showed blackish on the ground where she’d been pinned to Ouda.
Magda came back around the tree, facing him again, across the deathly impression of Ouda. “Don’t you know anything, Prince? A Rae would never jeopardize her safety for a nymph.”
“I know,” he said, his eyes softened. “But I appreciate the thought.”
Her shoulders sagged. “It looks as though we’re SOL in either case,” she said, kicking a loose rock into the impression.
“SOL?”
“It’s a human expression. It means shit out of luck.”
His eyes narrowed as he seemed to try to wrap his mind around the phrase.
At that same moment, Hero leapt down from her shoulder and straight into the gaping blackness of the tree.
She hopped over Ouda’s death-mark and to the hollow. “Hero!”
Her voice echoed and echoed and echoed. Chilled damp air reached up to her from its depths.
Kaelan crouched next to her. “What—”
“Stay here.” Before she could let herself think about it, she ducked into the hollow and plunged down the hole.
The chill grew as she fell. Thanks to the relative darkness, she hadn’t been able to see just how far down it was or else she might not have jumped. A clawing moment of panic tore at her chest as her body awoke to the sensation of falling, but before it could overcome her, her feet hit the ground. She stumbled forward, over knots of roots and jutting rocks, hitting her head on the earthen ceiling of an adjoining passage.
She hissed, rubbing her aching scalp while crouching to peer into the tunnel. At the end of it, pale light shone. The air was chilled and thin, yet heavy with damp and humus.
A moment later, Kaelan came crashing down upon her. She slammed onto her stomach, cutting her chin on a rock, his weight crushing her legs.
