He fought against the continued mass of resources they brought back to the pile, ferreting it away as quickly as he could manage even as they stacked more down. Once he’d cleared everything, he stepped away from the area, heading for the opposite side of which he’d already walked.

“I’m going to check this side now,” August said to the group at large. “I’ll be fine on my own if you want to stay here with the others, Kalter.”

He turned and stepped through the trees without waiting for a response, but despite his offer, the sound of her footsteps continued to follow him. The search was performed in silence, and this side of the forest wasn’t quite as easy to move through as the other had been. It left him vanishing objects into his inventory or moving around the ones that were too large to manage almost every couple of steps. Ladybug’s patrol took her over their heads again, a sharp crisscrossing pattern that kept her close by.

August came to an immediate stop as a flash of pink caught his eye somewhere amongst the greens and browns. Close enough to the red of an Efkini that a burst of static washed through his skin—but then his eyes actually focused on it and the surrounding dots of pink.

“August?” Kalter said, suddenly tense. “What did you—”

“I thought I saw an Efkini, but it’s just some berries,” August said, managing to regain his calm. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Kalter said; the tension flowed away. “I see it.”

August stepped, turned off the line they’d been walking, and angled towards it, spotting more splashes of pink as he went. It was a cluster of large bushes, each with a thick stem pushing out of the ground, roots branching off in every direction. Every part of the stem was covered in tiny thorns, while the dark green leaves were uniform, a pattern that consisted of a trio at each protrusion. Where there weren’t leaves, there was a curled-up flake of faded pink leaf, and growing out of the end of each was an array of pink berries, not unlike a stack of intersecting bubbles.

He glanced down at his mana bar and frowned; he was still three mana off, being able to identify it. Without the adrenaline of a potential monster encounter, he found it suddenly hard to bring himself to speak with Kalter, the invisible trailing mess of their argument filling the air between them.

“Have you seen these before?” August said in an attempt to pretend like nothing had occurred. “They don’t really look like anything I’ve seen back home—raspberries, maybe, but these aren’t black or red, and they aren’t the right shape.”

Kalter’s render burst into existence as she stepped between the two trees and came to a stop directly behind him, not enough room for both of them to stand side by side. He had to stop himself from reacting as her hand came up, passed over his shoulder, by his cheek to touch one of the berries.

“There was nothing like this at Hekaton,” Kalter murmured, close enough that the front of her vest was brushing against the back of his head. “We had raspberries, as well, but they were black.”

August was stuck, mind focused on the way her render was almost wrapped around him, every sliver of a movement large in his mind. He couldn’t remember someone being this close to him since he’d gained the ability, or at least not for this long—she’d touched his shoulder once, but that brief contact was far removed from this continued presence. August could feel the way her chest was expanding as she breathed, feel the way her hair was shifting with each movement, the way her head tilted down to look at him, the way the fingers of her bottom set of hands were almost touching the side of his thigh—

“August,” Kalter prompted. “Are they safe?”

“I—can’t use the spell yet,” August said, wondering if he shouldn’t try and crawl away under the bush. “I need a few more minutes before I can analyse them.”

“They’ve got thorns on the stems,” Kalter said, another hand passing by his ear to pull some of the leaves out of the way. “Bright colours, and thorns—that means they’re dangerous, doesn’t it?”

August reached forward to touch the stem closest to him, pretending to look at it in an effort to hide how hyper-alert he’d just become.

“Thorns are there to stop something from eating it, I think,” August said, trying not to squirm. “I don’t know about the colour thing, but there’s a lot of brightly coloured fruit that aren’t poisonous, so maybe not.”

August almost wished she’d say something else just so his mind would have something to latch onto other than the fact that her forearm was now brushing against the uncovered skin of his shoulder as she broke off one of the fruit-bearing stems with a muted snap. She pulled her arm back towards her, past his cheek and for a moment, he was sure she was about to—

“Don’t eat that,” August said, twisting around to look up at her face. “Kalter—”

His hand stopped an inch before he caught her wrist—not because he’d made a choice to stop—because the arm directly below it snatched hold of his before he could make it all the way. August was left, fingers clawing at the air as she brought it the rest of the way to her mouth and then took a sniff of it.

“Like I’d eat it without knowing what it is first,” Kalter said, staring directly down at him. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“You brought it right up to your mouth,” August said, “What did you expect me to think?”

August swallowed at the narrow-eyed look his response had generated; a warm mixture of fading panic and rising embarrassment stretched up his neck to pool in his cheeks. He pulled against her hold on his wrist, but her grip didn’t slacken at all, and he was left there, half-turned against her, with his hand trapped above his head.

“Kalter,” August said.