Page 61 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
I pushed my empath magic out, ignored Lyric’s freaking-the-fuck-out emotions, and focused on Chaos. It helped that Winter’s dead zone area was right beside the kid, making it easier to concentrate on him.
Chaos was annoyed, amused, and definitely exasperated with us, and perhaps, with life in general.
And he was absolutely, one hundred percent, lying about the sacrifice thing.
Well, lying was a strong word, maybe joking made more sense.
I released my empathic magic and let my shoulders sag in relief and exasperation at myself—and Lyric.
“He’s joking.” I gave Lyric’s hand a squeeze. “He doesn’t sacrifice animals—or people.”
Chaos did a finger gun at me and flipped back around to walk forward. “That would be correct. Not sure how that rumor got started about necromancers, but we definitely don’t have tokill things to work our magic. We’re the ones who’re usually bringing things back, not the other way around.”
“Right.” Lyric blinked up at me but didn’t let go of my hand yet. “He must think we’re idiots.”
I snorted and didn’t deny it. Even I thought we were idiots, so I was sure this Chaos kid did too.
They called over to Chaos, “So why do you have a chicken in your backseat?”
The kid winked over his shoulder at them. “Now, I can’t go giving away all my secrets at once, can I?” He faced forward and asked Winter a question I couldn’t hear, but I was sure had to do with the gnome situation, essentially cutting off Lyric’s questions.
Lyric whispered, “Can you, like, read his mind and see why he has a chicken in his car?”
I snorted again. “If I touched him and asked him about it at the same time, I likely could, but not from here.”
They sighed. “That’s a mystery that will bother me for the rest of my days.”
I laughed at their dramatics and pulled them along so we could catch up to the others.
The four of us stood at the entrance to the basement, and no one said anything for what felt like forever but was probably more like thirty seconds.
Then Chaos said, “If I couldn’t already feel the cursed object from here, I’d be afraid you were going to ax-murder me.”
Lyric laughed, and Winter groaned, saying, “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Lyric said, “I told you the place gave off ax-murdery vibes.”
Chaos nodded. “It really does.” He sighed. “Alright, let’s go in.” Then he reached for the door handle before any of us could stop him and yanked it open.
The sounds of hundreds ofmeepsfilled the air, and I felt my knees go weak. The gnomes were still down there. The gnomes were going to attack us again as soon as we set foot inside.
Holy shit.
I was going to have to face the freaking gnomes again.
Chaos pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket, ducked his head down, and shined the light into the basement, letting out a long whistle. “Wow. That’s a lot of gnomes. Why do they all look so ang—ahhhhh!”
He jumped back and slammed the door shut. A barrage ofthump thump thumpsmade me jump, and Chaos turned wide eyes to me. “So, uh, the gnomes are affected by the curse, huh?”
I nodded. “They’ve been attacking us the entire time we’ve been here.”
He nodded and stared at the door. “Huh. Gnomes are usually so peaceful.”
Winter sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I was really hoping they would’ve moved on to a different spot by now. It’s been at least ninety minutes since we were down there.”
“Right. Okay. Um… let me think.” He continued staring at the door for several beats before nodding to himself. “Okay, let me get a couple more things from the car—”
“Like the chicken?” Lyric couldn’t seem to let that go.
