The closest mage inclined his head a little and brought up his watch hand to rest it on the edge of the bar. The fellow farther down leaned back in his chair a little, resting his watch hand on his knee.
Niamh kept talking as the bartender wandered over to her, at which point she shifted her conversational attempts to the bartender. Sebastian didn’t hear what they said, though, trying to decipher what the mages were relaying.
The invisible mage glanced toward Sebastian’s end of the bar. He worried an invisible crumb with his finger, feigning boredom, his face in his hand and his elbow braced on the bar. He looked like a petulant kid, someone not fit to sit at the adult table. It would deflect interest from Sebastian and onto Niamh or literally anyone else. Sebastian had no idea why this posture worked so well, but it was a tried and true method of avoiding interest, especially from other mages.
A moment later, the invisible mage started walking toward them slowly, methodically. Sebastian wondered if he’d been backed up into a few times, or maybe a shifter had felt his presence and grabbed for him. He acted like someone who’d had a few close scrapes.
“Yeah, but I think I’ll make them disappear now,” Niamh was saying, her words infiltrating Sebastian’s focus. “I never much liked those stockings, anyway. They run, ye know. Ye barely scratch
’em and they are all running, all over the place.”
“I’ve never much liked them myself,” Timmie said, her expression a little confused. “Oh, by the way.” She leaned harder on the bar. “Do you know what I heard?”
“But ye got…” Niamh pointed down the bar. “Drink order. Tell me when ye get back.”
Sebastian glanced that way, still following the invisible mage with his peripheral vision.
The invisible man worked around Niamh, pausing as she leaned back. His fellow mage down the bar glanced over, looking at Niamh first and then leaning forward a little and looking beyond her. He could see his friend, obviously, so he would also notice when Tristan grabbed him and hauled him out. That was unfortunate.
“I don’t mind stockings,” Sebastian said, trying to make it sound like it was a stray thought.
Timmie paused in turning. Niamh looked at him as though he’d grown two heads.
“What?” he said. “If you need to rob a bank? Stockings. You can see right through them, but no one sees your face. Because it…” He straightened so he could hold his hands up. “Scrunches it up, you know? Talk about running. Rob a bank, run like hell, right?”
Timmie started laughing—Sebastian was pretty sure it was at him—before finishing her turn and heading down the bar.
“What?” he said to Niamh, who was staring.
“Did yer mammy drop ye on yer head when ye were a wee baby and then kick ye around the floor?”
“That was a valid—”
“I swear to all that is holy, I am going to tell the alpha to kick ye out,” she said, then shook her head and took a large sip of her drink. “Ye’ve got no reason ta be there. Ye and the rest of those lady gargoyles. Sure, they don’t even shift! What is the point of all those people if they don’t even shift?
All they do is make dinner and clean up.”
The invisible mage worked around Niamh now, wanting to hear more about the pack. He moved so ridiculously slowly, plodding along like he wasn’t sure how to balance on his own two feet. He wasn’t their best and brightest, that was for sure. He was someone they likely saved for low-leveled mage functions, his task to administer poison and hopefully, but doubtfully, get out alive.
In other words, these mages were expendable. They were bait. Momar had clearly wanted to see if the shifters would sniff them out. If the shifters would find the oddly dressed mages, sticking out like sore thumbs, and then maybe progress to noticing the invisible mages so inexpertly hidden that Nessa might as well have made their invisibility potions.
But they hadn’t noticed. The shifters had remained oblivious all this time, making Momar think he had the upper hand in stealth.
Meanwhile, in an effort to lure the mage in, Niamh was giving him misinformation that could greatly help Austin and Kingsley. The message was that Kingsley had a lot of people coming in, sure, but they weren’t worth anything.
Capturing these mages was the wrong play. Kingsley had had it right all along, and he hadn’t even realized it.
“Let’s go.” Sebastian stood up, staggering back quickly. The invisible mage froze, and then started back-pedaling. “I’ve had enough of you picking on me,” he told Niamh, lurching toward her to ensure the mage kept moving. “Gargoyles like me might not be all that great in a fight, but we can at least shift, okay? I can shift.”