Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“True. But where would he get a basajaun to test on?”
Sebastian chewed his lip, thoughts all of a sudden crowding him. Nessa tugged on his hand to keep him moving, his legs wanting to stop as his brain whirled.
“Anyone can be abducted when you have the right magic,” he murmured. “He knew how to hide from them. That takes research and practice. We need to ask Dave to send word through his relatives, asking if anyone has gone missing. Or if they’ve found any mages sneaking around. They can smell magic if it’s been used, and mages are always using magic. They’d know who was in their territory.”
Nessa stopped and pulled out her phone again. More notes.
“Shifters,” he said next, jerked to a start. “They’d need to practice on shifters. Abducting them would be easier still.”
“Paying them to cooperate would be easy, too.”
“Maybe both.”
Bushes rustled ominously on the right. A moment later, more rustled on the left.
“How’s the gnome hunt going?” he whispered, staring out at the green, squinting as he tried to pierce the shadows lurking at the bottoms of the trees with his gaze.
“Terrible, actually. They keep making friends with Edgar’s flowers and convincing the flowers to turn on Edgar. It’s a dramatic turn of events. Edgar is very distraught, but the basajaunak are gleeful because apparently the killer flowers are good eating.”
“Aren’t they deadly?”
“Yes, which apparently also makes them good sport for the basajaunak.”
It was a wonder anyone ever questioned his nervousness around those creatures. It really was.
“Cyra keeps trying to burn the woods down around them, but Ivy House is cock-blocking her,” Nessa continued, pulling him along. “Her words. I’ve been asked to seek out Patty. She seems to scare the gnomes.”
“We need to get them on our side,” Sebastian murmured, squinting harder at those shadows in case the little devils ambushed. He could use magic to seek them out, but he was too tired for mundane spells.
Nessa was right. This was dangerous. He had more duties now than just playing with potions and reading spell books. He had to be more alert in case a battle landed on their doorstep, and eventually that was exactly what would happen.
“We need a lot of things,” Nessa said noncommittally.
Yes, they did.
Edgar waited in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by lounging basajaunak. Cyra stood next to a tree, facing an outcropping of ferns, her hands out. Indigo sat on a large branch in an oak, surveying the scene from above.
“Ah, yes.” Edgar turned to them with his hands pulled into his chest and his fingers dangling down. It was like he kept researching old vaudeville images in an attempt to be creepier. “The plant thief.”
Sebastian sighed. “I’m telling you, Ivy House did that. I have better things to do than wander out here in search of potted plants.”
“What could be better than searching the woods for a prized potted plant?” Indigo asked. Somehow, she was serious.
“Exactly,” Edgar affirmed. “The foot doesn’t fit the shoe.”
Sebastian blinked at him, wondering if that should make sense and didn’t, or did make sense and shouldn’t.
“Edgar, tell Sebastian what you want to do,” Nessa prompted him. She was never freaked out by this vampire for reasons Sebastian couldn’t understand.
“Oh, yes.” Edgar lowered his hands and clasped his long, spindly fingers in front of him. “Now, I know Jessie is against my accidentally aggressive—”
“Homicidal,” Nessa cut in.
“—flowers, and while I do admit they are still in the experimental stages, I think this is the perfect place for a shrine.”
Sebastian blinked slowly. He was much too tired for this. “A shrine for the flowers?”
Edgar gave him a patient smile. “No, not for the flowers. Though I do like the way you think.”
“Maybe out of bronze,” Indigo said. “It would catch the light correctly.”
“Yes, bronze is a good homage to flowers.” Edgar nodded. “Until then, we can make a shrine out of the people who are fooled into wandering into this clearing. You should set up a series of fake magical pitfalls that our friends the trespassers will avoid. They will magic through the weaker areas, thinking you are not perfect and they are much, much smarter, and they will sneak through here. This clearing. And then the flowers will kill them gruesomely, and we’ll make a shrine that Niamh can send into the spider web.”
Everyone stared at him like it was a plan fully formed. Maybe they were all too tired.
“Spider web?” Sebatian asked.
“Internet,” Nessa said. She put a hand on Sebastian’s arm. “You know how Edgar and I always seem to turn up at the right place and the right time?”
Sebastian ran his hand down his face. “Yes.”
“Right. Well, he has this incredible sixth sense when it comes to impending danger. After more studying, thanks to Ivy House’s resources and…”
Her cheeks colored red. She was probably thinking about Tristan. That happened a lot lately. The gargoyle-monster was doing what no one else had been able to do—break through her thick walls and work his way into her soft, scarred, squishy middle. She wasn’t making it easy on him, though. She was fighting it till the last.