Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up 5)

“Whoopie!”

I shook my head. There had to be a cooler thing for Edgar to shout.

As we descended the steps, I paused and pointed. The magical roof of the makeshift colosseum had been altered. It was a huge dome now. Plenty of room for even Hollace to fly.

Elliot Graves clearly wanted to meet with me in the flesh. There could be no other explanation. He’d allowed me all of my resources, and given the strength I had on my team, no one would be able to defeat me.

How could I ever have doubted?

“You were a Jane,” Ivy House said, and I wondered if I’d thought that at her instead of just to myself. “You are now a gargoyle. You are donning your mantle and owning your place as Ivy House heir. Banging that alpha has done as much good for you as pining after you has done for him. You’re welcome for forcing him into it at every turn.”

When she started singing “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” I cut her off. Couldn’t she stick with the battle cries and call it a day?

The setup was the same in the locker room, down to the attendant in the red coat. Her eyes widened when she saw me. They drifted down my body, snagging on my wings as I fluttered them.

“Hel-lo?” I ground out, trying to be as clear as possible.

She started. “What are you?”

“A female gargoyle,” Cyra said. “Cool, right?”

“I thought you’d be as ugly as the men—” The woman cut herself off, as though realizing her words might cause offense, about-faced, and walked from the room. Apparently that meant we were supposed to follow her.

The sand in the arena was the same, but for some droplets of blood here and there. The blue sky above called to me, and as I followed the woman to our position, I looked up.

Forms of all different colors and sizes soared in the sky, gargoyles all, some just outside of the dome and some far beyond it. Thirty, at least, more than had flown from town to await our call.

Even as I stood and watched, in rapture, wanting to lift into the sky and soar with them, two more flew over from the closest peak, coming toward us and joining the others.

“Joining your cairn. You will lead them, as Austin leads his pack,” Ivy House said, and this time I didn’t understand how she knew what was going on. I wondered if there were more secrets she had yet to share, and if I’d have to figure them out the hard way.

Rufus and his mages waited on the other side of the field, staring up at the circling gargoyles with their hands as makeshift visors against the sun. He’d clearly won the battle against Maverick, something I’d missed because of mating.

When we walked toward them, they lowered their gazes. Even from the distance, their body language gave away their shock. They’d probably expected us to shift after the match began, like we had last time.

A voice boomed out from higher in the viewing area. Elliot’s.

“Greetings, all.” He stood in front of a chair, tucked behind a rock barrier, here in the flesh, just like the other day. His warding spell offered him safety—supposedly—and so did the distraction in front of us.

I hadn’t gone for him the other day because of the way the fight had ended. Because I hadn’t wanted to risk messing with his spell, knowing he could take a shot at me while I tried. Because I hadn’t wanted to make a fool of myself in front of the other mages if I failed.

But the time for self-doubt was over. I needed to take advantage of this bubble of amazingness. He might be able to get a shot off, but I’d spent the last month practicing how to defend my crew and work magic at the same time. I could handle it, knock that spell down, and go after him.

His tenure of rigging the game was over. His constant influence in my life was at an end.

It was time to say goodbye once and for all to Elliot Graves.

Twenty-Four

“A slight change to our contest of champions today,” Sebastian said, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach and the nervous sweats, made worse when Jessie flapped her wings in a gorgeous aura of color and rose into the sky. “It seems a freak accident has befallen our dear Chambers. His whole crew has been wiped out. We are not investigating because, frankly, I don’t care. So, in light of his inability to protect himself from whatever may have gotten to him…” Sebastian let a beat of silence linger. It would make them curious. The rumors that it had been Jessie were already spreading. It would only help her, and her not claiming it would add to her mysterious power. “We have our final competition today. While I ask that you please don’t kill each other, because networking after this competition might be in our—all of our—best interests, I will not penalize you for doing so. Accidents happen. Try not to—I repeat, try not to kill your opponents—but I will not penalize you if you do.”