Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up 5)

Austin turned away from Mr. Tom, shifting his focus back to Kace’s question. “The jet needed to have a manifest of passengers, which we suspected Elliot Graves would be able to access. We don’t want him knowing we have backup.” The basajaun bounded back from the woods, shaking his head. “Basajaun, take the second-to-last limo.” He’d be a spectacle. Better for him to get out toward the end so he wouldn’t take much focus away from Jessie.

“Mages don’t think about the wild lands other than to hunt and collect supplies for their craft,” Brochan said, his tone flat, emotionless. “Even to do that, they distance themselves from nature. They use vehicles whenever they can, guns, metal traps—they are more similar to Dicks and Janes than shifters when it comes to nature. It won’t occur to them that anyone might sneak in through the trees. They might not even realize there’s a threat of fliers showing up. The roads leading in and out are probably closely monitored, along with this landing strip and the entrances and exits for the lair. But mages are shortsighted. Extremely powerful but narrow-minded in their thinking. Hard to combat them unless you have a magic wielder, though.”

“Which we do,” Edgar said, still standing off to the side. Austin had nearly forgotten he was there. “We have the most powerful magic wielder in the world, actually. She can fight face-to-face combat, and we can rush in from the sides and behind.”

Austin nodded, because that was exactly right. They could handle mages—the battle with Kinsella had made that entirely clear.

“Load up.” Austin made a circle with his finger. “Let’s get to it before Mr. Tom convinces Jess she needs some Ex-Lax.”

“Hopefully the miss isn’t so nervous that she allows that to happen,” Edgar murmured, watching Mr. Tom straighten up and glance back. “Maybe he’s the one who should be asking for retirement.”

Niamh laughed, getting into a limo near the front.

“Brochan, check in with Jasper and make sure everything is coming along.” Austin broke away from the others and found Jess in the interior of the limo staring down at her hands. “Mr. Tom failed you again, huh?”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “He found those chocolates in the bottom of his toiletry bag, did you hear that part? Who puts chocolates in a toiletry bag and how long have they been in there? He’s been at Ivy House for…years. When was the last time he traveled? Because looking at them, there was no way he recently packed those things.”

“I thought you always said never to question Mr. Tom?”

Her eyebrows flared and she looked out the window. “This is true. Did the basajaun feel anything? I couldn’t hear over the growling of my stomach.”

He slipped his fingers between hers and bumped her leg with his knee, knowing she was trying not to focus on her extreme discomfort with what they were doing. He played into it, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to try to convince her that they would pull through this. That he would make sure she made it out one way or another, with or without him.

“No, all is quiet. Listen, I think I have some caramels in my sock. Want me to dig around for them?”

This time a real smile peeked through. After a moment she said, “I did get my hopes up that there would be a big spread in the jet. I thought that was kind of a standard thing. You got, like, an air hostess and some…awesome little nibbles, or…I don’t know… Something.”

He laughed as the limo got underway. “My brother always has those things when he flies in a private jet, yes, but he has an experienced staff to handle stocking it.”

“Hmm.”

The narrow two-lane road led away from the landing strip. It didn’t take long for them to start climbing into the mountain range, the limos slowing down to take turns that would have been better suited to different cars.

“We didn’t hire these limos,” she whispered, now chewing on her nail. “We’re already in his power.”

Austin stroked her thumb with his, holding her hand tightly. “We are never in someone else’s power. When you were in a cage hanging above spikes without access to your wings, you still weren’t in anyone else’s power. You were just…put out for a moment.”

“We could be ambushed.”

“What a horrible surprise for them, trying to ambush a basajaun.”

“We might get out of the limo and be killed immediately.”

“That’s why Cyra will be getting out first, because she comes back to life.”

“He might finally succeed in capturing me, his sole goal all this time.”

“That has hardly been his sole goal. I’m sure he has much more sinister plans, like trying to make you fall in love with him so he can steal your magic, like what happened with the past heirs. Good thing you don’t want to fall in love, huh? He’s got his work cut out for him.”