Magical Midlife Madness (Leveling Up #1)(42)

“Enough,” Austin Steele said, his focus acute, pinpointed on Niamh, thank God. “I have heard what you’ve said. I will think on it.”

“That’s all I can ask, Austin Steele,” she said, and bent her head, as close to a bow as she’d get without someone breaking her kneecaps. Or so the stories had said.

“In the meantime, how do we handle this?” Austin Steele looked down at Jessie’s face.

“We have about an hour before my bite wears thin,” Edgar said, still crouched in the bushes, holding his injured eye with a bony hand.

“Maybe it’s time we worked her into the supernatural life,” Niamh said.

“It’s forbidden,” Earl replied.

“It’s forbidden to disclose the secrets of the house,” Edgar said. “But most of the heirs in the past have come to the house knowing about the supernatural. Many of the candidates know what the house’s magic will do, just not how to access it. Filling Jessie in about the magical world isn’t against the rules. We are allowed to discuss magic with the non-magical when it affects their well-being, their life, or they are poised to become magical. She meets all three criteria.”

“Yes, yes, right, right,” Earl said, knowing Edgar was right.

“Someone paid attention in magical school.” Niamh grinned.

“I didn’t go to school,” Edgar said. “I was a field hand before I was turned. They wanted to keep us uneducated and illiterate so we couldn’t think for ourselves.”

“I didn’t mean… That’s not…” Niamh rubbed her eyes in annoyance. “We’ve all got problems, man.”

“I say we explain all this to her, and see what she says,” Earl said. All eyes turned to him, one less than before Jessie had jabbed Edgar. “We explain our way of life. We tell her what’s at stake. Then we let her decide.”

“She’s been a Jane for forty years. Do you honestly think she’ll believe us?” Niamh asked.

“Seeing is believing.” Austin Steele’s tone was resolute. “We’ll get her a potion for tonight so she doesn’t remember this attack. Tomorrow…I’ll see just how far she’s willing to let her reality stretch.”

“And what about Mr. Magician?” Niamh bent and picked up the white card. Her face paled and she swore under her breath. “His boss is Elliot Graves.”

Austin Steele’s eyes tightened. Earl suspected the alpha wouldn’t admit he was afraid, not even to himself. It didn’t matter who came to threaten this place (or Jessie?), Austin Steele would not back down from a challenge. Not ever.

With Jessie in his arms, the alpha turned without a word, heading toward Agnes’s house and a forgetting potion.





Seventeen





As early afternoon set in, I looked across the well-organized attic, with its dressers, trunks, and boxes. All the random silver spikes that had littered the floor in my youth were gone, the floor bare and swept. The medieval arsenal was still around, though. The silver-tipped spears, crossbows, mace, and war hammer had been hung on the wall in neat rows, easy for grabbing. They even had names stenciled above them. “Jake,” the battle axe, was in great shape, but “Ron,” the bludgeon, had seen some trauma in the past based on the marks scarring its wood.

Mr. Tom had done this, I knew. No one else would skip labeling an item in favor of naming it like a friend. The guy was well and truly cracked.

This morning I’d woken up to him looming over me again, but this time his expression had seemed particularly anxious.

“How’d you sleep, miss?” he’d asked, leaning forward to peer into my eyes.

I’d tried to wave him away, disoriented from waking up, and he’d jerked back with a screech, clapping his hands over his face as if I’d attempted to gouge out his eyes.

Delicate orbs intact, he’d then commenced chattering about the evening, how excellent my running must’ve been because of how tired I’d been upon returning home. How I’d drowsed through a late supper…

Scrunching my nose, I walked across the attic to the dresser, something that looked like a wooden tool chest.

Truth be told, the second half of running was mostly a blur. I remembered walking past the hotel and looking in, but after that everything was a big black hole until dinner. I’d obviously walked home in some kind of an exhausted daze, but it was hard to forget dinner.

It had been some sort of soup with way too many herbs and spices. It had tasted almost medicinal. But it had also cleared away some of the fatigue, and Mr. Tom had been staring at me like he really wanted me to finish it all, so I’d sucked it down. I definitely needed to start cooking for myself.

The small drawer at the top of the dresser contained a collection of pins. Long and thin, short and fat—some were polished to a high shine, and some looked like they had lived in the ground for years. None of them had a loop at the top for thread, so they couldn’t be sewing needles, though I had no idea what they might be used for. Darts? Voodoo pins?

“Weird,” I said, opening the next drawer. “Ah. Here they are.”

The silver garden spikes looked exactly like I remembered. None of them were remotely tarnished. In fact, they reflected more light than should have been possible from the bare bulb above my head and the small round window at the end of the room.