Magical Midlife Dating (Leveling Up 2)

The creature dropped his hand from his belly and looked back at that shadowy area. “My duty is to guard the prisoner. I cannot go back on my duty.”

“But”—hand still pushed through the bars, I stuck out a finger—“if you don’t get paid for it, is it really your obligation? You don’t even like the job. Maybe you should break the mold, let me out, and go back to—”

“I do love flowers,” he murmured, still looking at the shadowy area. “I’m salivating even thinking about them.”

“You could just free me and go.” I shrugged. “We have trespassers on Ivy House that you could scare, and then you could feast on all the flowers. Bring me down, and—”

“Oh no. They might hear. The crank is very rusty. I nearly went deaf trying to get you up there.”

That didn’t bode well.

I resumed holding the bars. “How about a key? Could you throw up the key?”

He scratched his head in a way that made me wonder if he had fleas. “How about this? I will just…go on break.”

I lifted my eyebrows even though he probably couldn’t see that. It gave me something to do while I tried to make sense of his words.

“Yes.” He nodded his great, shaggy head. “I used to get breaks, I remember. It isn’t my fault that no one is here to relieve me. It is my break, and so I must leave.”

“No, but—”

“And on this break, maybe I’ll get delayed. Yes, maybe I’ll sprain my ankle. That’s not my fault. Hikers sprain their ankles all the time. One fell off a little cliff and rolled a ways after seeing me. No one blamed him for that. He and his friends had to make a splint before they all hobbled away. It took a bit of time. A lunch break and a sprain, that should be enough time for you to escape.” He put his fist in the air. “Any mistress of Ivy House would have the magic to escape in that time, right? And if you’re lying, and you’re not the mistress of Ivy House…well, I’ll see you back here in a while, saddened that you lied about the flowers.”

“No, but you don’t understand. I just got the position. I don’t have all the magic yet!”

He turned for the shadowy area, his stride long and his speed surprisingly quick, and either those spikes weren’t as tall as I’d thought, or he was huge.

“What if they come back?” I yelled in his wake.

But he just disappeared into the darkness.

Breathing quickly, I heard a phantom clock ticking in my mind.

A lunch break and a sprain, assuming the mages didn’t return. That was all I had. Time for a lunch break and a sprain, plus a fake hobble back. His stride was long, though. It wouldn’t take him as long as it would a normal person.

As if there were any normal people within the magic world.

“Okay, okay,” I said softly, reaching out to Ivy House again. It was as though I existed in a vacuum, no messages or feelings going out or coming in. “Okay. I need to…open this door. No, wait, I need to fly. Flying is more important. Even if he does come back, he can’t fly. He wouldn’t be able to get me if I did.”

With shaking hands, I worked at the buttons on my shirt and pulled it off to expose my back.

“How do the others feel totally comfortable naked?” I whispered softly, putting my shirt on backward to cover things up. “Okay, wings, now is the time. Come out. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

I thought about two glorious wings extending from my back.

I thought about soaring through the sky.

I thought about jumping.

“Come on.” Eyes squinted tightly, I balled my fists, panic rising.

I hadn’t been able to do this while falling to my death, why did I think I could pull it off now, especially without contact with Ivy House? I wouldn’t be able to get myself out of this one.24Austin changed back into his human form at the mouth of a small cave, the trees and bushes around it nearly obscuring the opening. Ulric stood to one side in his human form, his expression grim, having been smart and taken his phone so he could call the others and direct them. Having hands in the other form was a decided advantage. Speaking of, Austin could smell the others, the gargoyle host, most of whom he didn’t personally know, and the three Ivy House guardians, their scents fresh but their forms nowhere to be seen. Traveling without wings, Austin had been the last to arrive.

He did not smell Jacinta.

He couldn’t feel her, either. Although their link had been severed at the lake, the feeling hadn’t sunk in until after they returned to Ivy House.

It felt like a hole boring through him, like a hollow absence he couldn’t bear.