Page 16 of Magical Midlife Rescue (Leveling Up #11)

NINE

Jessie

“Prepare thyself,” Edgar said with a flourish as the sun sank toward the horizon. We’d gotten delayed with other matters and had to shift him to later in the day.

We stood deep in the wood, where most of Edgar’s experiments were held. Flowers of experiments past were either watching us, swaying randomly, or wilting vines with their tops chewed off by the basajaunak. They policed the more dangerous of the creations and ate anything that had gone too far.

The basajaunak stood around us now, presumably hoping Edgar’s latest batch would be deemed edible. The almost cognizant flowers tasted better than the run-of-the-mill magical flowers, apparently. To my dismay, they also tended to be worse for flatulence.

Ten thick stalks with large, waxy petals each supported a chrysanthemum-style blossom. Each flower was a different color—fuchsia, sunbeam yellow, lavender, chartreuse—and a dusting of bronze sat at the bloom’s center.

“For the flower of the century,” Edgar said in a strange, echoing voice.

Indigo stood in the center of the setup. As our resident healer, she didn’t have much to do until we had to battle, and so she passed the time helping Edgar with the flowers, hanging out with the nature-loving basajaunak, or running in blind terror from the gnomes.

As Tristan, standing a few paces behind me with his arms crossed, harrumphed at Edgar’s act, Indigo winked at us. “This one is really special,” she said.

With her words, the flowers started swaying and twisting in unison. After a moment, they broke formation and switched to a series of independent movements that somehow worked together before returning to their choreography. I realized they were essentially dancing.

“This flower has it all,” Edgar said, stepping closer to one of his babies. “It has teeth!”

The flower opened a mouth that hadn’t been visible before, revealing fangs.

“It has poisonous saliva!”

On cue, a fang dripped.

“Razor-sharp leaves!”

The flower sliced one of its leaves through the air, then the other, like a ninja.

“Projectile killing spores!”

It bent to the ground and shot a stream of small orbs at the dirt.

“They listen like your best friend”—all the flowers turned to him at the same time—“never need to sleep, know friend from foe after just one introduction, and have a long striking distance for a quick or torturous death, depending on which they deem worthy. They have different kinds of poisons—all natural, of course. This is a purely organic flower. No chemicals or preservatives.”

“Besides the original formula to grow them,” Indigo added.

“Well, yes, besides the formula I injected into the soil thrice daily,” Edgar amended. “All natural.”

“Except for the magic,” Indigo said.

He nodded. “Yes. Except for that.”

I rubbed my temples. “How does a flower decide the speed of death?”

“With its flower brain,” Edgar replied.

“It has an actual brain?” I asked incredulously. “Like…a human brain?”

“No, silly. It’s a flower. Why would it have a human brain?” He laughed, and Indigo joined in, but I stood there, feeling uneasy and more than a little perplexed.

“And if it isn’t introduced to someone?” I lifted my eyebrows.

“Its instinct is to kill first and ask questions later.” Edgar put his hands behind his back and blinked asynchronously. It was like he was trying to get weirder.

I should probably thank him for allowing me to feel normal.

“Right,” I said on a release of breath, willing patience. “So, the difference between this flower and the last three versions is that it decides how quickly or slowly to kill its foe?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t take my notes from the last versions, when I told you that the flowers shouldn’t kill unless they were sure the person was a foe and not a random stranger?”

“Oh.” Edgar tilted his head at me. “Was that a note or a wish?”

I stared at him with an open mouth. “It’s the same thing, Edgar.

A note is a wish. A wish is a request.” My voice rose, out of my control.

“A request is a barrier against using this flower until it’s safe for strangers.

We can’t randomly kill wayward hikers, Edgar.

It’s a huge wood. They get lost from time to time, and they shouldn’t be killed for their lack of directional sense.

It’s bad enough that the basajaunak scare the hell out of them and send them running for their lives.

We cannot have killer flowers here. I’ve told you this. ”

“Ah.” Edgar held up one spindly finger. “But these flowers won’t go in the wood.”

The flowers started swaying and dancing, shaking their leaves and somehow wiggling the petals on their “faces.”

“And where will they go?” I asked.

“They will go along the walkway to the house.” He smiled as if that solved everything. Indigo nodded, totally fine with this plan.

