Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up 5)

I stared at him blankly, my mouth gaping open. This was all coming out of left field. I didn’t know if I was comfortable with having him on my team. Sure, he was an amazing asset in a battle, and he’d hung around often enough that I was comfortable with him personally, but he was picky about his rules. He traded for the simplest of things.

Which reminded me…

“Would I have to trade for your involvement on the team?” I asked.

“It would not be a trade, but a basajaunak partnership. Like family. If I am slighted, this small magical family will be entitled to claim vengeance, and vice versa. If your family is in trouble, like young Master Jimmy, it will be within my power to go to his aid. The same would be true if my family were in danger.”

“We doing okay?” Austin approached us from the house, glancing back and forth between us. He rested his hand lightly on the small of my back.

“The basajaun thinks the stars led us all here,” I said, “and it’s a sign that Elliot Graves’s stronghold is embedded in mountain tunnels. He wants to join the Ivy House crew.”

Austin’s expression didn’t change, and no surprise trickled through the link. He’d clearly been in hearing range, because otherwise I didn’t know how all that hadn’t blown his hair back.

“He says that if he joins the crew,” I went on, “then it basically joins our families. So if something were to happen to Jimmy, he’d…probably pop heads off and spike them like footballs, as he likes to do, and if something happens to his family…I guess we need to return the favor?”

“Yes. As is standard,” the basajaun said.

“As is apparently standard, sure…” I said.

“Can I speak to you for a moment, Jess?” Austin asked, oddly formal.

“Yes, sure.”

We took a few steps away, and I covered us in a soundproof spell.

“Is this not throwing you for a loop?” I asked Austin the second we were cut off from the basajaun’s hearing. “Everyone has always been surprised that the basajaun even fights with us. I got the impression basajaunak families are very tight-knit and don’t care for outsiders. I don’t want to piss them off. And…what if the basajaun wants to live in Ivy House? I don’t have a bed that big. Does he shed? Mr. Tom would pitch a fit if there are rolling balls of hair all the time.” I ran my hand over my face. “I know that I should be jumping for joy, since he is a very good creature to have in my corner, but this has really taken me by surprise. I wasn’t ready for it.”

“It’s ultimately your decision,” Austin said, bending a little to catch my gaze. “But you should know that this is an incredible honor. This basajaun is essentially offering to add you—all of us—to his family. He is connecting us with the rest of the basajaunak the world over. You’re right about their usual attitude toward outsiders. They rarely bother with anyone but their own kind unless it is to get something they need or to claim vengeance for a perceived wrong. Usually their council of elders would need to approve of this decision, and maybe he got it to them somehow. Or he might just assume they’re on board. The thing he said about being led by the stars…he’s talking about fate. He thinks fate is guiding his feet—all of our feet—and their kind do not turn their backs on fate.” Austin glanced back at the basajaun, in his bow tie with his freshly braided beard. “If you take him on, you’d have the whole of the basajaunak at your disposal. You’d be their family, and they would protect you with their lives.”

My stomach dropped out of me. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I could say.

Austin nodded slowly. “Yes, this is a big deal. A huge honor, like I said. It has happened occasionally in the past, but it is incredibly rare. You are on the precipice of securing a powerful ally.”

“But what if they refuse to honor the connection?”

“I’m sure they could cut him out of the family if it came down to it, but special allowances are made for situations like this one. The basajaunak really do believe in following the stars. From what I understand, anyway. I’m certainly no expert.”

“You think I’d be crazy to pass this up?”

“I think you need to be comfortable with your team. That’s the most important consideration.”

I glanced over at the basajaun, who was now eyeing the nearest flowers. “I mean…the hair…”

“I doubt he will want to sleep inside. That’s not really what they do.”

“Right, true. He was really good with Jimmy when he was here. And he’s always been nice to me, in his way… I mean, if I had thought he’d ever want the position, I totally would’ve offered, but it was just such a surprise that it threw me for a loop.”