Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(116)

“Then what was with that mage and his crew messing around with our weapons order?” Jess asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Sebastian said. “He didn’t get that far before Momar’s spell short-circuited his brain. But he’s a field guy. An information acquisition guy, apparently.”

“That’s what it sounded like he said, anyway,” Nessa said, her first slice of torte gone. She reached for the wine. “Stop looking at me like that, Tristan. I stress-eat. Mind your business.”

“She’s just a little blindsided, that’s all,” Sebastian said. “She’ll bounce back. Anyway, he specializes in information gathering, so it would make sense that he wouldn’t be included in the battle. Momar can’t drop all his operations for this battle.”

“And you can trust the mage’s assessment that they went dark?” Austin asked.

“Yes,” Tristan replied, leaning on the wall. “It’s the truth as he knows it.”

“It’s just nuts that he would know that and not our people,” Nessa murmured, stopping to stare out the windows. “Unless they got to our guy.”

“I don’t think our guy would play turncoat on us. He wouldn’t be that stupid,” Sebastian said darkly.

“Doesn’t matter,” Nessa said, then turned toward Austin. “We need to get everything nailed down, alphas. Everyone needs to know their positions and places like second nature. The attack could come any time, day or night, but it’ll likely be very early in the morning. They’re coming.”

THIRTY

Jessie

“WELL THEN, THIS IS PERFECT TIMING,” Patty said, beaming at everyone. “When cairns expect a battle, the guardians always push away their stress and anxiety to train and prepare, train and prepare.

From what I’ve heard, all the guardians, no matter the cairn, do this. Given that their stress and anxiety have no outlet, the gargoyles get surly and stubborn and honestly”—she paused to give everyone a poignant look—“somewhat unbearable.”

“And that is saying something for a gargoyle,” Nessa said. Tristan frowned at her.

“The gargoyles are now approaching that unbearable stage, so…” Patty pulled her purse from her shoulder and set it on the island. Opening it, she took out a few envelopes before starting to pass them out to everyone. “We’ve planned a luncheon! It’ll be in that lovely park where Jessie was attacked.

The blood is all gone, I’ve been told, so we won’t scare the children. And anyway, what would they be doing in the trees? The gnomes have nested there—”

“I beg your pardon?” Kingsley asked, pausing in pulling an invitation from the envelope. It looked like no one had told him the bad news yet. I hoped they wouldn’t until we’d already left…

“We usually have cold cuts and fruits and finger sandwiches and things like that, but it was brought to our attention that shifters love barbecues.” Patty stood at Tristan’s side with the envelope held out. When he didn’t move to take it, she started to remove it for him. “So we’ve changed it up to accommodate everyone. The gargoyle sticklers can have their frou-frou sandwiches, the shifters can help each other gnaw on turkey legs or whatever it is they find exciting between pairs, and the basajaunak will have fish and fruit and their special brew that Phil and a few others have been making in somewhat secret.”

“What—”

Mimi cut Kingsley off. “This is tomorrow?”

“Of course it’s tomorrow!” Patty tsked. “No time like the present. You can train in the morning and then get down and boogey after. Win-win. You’d be surprised how much help we’ve gotten! It seems the shifters are getting to their breaking point, as well, and all the mates are pitching in to help us.”

“And if the battle comes the next day?” I asked, remembering the state everyone was in after the basajaunak had broken out that brew at a barbecue in their lands.

Patty spread her hands. “There are worse things than fighting hungover.”

“Like fighting when still drunk?” Kingsley growled.

“Like not fighting at all.” Patty put her fists to her hips. “Alpha, now, you know your people have been working very hard. They are trying to get along with a variety of new creatures, they’re doing training they aren’t used to, and they’re being shown up half the time by gargoyles—”

“I don’t know that that’s the situation—”

“—and drinking too much in the evenings to compensate. There have been more bar fights lately, and the latest ones weren’t even organized by Niamh.”

“What’s this now?” Kingsley’s accusatory gaze swung to me.

“Our gargoyles fight their best when their heads are on straight,” Patty said as though Kingsley weren’t scrabbling for a lifejacket in this tsunami of a conversation. “I imagine your shifters do, too.

They do not fight well when they are tired, stressed, afraid, and starting to feel cut off and alone…

You get my drift. They need a reprieve. They need to remember why they are working so hard. What they are fighting for.”

Aurora’s brow had lifted, and Mimi was nodding slowly.

“She has a point,” Austin told Kingsley. “Not to mention that the enemy has a large force to mobilize, and you haven’t heard of anything passing through the border towns. Assuming you have someone to relay information?”