Magical Midlife Madness (Leveling Up #1)(68)

I looked at the bag, which seemed empty, then around the space. “What happened? Did you feel the people coming? They’re here for me, right? But you can get me out of here?”

He helped me curl my fingers around the edge of the canvas bag, indicating I should hold on to it.

Then swore again. “Sh-it.”

“I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what’s wrong!”

He shoved me with one of his clawed hands, the points pricking me painfully. I stumbled, couldn’t get my footing, and fell into the sack.

“Yer-ah,” he said, nodding.

“Oh, sit.” I curled my feet into the bag, remembering how he’d carried the food earlier. Even still, I was really unsure about this. I weighed more than that food. “Is this bag going to hold me?”

“Yer-ash.” He grabbed the handles, collapsing the bag around me and lifting me off the ground. “Her-oh-d ah-n.”

“Hold on. Okay.” I grabbed the edges. Stuffed my feet into the base. Felt fear travel my length. “Oh God, there has to be another way. There has to—”

Colorful swearing accompanied our dive through the opening as I swung wildly below him. My canvas-covered butt crashed against the roof. I skidded down the slope and then swung wildly into empty air. It would’ve been nicer leaving out of that other trap door that didn’t lead out onto a roof before the fall. His massive wings thrummed, curving down around me. He turned back to the trap door and I skidded up the roof again.

“Wrong…way,” I said, trying to wriggle for a softer place to take the bouncing.

The heavy steel slammed down onto the roof. He turned again, treating me to a third encounter with the roof. A moment later we were completely airborne, him soaring through the sky, gaining altitude with each wingbeat, me dangling below him, the view of his begonias sure to haunt me.

“The lake,” I repeated from earlier, not sure if he could hear me over the roaring of the wind and his wings. “Austin said to meet at the lake!”

I wanted to shift my positioning so I could look out the side of the canvas, maybe see the intruders, but I didn’t dare. My luck, I’d pitch over the edge and go splat before Mr. Tom even knew I’d fallen.

Chilled wind froze me to the core. As we got farther away, it struck me that I’d been blocking out that the voice that had urged me to claim the magic was still speaking to me—probably had been all along. My panic had blocked it out. It got fainter as Mr. Tom hastened us away, but I got the final messages quite clearly. “If you had my power, you wouldn’t have to flee. No man could make you run, ever again. No man would need to be your escape.”

It sounded less like a house, and more like a woman trapped within it.

“Rely on no man, for it is he who will betray you. Set yourself free.”

“Yup, everyone has an agenda,” I murmured, feeling the darkness in the voice. The bitterness. I wondered how much of it would corrode me if I relented and took the magic. How much of myself I would lose.

Only as much as I allow. And that voice was entirely my own. Thanks to my marriage, I know the signs, and this time, whether I’m aligning myself to a man or bitter woman posing as a house, I will make sure to lose none of myself.

A sound drew my attention to the right. Just over the canvas sack, I could see a new shape fall in beside us, streaking through the moonlit sky like spilled oil.

My mouth gaped yet again.

The horse creature had nightmare black scales, a golden mane and tail, and a crystalline horn coming out of its head. The soft black feathers on its mighty wings had a blue sheen in the moonlight, and its shimmering golden hooves clawed at the air. The sallow vampire riding its back waved at me. Edgar.

“Where’d we get the nightmare alicorn?” I asked stupidly.

It struck me that this was my new reality. I was being transported through the air in a large canvas sack by a gargoyle, fleeing a crew of invading creatures, beside a black alicorn ridden by a vampire. Only the severely twisted could make something like this up. It was too insane not to be real.

Which left me with a choice: I could either join this magical world with the magic stored in that house or run like hell and never look back.





Twenty-Five





As soon as all four hooves touched the ground, Niamh bucked, trying to fling Edgar off. She hated having people on her back. She didn’t understand how normal horses stood for it.

He held on, his long nails digging into her sides. She neighed and readied for another, but before she could rise he threw his leg over and jumped to the ground.

Austin Steele waited for them near a large clearing in front of a small cabin, pushed back some ways from a lake. A lone camping chair sat in front of a fire pit.

He came out here to be alone, Niamh knew. This was his escape from the town and all the people who knew him, looked up to him, or wanted something from him. He also came out here to heal after he had to turn someone away at the border. The cabin was his sanctuary, a place where he could be physically alone instead of just emotionally alone like he was within the town.

Niamh was surprised Earl even knew about this place. Before Jessie had moved into Ivy House, Niamh hadn’t even realized Austin Steele spoke to Earl. Most people tried to avoid the old nutter. Niamh only knew of the cabin because she’d seen Austin Steele running through the trees in animal form when she was flying over the area at dusk one night. She’d gotten curious and stalked him from the air for a few months.