Magnus closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of growing things. The sun-warmed grass, the spring flowers dotted throughout, the sap in the trees warming and rising. It's overlaid with the scent of the soap Galahad uses for laundry, the light smell of the hulled chickpeas on his fingers, and the faint woodsmoke from Magnus's morning campfire settling into his own clothes. He's shivering, but not from the mid-spring chill, which, despite his short sleeves and fragile worn jeans, he doesn't feel. He takes a deep breath, and then another, and another. There are grape hyacinths somewhere nearby, and some sort of buttercup, too. Hortense skitters overhead, chattering about Henrietta.

Magnus's feet are soil. His legs are soil. His hips and belly and chest are soil. His heart, pounding too hard in his chest, is soil. He can let his roots settle into the ground and let the soil ease around them. His eyelids, though he doesn't know this, look more translucent than usual over his closed eyes. Almost bruised. Outside, some color leeches back into his pale, drawn face. His arms are soil, his hands, his fingers. Galahad's fingers are in his hair. His neck is soil. His head. He shivers.