Magical Midlife Madness (Leveling Up #1)(74)

Regardless, I was here now. My path had led me here, and this time, I did have support. Weird as they were, I had a team. And a really strange future to grab hold of.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “How are we going to get into the house?”





Twenty-Eight





We’d decided to make our move at night—the darkness would lend strength to Mr. Tom’s and Edgar’s magic, and the delay would give us time to rest and plan.

The goal, we’d agreed, was to get me into Ivy House. From there, I would find the magic.

I could tell Mr. Tom was the only one who thought it would be a cinch for me to claim the magic. Mr. Tom…and myself. I knew it would call to me once I was in the house. It would pulse deep inside of me, maybe even shout directions in the voice of that bitter lady I’d sensed.

My question had been—what happens after I get the magic?

Everyone had shrugged it off, returning to their scheming. They weren’t worried about it.

I certainly was, especially now, as I stood in the darkness swathing the grounds of Ivy House.

“How you doing?” Austin asked, crouched next to me just behind the tree line. A wall of bushes rose up twenty feet in front of us, the labyrinth I still hadn’t gotten around to exploring. It just wasn’t on the list of important things I wanted to waste an afternoon doing.

“She’s good. We’re all real good,” Niamh said, at my other side. She had faith in me, which was great. I had no idea why, however.

“I don’t know enough about what’s going to happen to be scared,” I whispered, wishing I could see how many people guarded the house.

“Don’t you worry about it, love,” Niamh said, patting my shoulder. “There’s only a few dozen or so, I bet. It was hard to tell from the air, but I’d guess about that number. And however many are in the house, o’course. We’re just going ta clear the way for ye, and you’ll be good to go. Just need to find that…magic.”

Nervous tremors ran through my body. Even if her math was right, and there weren’t more than “a few dozen,” there were only four of us. Our odds weren’t great.

I also wondered what the fighting would entail. What kind of damage were we talking? Because inflicting harm had always been a no-no where I came from, unless you wanted to end up in jail. Except I had a feeling this wasn’t the kind of conflict that would be adjudicated by human law.

“Focus,” I said softly, wiping sweat from my brow in the cool night.

“You’ll do great.” Austin bumped my shoulder, his voice rough and violent and his mannerisms cool and confident. For some reason, his chill attitude was stressing me out.

This whole situation was stressing me out.

A grunt sounded from down the line, Mr. Tom in his other form and ready to go.

“We are vastly outnumbered.” There. I said it. Just in case no one else had realized the obvious.

“Nah. And here we go.” Niamh stood from the brush, peeled off the clothes she’d borrowed from Austin’s cabin, and tied the sweatpants around her waist with rope. That done, she changed into the nightmare alicorn, parts of her sparkling and dazzling within the ink blot of night. Mr. Tom stepped forward, muscles bunching under loose gargoyle skin. Edgar scooted out, more hunched than normal, his teeth elongated and his nails clicking as he waggled his fingers.

“Are you ready?” Austin stepped out next, still in the sweats and no shirt look from the beginning of the day. He’d driven me here on the back of his dirt bike, stashed at the cabin. Given it hadn’t had any gas in it, he clearly had other ways of covering a lot of ground relatively quickly. I had a feeling I was about to see how.

“No.” Why lie?

“If I have to change shapes before we’re near the house, you will ride on my back until we get into enemy territory,” he said. “Just hold on to my fur, okay? I won’t drop you.”

“Okay. What are you, again? Bigger than your brother, right? What’s your brother? A donkey, maybe, and you’re a war horse?”

“I’m much more effective than a war horse. And my brother is a tiger. He inherited the sexier animal.” Austin winked.

Bigger than a tiger?

As a group we walked around the edge of the labyrinth. Some intruders stood around the side of the house, looking bored. They were clearly waiting for someone.

You, you idiot.

Austin took a moment to stop and push down his sweats. His butt was just as perfect and muscular as the rest of him. He turned around to put a finger to his lips, commanding silence. My eyes snapped up and my face heated, both because I’d been caught looking, and because of the size of the second thing I shouldn’t have been looking at.

“Slow and steady,” he whispered. “No sudden movements. Earl, out in front. You’ll help camouflage. Everyone, follow my lead.” He leaned in to me, his face inches from mine. His breath, honey and cinnamon, dusted my eyelashes. “If I get to my belly, that means climb on. I will help you up. I will not hurt you. When it is time to dismount, I’ll take care of it. As soon as your feet hit the ground, you run. Got it?”

Niamh made a light neighing sound, and I couldn’t tell if it was support or impatience.

We picked up the pace now, following Mr. Tom on all fours. The labyrinth blocked visibility from the left, arrow straight. The right was wide open. Anyone who bothered to look would see four lurking characters and some shimmery horse hooves and golden hair. That was bound to attract attention.