Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“Niamh,” Tristan said, a command riding his words.
She somehow knew what was expected of her.
“Let us through, there’s a good lad,” she told the guard, taking the walkie-talkie from Tristan and handing it back to the guard.
“But...” The guard blinked, his gaze now rooted to Tristan. His brow furrowed with confusion. He glanced at the crowd of people, probably looking for the Bigfoot he could swear he’d seen, but came up empty. Instead, he latched onto the next oddity. “Why are they all wearing capes?”
It was Nessa’s turn now. Bounding up with a laugh and a smile, she touched the guard’s shoulder and glanced her leg against his thigh. “We’re here for the flower exhibit, of course. It wouldn’t be any fun if we couldn’t do a little cosplay with it, now would it?”
She batted her eyes at him, always smiling, and Tristan laid his hand on Edgar’s shoulder and pushed him through the gate. He grabbed Cyra next, ushering her through.
“Let’s go,” he urged in a low tone.
The others caught on quickly, slipping past the bamboozled guard and into the fairgrounds. Austin and I were last, Austin’s bearing and gaze hostile, pounding his menace into the guard.
“We good?” he asked, and the other man wilted under his dominating presence.
“Y-yes, sir,” he said immediately.
Austin nodded, and then we were through as well, the guard staring after us with his hand clutched to his chest.
“Is anyone going to ask what that feeling was?” Ulric raised his hand, looking around.
“No,” Niamh replied. “Yer knowledge of what Tristan can do does not leave this group. Do ye hear me?” She turned and speared Ulric with a stare. “We will simply be glad ta’have one more tool in our kit.”
Ulric put up both hands now. “Yeah, fine. I won’t cause any trouble for him. I was just curious. Does it get any more potent, or is it just a general feeling of…not nice?”
“It was not directed at you,” Tristan said, falling back. Edgar remained in the lead as though nothing at all had just happened. Flowers were the only things on his mind. “You only got the backsplash. I can’t stop that from happening.”
“And so the target gets…what, exactly?” Sebastian asked, sticking close to Tristan.
“Ye have some sort of death wish, so ye do,” Niamh muttered at Sebastian.
“No, just a passion for magic and all its intricacies,” Sebastian replied.
“The target experiences varying degrees of a nightmare,” Tristan said. “I went easy on the guard. For others, I can crank up the power and trap them in their own personal hell.”
“Huh.” Sebastian nodded. “Jessie has a spell like that. Interesting. Do the effects linger?”
“The target will feel shaky and rattled, but once the magic is pulled away, the nightmare dissipates entirely.”
“And you’re fine with them knowing?” I waggled my finger through the air, indicating the guardians within hearing distance.
“They’re aware that my origin is unknown,” Tristan replied as we turned down an empty thoroughfare. To the sides, vendors were setting up their stands or food trucks, getting ready for the fair to open. More than a few stopped and watched us walk past, their eyes invariably finding Tristan or Austin. “They know it didn’t affect my status in my old cairn. Everything else is just noise.”
“Everything else is just…” Sebastian looked around Jasper, walking beside him, to peer at a guardian. “You can do magic—potent, potentially devastating magic—and they shrug it off?”
“Not everyone is as inquisitive as you are,” Tristan replied.
“Not everyone…” Sebastian scratched his head. “I have no words.”
“That’s good, because here we are.” Edgar stopped in front of a domed building, its roof reaching about two stories high, with dark tinted glass doors currently closed. An awning spanned over the entranceway. Even though the interior was dedicated to flowers, the ground outside was plain concrete.
“This is the first time I have entered a contest,” Edgar said, “where we needed to create an overall aesthetic. It’s not just about the quality of the flowers this time, which I of course excel at—”
“If ye call cheating excelling, sure,” Niamh mumbled.
“—it’s about the overall design of the exhibit.”
“Oh no,” Jasper said softly.
Edgar took a sweeping bow. “I think some of you will especially like it.” He beamed at the gargoyles in turn. “I dedicated it to your kind.”
“Oh no,” Jasper repeated, a little louder.
Niamh had started to quietly chuckle, and Nessa gave her a suspicious side-eye.
“Oh no,” it was my turn to say.
I had a feeling Niamh had played some sort of hand in Edgar’s design, and knowing her jokes on him, it would likely be a spectacle in the very worst of ways.
FOUR
Jessie
The perfume of a crapload of flowers in a closed environment assaulted my senses. With trepidation, still holding Austin’s hand, I walked down the wide pathway between two exhibits. One was a play on Alice In Wonderland and the other some sort of fairy forest setup with little fairy doors, toadstools, and moss. Both attractions had water features designed to look like natural streams, with the flowers organized around the accessories in a pleasing way. I found myself pausing now and again, actually quite liking both setups.