Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“Ready?” he asked me, and I knew he was asking himself, as well. We’d land this cairn and the rest would follow. Maybe not tonight, but eventually. This was trivial. The real battle was just beginning, and that was with the mages. Momar had recently proven he had his eye on us. Time to focus.
“Ready,” I replied, thinking now of what we needed to combat Momar. Of how we could stack the odds—not in our favor—but at least somewhat more evenly.
A blast of magic rocketed out of me, shaking the air and making everyone flinch. It had been a while since that had happened. Austin knew exactly what it was.
“How bad?” he asked, probably wondering if I’d summoned another phoenix, or maybe something more terrible.
Whatever it was, he’d confront it. He’d put himself in front of me and wrestle the creature into submission. He wasn’t the best because of Ivy House, his power or experience. He was the best because he had to be to protect me. He’d do it because I asked. Because I needed it. All of this, everything he did, was because of me.
I loved him so much it hurt.
But this wasn’t his fight.
“Not bad,” I said, knowing the sort of summons I’d sent. “For you, anyway.”
I connected gazes with Sebastian—no, I connected gazes with Elliot Graves.
He knew without having to be asked. This was a summons he and I would handle. Mages, some nasty, some nice, all powerful. It was time to call in the next wave. It was time to finally combat the thing that was currently plaguing the magical world, and to do that, we had to put ourselves on the line.
“Come on.” Elliot Graves gave me a playboy smile as he looped his arm through mine. His eyes were all Sebastian, though. Cunning, intelligent…loving and sentimental. “Let’s have a wonderful dinner and help this leader realize that he didn’t earn his status on his own, shall we? Your team cut the legs out from under Withor, and you were just about to put the nail in the coffin when Evan showed up. I think it’s about time you stopped playing nice, don’t you?”
A persona. Sometimes, to get the job done, you had to strap on your armor. And if you didn’t have that, you had to strap on the confidence of a mediocre man looking for a raise in a job he didn’t understand.
30
Tristan
It hadn’t been a persona at all.
Tristan stopped at a darkened corner in the city and put his hand against the rough wall. He naturally blended into stone, like any gargoyle, but now his nightmare magic, as everyone thought of it, wrapped shadows around him. Even gargoyles would be hard pressed to notice him.
He smiled and thought about laughing.
Sebastian had told Jessie to put on a persona, like Elliot Graves. But that wasn’t Jessie’s style. She didn’t have personas. What he’d given her was a shock of confidence. Was a reminder of her purpose.
More, though, he’d helped her connect the dots that Tristan himself should’ve put together. Ultimately, she’d gotten Evan this post. She deserved more status than him, because all he’d really done was show up.
She hadn’t said that. She didn’t even care about the semantics. She had wanted him to understand why she’d stepped in at all. To realize that she had handled, in good faith, what other gargoyles should’ve done long before then. She’d paved the way, not because of the desire for the cairn or money or prestige, but to do what was right.
She hadn’t gotten any recognition from the gargoyle community because she didn’t boast about what she’d done, nor would she. It was clear she didn’t care about the status issue or about having status at all. She’d do it again, and she’d do it the same way. It wasn’t about her; it was about the people who needed her. This time, it had been that woman. Next time, maybe someone else. Maybe Evan.
Tristan had watched Evan’s face—his entire body—gradually shift as that concept sank in. As he realized she was above him on the moral high ground, and she wouldn’t, not ever, let her cairn suffer. She would give everything she had, without complaint, to ensure the happiness of her people.
Sebastian, of all people, pointed out that she’d gone out of her way for a total stranger. It had helped Evan, sure, but the main goal had been to help a faceless woman who never could’ve given Jessie a leg up. He’d solidified that Jessie had done it out of duty to her people. Her people—the gargoyles. And he’d said it in such an arrogant, flippant, dismissive way that it didn’t seem like he was advocating for her; rather, that he pitied her soft nature and gargoyles in general.
It had worked like an absolute charm. Patty was a genius for including that weird mage, and that mage was a genius in a social setting. In his persona, at any rate—he really shouldn’t be taken into public any other time.