My magic surged, and I pummeled him with spells, the pain seeping down deep and dragging him under. He gritted his teeth, handling it for a while, but then sank slowly to his knees. A little more power, nothing like I’d throw at his shifter form or a gargoyle, and he shouted obscenities at me and curled up in a little ball.
A gnome dashed out from the trees with a pair of scissors, cackling.
“Damn it,” I said, hopping away from it. “Edgar, how did this happen? Tell me Kingsley also has a gnome infestation and it wasn’t our fault somehow.”
Nessa held up her hand to Edgar before filling me in on what Edgar had apparently told Sebastian a few nights ago, something Sebastian had assumed was a sort of fever dream. Clearly it was not.
“Damn it,” I repeated. “Kingsley will never forgive me for this. And I wouldn’t blame him!”
“Don’t worry, Jessie,” Edgar said, putting out his hands to back Nessa and me toward the trees. “I know what I’m doing.”
“But do you really?” I pushed.
“Almost a little bit, yes.”
Three more gnomes rushed from the trees.
“How many did you bring?” I screeched.
“Just a couple besides the one that escaped at the airport. They colonize quickly. But that’s good, because magical spells don’t bother gnomes, you see. Now, don’t kill them,” he said, pointing at one of the gnomes, this one with a paring knife it had obviously stolen from someone’s outdoor kitchen.
At least, I hoped it was from an outdoor kitchen and these little nightmares weren’t invading houses now.
It made a sound like “Grrrraw” and lifted its knife at Edgar.
“I think we should walk away slowly,” he said, motioning for us to keep moving back. “They don’t seem to have the rapport for me that I do for them.”
“That doesn’t even make se—” I stopped myself, rubbing my hand down my face. “We can’t leave
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.”