Page 70 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
I asked, “Can I put my hand on it while you’re doing that so everyone stops arguing and the gnomes stop attacking?”
Chaos shook his head without looking away from the seal as he pulled a small jar out of his bag. “Unfortunately, I need to see exactly what the curse is doing, and I can’t do that if you’re nullifying it.”
That made sense, and I agreed it was unfortunate. I sighed and reached over to hold Lyric’s hand for a few seconds so they’d get a bit of a breather. As soon as our skin touched, they breathed out a sigh of relief, the angry tension leaving them in a rush.
“Damn. That curse sucks.”
I snorted. “Agreed.”
“I swear to god, Lyric, if you’re mean to him again, I’m gonna punch you in the face.”
My eyebrows rose at Miles's intensity, but Lyric just laughed—which only made Miles more pissed—and said, “I’m not being mean, lover boy.”
Miles actually growled at them, so I released Lyric, knocked a gnome off my gate, then reached over and grabbed the back of Miles’s neck. He heaved out a breath, then sucked in some air before saying, “Thanks. Sorry again, Lyric.”
“Fuck you, My-my.”
I closed my eyes. This was like trying to work with angry toddlers with large fists and stick-weapons. I couldn’t hold the gate and hold onto both of them at the same time.
Before I could respond, Miles waved them off, clearly letting it go under the circumstances.
Aeson said, “You’re both such assholes.”
“Not you too.”
Chaos called over, “Just ignore them all, Ace. The curse is getting you.”
“Logically, I know that, but I’m still pissed at everyone.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you.”
“Great.” Chaos murmured under his breath for a moment, his hands tracing the etchings on the seal.
Clucky was staring at the seal too, as if she was also trying to decipher its etchings. Hell, maybe she was. I had no idea how intelligent or magically inclined cockatrices were.
I watched them for a few seconds. “The curse isn’t affecting you, is it?”
Chaos shrugged, making Clucky move up and down with him. “I can feel it, but I’m keeping it back with my magic. If I stop concentrating for even a few seconds, it’ll get past my defenses and you’ll have another person to wrangle.”
“Please don’t let that happen.”
To my surprise, he looked over his shoulder and smirked at me. “Got your hands full already, huh?”
I snorted and nodded my head toward Lyric and Aeson, who were swinging their sticks like bats and pretending toaccidentallysmack each other. Luckily, neither was using their full strength, but probably only because they were too distracted by the attacking gnomes.
“For fuck’s sake.” Chaos shook his head and went back to… whatever he and Clucky were doing with a few jars and vials.
I released Miles and grabbed Aeson’s hand this time, figuring it would be good to keep switching to give each of them a break from the dark magic.
“Oh, holy shit, that was intense.” Aeson rolled his shoulders and looked at me. “Thank you.” He turned back and whacked a gnome, sending it flying across the room. “Your whole null thing is cool.”
I snorted. “Thanks.”
Before I could say anything else, Miles let out a strangled scream, and I whipped my head around to face him. There was a gnome climbing up his arm, and he was freaking the fuck out, wiggling around and trying to shake it off.
He dropped his gate in his freak-out, and the gnomes surged forward immediately.
