Page 92 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
“A little, but only because I’m concentrating on it. I think I’ll be fine.”
He gave me a nod, then leaned, looking like he was about to kiss my forehead. Luckily, he aborted the movement with a grimace. “Sorry. It’s gonna be hard not to touch you for five minutes.”
He wanted to touch me so badly that even five minutes was difficult? That was… probably one of the sweetest things someone had ever said to me.
He winked. “I’ll be right back. I need to break up yet another argument.”
I snorted as he got up and marched over to Aeson and Lyric, who were fighting about who whacked more gnomes before the shield went up. I rolled my eyes. As if any of us had been paying attention to how many we were knocking back. That was ridiculous.
As soon as Winter touched both of their backs, they sagged and apologized to each other.
Honestly, I didn’t even know why we bothered to keep apologizing. All of us knew it was the curse, and we’d all apologized so many times today it was outrageous. We should’vejust told one another that we were waiting until the curse ended before we apologized at all.
I shook off those thoughts because they were unnecessary, and I glanced outside of the shield.
The gnomes were so angry, they were riding each other’s shoulders, climbing on backs, and just generally piling up so they could bang on our shield. Their eyes were red and beyond pissed-off. They looked like they were out for blood.
And I had no doubt that was some nightmare fuel right there.
As if I wasn’t already terrified of gnomes enough, I now had a firsthand view of them with red eyes and carrying weapons. I shuddered as I watched them outside the shield. They looked like an angry mob of bearded demons ready to knock us out and chop us up into bite-sized pieces.
Ewwww. Blech. Blech, blech, blech.
I was going to keep this shield up until Chaos broke the curse no matter what I had to do. Even if it was the last thing I ever did.
Sola let out a little chirping noise, telling me I’d be fine.
I was surprised and excited that I could already interpret most of her little sounds. I would’ve thought it’d take a lot longer, but maybe since I could feel her emotions through the bond, it was easy for me to figure out what she was telling me.
“Guys, come sit near Miles while we wait. Relax for a few minutes while we still can. I need to sit, and I need to keep a hand on both of you,” Winter said, nudging Lyric and Aeson over to me.
I examined the shield while they got situated. I was pretty sure I really could rebuild a shield like this on my own. Chaos was a good teacher. I even had an idea of how I could block out the curse from myself, the way Chaos was. Maybe. I’d have to ask Chaos later.
I snorted to myself.
Apparently, the teenager was the expert, and I was the clueless ass who didn’t know how to use his own magic at all.
I probably could’ve used some of the kid’s knowledge at my old job.
Scratch that. Idefinitelycould’ve used it.
With a sigh, I pushed away the painful memories that always came when I thought about my old life and the people in it. When I thought about Laney. When I thought about Higgins.
When I thought about what’d happened.
I couldn’t let my mind travel there or I’d wind up stuck there, unable to come back out. And I didn’t want that. Not one little bit. The pain of those memories was too heavy to bear.
“You alright, My-my?” Lyric asked me, their head tilted to the side, taking me in. I had a feeling they’d been staring at me for a lot longer than I realized.
“Y-yeah. I’m good. Sorry, my mind was wandering.”
“No need to say sorry.” They shot me a smile and nudged my foot with theirs. “Wanna talk about it?”
My eyes widened. I was way too aware of the fact that everyone else was listening to us. Well, Chaos might not have been since he was working magic, but Aeson and Winter were. “No. Absolutely not.”
They snorted and shrugged. “Well, alrighty then. No worries.”
“Sorry. It’s been a stressful day.”
