them to the gnomes. That’s not right. We beat them, we’ve won—we should all just walk away now.”
“Oh, it’ll just be a little chop-chop,” Edgar said, not sufficiently alarmed. “Nessa did far more damage than the gnomes will probably do. Besides, they really do deserve it.”
Nessa paused. “Should I go slit the rest of their throats? Practice makes perfect.”
“No. Oh my—no! Just—” I turned and started walking. Those shifters had started it, that was true.
They should’ve paid more attention to the type of outfit I ran before picking on me.
Besides, whatever those gnomes did would likely be nothing compared to how Austin would react. So…maybe I shouldn’t say anything to him at all? After this, I doubted very much those shifters would ever try to attack me again, and if they did, I wasn’t worried about their succeeding.
“Why are you guys here, anyway?” I asked as I walked them back toward the town. “I thought you were supposed to be working with the perimeter crew.”
“We were,” Nessa replied, looking up through the trees. “But they’re all really fast, and I couldn’t keep up.”
“And I don’t go anywhere without my shadow,” Edgar said.
“So we decided to check on the flowers, and we saw you acting funny in the air. We thought we’d check it out. It wasn’t until we got closer that we saw the arrows. You have witnesses if you need them.”
“I’m not worried about witnesses,” I murmured. “I am worried about Kingsley’s people. I knew there were problems, obviously, but this is on another level. For all of us, not just Austin.”
“I think their positions have gone to their heads,” Nessa said. “They’ve had an established power structure for over a decade. They don’t like suddenly being shoved down the line.”
I stopped beyond the trees and checked over my body. The puncture marks were nearly gone. My wings should be fine. Time to get back up and finish the day.
“As I was saying.” Edgar clasped his hands together as I struggled to remember which part of the conversation he was referring to. “Magical spells don’t affect gnomes—they hide very well, and they can kill if they really want to. I’m pretty sure they can, at any rate. And if not, they can certainly wound. It’s only to our benefit if we have an army of small, animated stone creatures to chase after the mages!”
“Are they still stone when they’re alive?” Nessa asked with squinted eyes. “They don’t look like stone.”
“Actually, Shadow, I’m not sure. I’m always too busy getting hacked at and running to pay much attention. Regardless, I think they’ll help us, Jessie. I really do.”
“Except they also chase after friendlies,” I reminded him. “They chase after anything.”
“Oh no, I brought only the most loyal of the gnomes,” Edgar said.
Only he could say that with a straight face.
I opened my mouth to reply, but really, what was there to say?
Instead, I shifted and took to the air. Kingsley might forgive me for an awful lot, but I didn’t think those gnomes would make the list. He’d probably try to retire me over them before this was through, and I couldn’t say I’d blame him.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jessie
WITH A WEARY SIGH, I toweled off my hair and slipped into my PJs. The rest of the training had gone fine. Uneventful for the most part. When everyone broke up for the day, I checked in with Sebastian and started making potions. Now I was expected to go over spell work, but I honestly just needed a night off. Just one night where I could put my feet up, pour a glass of wine, and stare listlessly at the TV before going to bed. I knew we had precious little time, but we’d had precious little time for a while now. We’d been sprinting toward this battle for months, it seemed, and it still hadn’t happened.
Occasionally a body needed a break.
“Knock on wood,” I murmured to myself, clunking my knuckles on my head. With my luck, the cosmos had taken note of that thought and the battle would come tomorrow. We still weren’t prepared for that.
Of course, I doubted we’d ever be prepared. We were flying blind and hardly knew what to prepare for.
In the hall, Tristan was just walking out of the study as I was approaching. He glanced my way and paused for me to catch up.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked, continuing with me to the kitchen, where everyone in this house seemed to congregate. I guess that was what happened when you had not one, but two passionate cooks on board.
“The morgue,” I said eerily. “What’s in the study?”
“I was half thinking of grabbing a book, but the only things in there are old magazines and nonfiction history. Hard to escape reality when you’re dragged back to the often horrible deeds of the past.”
“True statement. How do you think training went?”
“Fine. I worried that when Gerard got up to speed, he’d try to take over command of your gargoyles. Doesn’t seem like that’ll be an issue, though. He keeps complimenting me on our flying patterns.”
“That’s good.” I paused, giving him a look. “You could probably be a cairn leader if you wanted to be.”
“Not with my background. The second I tried to establish some power of my own, the other leaders would cut my knees out from under me. As you know.” He ran his fingers through his loose,
unruly curls. “I’m good here. This is the perfect setup for me. Strong leadership to shield me, plenty of challenges to keep me from getting bored, many uses for my skillset, and a very pretty lady sitting in your kitchen, staring at nothing as though something is wrong. How could I ask for more?”
We paused in front of Nessa as Tristan’s words died away. She was sitting on the cushioned bench, and although the failing light masked her face, she was doing as Tristan had said—staring at absolutely nothing. I hadn’t seen her since I’d gone back into the sky, but at that point she’d seemed in great spirits. Looking at her now, though, it did seem like something was gravely wrong.
“You okay?” I asked, wondering if I should flick on a light.
She inhaled, leaned back, and glanced up at me. “Yes. Just thinking.”
“Need a sounding board?” I took the few steps and hit the switch. Light showered her face and outlined the fine lines that must have been caused by stress. “Did the gnomes follow you guys after I left?”
Her smile was faint and Tristan sat down beside her. Until she gave him a hard look, that was.
Then he stood, moved down a couple steps, and sat down again.
“An independent buyer consolidated my arms purchase,” she said. “In other words, another—
unknown—party took over the deals I was doing for the guns.”
I furrowed my brow as I walked over to grab a bottle of wine. No spell work tonight. “What does that mean? What are the implications?”
She crossed one leg over the other. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“Walk us through it,” Tristan said, his voice subdued, matching Nessa’s mood.