Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up #5)(2)

“Maybe send out another summons?” Ulric asked, stomping at the ground.

“And potentially get someone else killed?” I shook my head.

“If he could not defend himself, he wasn’t good enough for this team anyway,” Cyra said, something she repeated often. She wasn’t just trying to make me feel better—she was speaking the truth as she knew it, and most of the team agreed with her. The magical world was cutthroat, and I was starting to wonder if I had what it took.

Not like it mattered. I’d taken a blood oath to protect this house and these people, and there would be no takebacks. I was in it to win/lose it regardless of what I might want.

“It’s fine,” I said, nearly sitting up before I remembered what I was wearing. I had put on a see-through lacy number last night, hoping Austin would eventually make it over. He hadn’t, unfortunately, still kept insanely busy by his ever-growing pack. “I’ll figure it out. Can you all leave now so that I can get up?”

“My, my. Busy morning, isn’t it?” Mr. Tom bustled in carrying a silver tray laden with a steaming white mug, a thin white porcelain vase containing one red rose, and a plate with fruit and biscuits.

His tuxedo was freshly pressed, his nose high, back straight, and loose jowls wobbling as he made his way to the table by the window. He’d clearly thought I’d want to take breakfast in my room, usually done in silence and with the door locked. Given everything I’d been pummeled with within minutes of waking up, he was correct. “To what do we owe the pleasure of so many loud personalities so early in the morning?” A question I hadn’t thought to ask after the invasion of the dolls.

I reached over and tapped the screen of my phone. Half past nine, not early for Dicks and Janes— the non-magical—but an hour or so before I usually got up.

“I’ve been thinking…” Cyra scratched her eye through the rim of her glasses.

“What happened to the lenses?” I asked, bewildered.

“They made my vision blurry,” she replied.

“So why wear glasses at all?”

“It makes me look more human.”

“Our faces make us look human,” Hollace drawled, back to leaning against the wall. “Our bodies.

That’s why we inhabit them.”

I squinted my eyes and bit my lip, still struggling to understand the natures of our new houseguests —Cyra a phoenix and Hollace a thunderbird. Their souls lived on from body to body, through the eras, which wasn’t like me, obviously. But they both had a magical shape, like a shifter or gargoyle (like me), and a human form. They looked human, at any rate. Yet they didn’t think of themselves as human. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Was I not human anymore? Were any of us?

“It is too early for an existential crisis,” I groaned, closing my eyes.

“If I may prompt the next phase of this conversation…” Mr. Tom transferred the coffee to the table, shooting a withering look at the cup on my nightstand, which had blackened fingerprints along the rim, before straightening up. “What is it you were thinking, Cyra?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “When you practice, Miss Ironheart, you batter us with your magic, and you stab at us, but you are doing so against the protective shield you have on us.”

“Otherwise I’d kill you,” I said, eyes still closed, willing patience.

“And you also keep a layer of defense over yourself, since the defensive spells applied to us reflect magic in some cases.”

“Yep.”

“So that’s not good.”

I peeled an eye open, trying to read her face. The supportive expression didn’t relay any additional meaning.

“Why?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I see.” Hollace nodded. “If she’s wasting all that energy trying to keep us and her safe, she’s not putting all her power into the kill shots.”

Cyra bobbed her head. “When this Elliot Graves accepts your rose and is finally in your sights”— she’d watched one too many episodes of The Bachelor—"you won’t be accustomed to working with full power, and you will hold back. It might make the difference between success and failure.”

“Right, except I can’t practice kill shots on people who aren’t protected from them.” I finally sat up, holding the sheets over my chest. “I feel like that’s pretty obvious.”

“Agreed,” Mr. Tom said, crossing behind Cyra and lifting the still-simmering cup of coffee. “We only have two weeks before we go to Elliot’s…residence, or tunnels, or whatever he calls his lair.

The time for experimentation is over, if there ever was one. Instead of waking the miss for these types of musings, maybe your time would be better spent harassing the rock-throwing old crone next door into learning more about Elliot’s dwelling. Surely she should’ve uncovered something useful by now.”

I pulled up my knees and dropped my forehead onto them. “Mr. Tom, leave Niamh alone. She has to learn a few decades’ worth of magical politics in a month. She’s doing the best she can. We know roughly the type of…dwelling we’re going into.”

“The inside of a mountain isn’t a great place for a team of fliers,” Hollace said.

“Which is likely the point,” I replied. “As Niamh pointed out. But it’s fine. We’ll bring some of Austin’s people. We’ll be fine.”