Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“You think she’ll read into our plans?”
“Don’t you?”
He shook his head as they neared the front door. “She knew all the pieces to this puzzle. We already know she’s excellent at putting them together, and also manipulating people. But she doesn’t know any of the pieces to the puzzle we’re crafting. She can’t know, not without the contacts we have, and she doesn’t have a network.”
“We better hope she doesn’t develop one. I should’ve looked into her details before now. I don’t like being surprised. It’s easy to assume these people are incapable.”
“Just like everyone used to always assume you were incapable.”
“Touché. Let’s check out that carriage before we go,” Nessa said as he opened the front door.
They’d noticed the shiny red carriage sitting on the front lawn when their shifter guards delivered them. It had golden spokes and undercarriage with real gold, by the look of it. Some sort of crest adorned the door, glimmering in the low light, and intricate scrollwork—also gold—decorated the body. He’d tried to stop and take it in earlier, but their shifter guards hadn’t given them the opportunity.
“I’m incredibly intrigued about these connection requests,” Nessa said. “Like…why would someone send a carriage? No horses or anything, just a random, old-school carriage left on someone’s lawn. What is that about? Such a strange gift.” She paused. “Is that what they all are, gifts? They’re basically buying a meeting with her?”
“Must be. Have you seen all the boxes and baskets and all the stuff showing up? There’s a ton of it. Ulric just keeps putting it away. He says there’s no point going through it until his mom gets here.”
“It’s like Christmas,” she murmured in excitement. “How does he not peek? I would. I’m dying of curiosity.”
“Me too. I don’t know anything about gargoyles. I’m eager to see how all this plays out. From what Nathanial has said, the cairn leaders are really intense. The whole lot of them are prone to fighting, I think.”
“Hello? Battle creature! I wonder if they’ll be more intense than the shifters.” Nessa was practically giddy.
He shook his head at her. “You have dangerous taste in men, Nessa, do you realize that?”
“Only if I’m the enemy.”
“You are often the enemy, though.”
“Sure, but they don’t know that.” She laughed, apparently unconcerned with the dangerous game she was playing.
He was about to speak on it as they stepped onto the front porch, but the sound dried up in his throat.
“What in the holy hell?” she said breathlessly.
Gnomes straddled the golden trellis on the carriage roof. They sat in a row on the driver’s bench. They leaned out of the windows. A couple of them even sat on the wheels. A few held shears, others had trowels or garden forks, some had pruning items, and one had some sort of lawn dart. Worse, they all wore identical homicidal smiles below gleaming eyes.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Nessa said, shivering, “but this is definitely grounds for retiring Edgar. It’s mean, and I feel bad, but this… I mean, this…” She shook her head. “Should we get one of the shifters?”
“You wound me,” he said, starting forward slowly. “I have magic.”
Just as slowly, the gnomes moved to disembark the carriage. They were clearly going to try to murder them.
“Ivy House wouldn’t let them kill us…right?” Nessa said, readying to do a spell beside him. She didn’t have much power, but she more than made up for it with courage.
“I’m guessing, but I’ve gathered that Ivy House loves to play horrible jokes. I think she tends to take those jokes further than most people think is decent.”
“It’s certainly horrible. I didn’t get why Jessie was so worried about those dolls—”
“Me either.”
“—but I get this. I get this deep in my bones.”
“We need to start hand-to-hand combat.” He descended one step. One of the gnomes slid off the wheel, waiting for its friends or his next step, Sebastian couldn’t tell.
“But why?” Nessa stepped down the next step in tandem with him. “Why not fire an attack at them from the porch?”
“Because we need to learn spell work on the fly. Also because there are a lot of them, I’m not sure what works best on homicidal gnomes, and if I get it wrong or miss a few, we’re sunk. Consider this practice for when one of the shifters comes at us. Okay, are you ready? In two seconds, we’re going to start running, and we need to erect the defensive electrical shield—the one that shocks the enemy when they run into it. We need to get it right, too. I don’t want to get my legs chopped off.”
“Getting legs chopped off is more than a joke.”
“Get them cut up, then. Still terrible.”
“Point made.” She paused, getting ready. “Go!”
They ran like their lives depended on it. Gnomes jumped from the carriage, way too high to stick the landing and yet somehow managing it. They hit the ground and skittered after them.