I turned to Tristan and held up my hands. He didn’t so much as step forward to help.

“Right,” I said, tired, wanting to slip into the bath, utterly at a loss.

“Great!” Edgar beamed. “I’ll just?—”

“No. That wasn’t acceptance of putting lethal flowers at the front of the house. A wayward hiker is way less likely than a stranger delivering a package. Or a Girl Scout selling cookies. Or a new shifter stopping by with a message.”

“Oh, well, the shifters should know better. Do we really need packages and cookies?” Edgar asked.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he wasn’t joking.

“Yes, Edgar, we need those things. But more importantly, we can’t kill innocent people.

That’s the main takeaway. We cannot kill innocent people!

Not to mention, the flowers are dancing.

There are still Dicks and Janes living in this town.

There are always Dick and Jane tourists passing through, and they often brave Niamh’s rocks to look at Ivy House.

We can’t have obviously magical flowers in the front yard.

That’s not how things work. I really feel like you should know that. ”

Edgar spread out his hands, ready with a rebuttal.

“ No .” I made a stop motion. “The answer is no. If you can create a flower that isn’t lethal to strangers, and that doesn’t move all the time, we’ll talk. Otherwise, please go back to work on the gnomes.”

Before he could argue, I strode away. My patience was starting to fray, I was close to shouting, and I didn’t want to be confronted with his desire to be retired. I worried I might actually take him up on it this time, just to get a little peace from the freaking killer flowers.

“Thanks for the help back there, bub,” I muttered to Tristan as we worked our way to the house. “I thought you were going to step in at some point and end the madness.”

“I’m good at many things, but speaking logic to that vampire is not one of them. I don’t even care that I failed you. The less I understand that vampire, the better for my mental health.”

“Yeah,” I said on a sigh. I couldn’t really fault him. “Please tell me that Niamh’s hacker is the last meeting of the day, Mr. Tom has prepared an amazing dinner, and Austin will be available to take a very long bubble bath behind a closed, locked door.”

“Niamh’s hacker is the last, no idea about Mr. Tom, but I hope so, because I’m starving, and I’ll be taking my own bubble bath, so I won’t be concerned about yours.

This day has been exhausting, even though I wasn’t the one searching for and practicing spells.

How have you kept this pace for months?” he demanded.

“It’s not healthy, Jessie. We probably need to sit down and figure out a better situation. ”

“It might not be healthy, but it’s essential.

In a few weeks, we’re going to be on the road— Crap, remind me to tell Austin about the latest with the gargoyle cairns.

Anyway, we’re going to be on the road— Shoot, I need to send a message to the mages about a connection request gift.

Or did I tell you to do that? Or can we just show up at their cairn? ”

We reached the back door, and he stepped forward to open it for me.

“You told me. I think I have it, though—I was looking things up when you were muttering about magical spells. I’ll show you after the meeting, while you fill Austin in and Mr. Tom is hopefully serving up something good, and right before we all break for bubble baths. ”

“Great. But yeah, we’ll be on the road. It’ll be stressful, but there will be more time to rest. Though…” I bit my lip as I wound through the house. “I guess I should use that downtime to work on body language and subtlety?—”

“Jessie.” Mimi stopped us in the hall as I felt Austin step onto the property.

His stride was slow. Through our bonds, I could feel his exhaustion.

“That blown-glass bowl is exquisite. Excellent style and craftsmanship. Did I hear you correctly that you were thinking about procuring that for a production cairn?”

“No, it was a connection request-slash-gift. It’s from their cairn’s new production cairn.”

“Ah. Pity.” She passed by.

“If all conversations could be as succinct as that, we would get through the day so much more quickly,” Tristan murmured.

“You’re telling me.”

The front door opened as I reached it. Austin stepped through with a rumpled shirt and sports sweats. He’d obviously had to shift, probably to train. He was doing a ton of that, wanting to show well for the other packs. “Hey, baby,” he said wearily, pulling me into a hug. “How was your day?”

“Same as normal. Do you have time for a bubble bath later?”

“Lots of time, yes. What’s the story with the flowers?”

I groaned as I leaned against him and felt Niamh coming up the walk. “They’re better at thinking now, which doesn’t matter because they’ll still kill anyone they don’t recognize. Edgar just isn’t getting the idea. How was your day?”