“She’s fine missing the strategy part of flying,” Austin said to Evan. “She’s learning it now. She came later to it than most of the Guardians.”
“That’s my fault,” Tristan said. “I wasted time trying to learnherway of doing things, forgetting she’d never been trained. She’d learned by improvising in extreme situations, trying to keep herself and her people alive when she barely knew how her wings or magic worked. What she’s teaching us is the logistics of combatting mages. Of using flightandmagic, along with her team. In that, she is the pinnacle, and yes, as Patty said, our main asset. We revolve around her, or we all die.”
“Exactly. Yes,” Patty said. “Thank you, Tristan. That is correct.”
“And how…” Evan paused indecisively. “This can wait until she’s recovered, but how does this strategy alter when combating mages? Or someone on the ground?”
“The flight plan was devised with ground enemy in mind,” Tristan said. “The diving is to do damage, where Jessie shields us from magical gun or mage fire, and then we pull out and make room for the next team. If we loiter, we give them more targets, and she has to do more work to protect us all. She is our chief asset, as we’ve said, and magic takes a lot of energy. We need to protect her at all costs, and that includes minimizing the work she does to keep us safe. That is just one piece of the battle plan that Alpha Steele and Jessie devised.”
“For the rest, we should have Jessie and Sebastian available,” Austin said. “Orchestrating our ground crew with the flightteam is a dance, allowing for Jessie and Sebastian to move among us all and seek out the most dangerous threats. She uses her connection to the team to communicate with us all. It is incredibly complex, but she does it naturally.”
“That is the wonder of the female gargoyle,” Tristan said, a note of pride in his voice. “She is the glue, as we told you.”
“Jessie!” Gerard’s heavy footsteps crunched through the brittle grasses, almost sounding like a floppy puppy compared to Austin’s. “What are you doing laying down there on your face?”
“Finally,” Patty said. “Someonethinks about poor Jessie.”
Gerard’s knee hit the ground near me, clearly wanting to talk. Apparently, it was time to shift. Annoyance.
I fluttered my wings to back Indigo off and then sapped energy to change forms. I groaned and didn’t bother trying to turn over. Indigo’s palm touched down on the center of my back.
“She has a really nice butt,” Indigo said. “I’ve always thought so.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“Jess, do you want me to pick you up?” Austin asked, the closeness of his voice indicating he was bending over me. He’d apparently been waiting until I shifted to play my donkey and traipse me all around like he’d been doing lately.
“I’m good,” I murmured. With effort I didn’t want to expend, I rolled over and sat up.
“Here.” Austin knelt beside me and draped a muumuu over my head.
Gerard sat down on the grass next to me, also wearing a purple muumuu. “Jessie! I amimpressed! You’re a master at this now. I hear you were really pulling the punches on the spells, too.”
“Well, yeah.” I stretched out my arms and twisted to loosen up my back. “If I didn’t, I’d kill people.”
“I hear you got into a scuffle recently.” He tilted his head with his arms out. “Where was our call?”
I laughed and threaded my arms through the muumuu. “That was a surprise. We didn’t even know mages were there. It was an easy one. You would’ve been bored.”
Evan knelt in front of me, a kind smile on his face. “Sorry about excluding you a moment ago. I’ve just…” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Flying like this, I mean. The raid with Gimerel was over quickly, but this was shocking.”
“And she was pulling her punches.” Gerard nodded. “I told you, didn’t I? I could tell you didn’t want to believe me, but Itoldyou. I missed a great session last night with Niamh to go over everything with you.”
“It’s hard to believe a battle of that magnitude when you haven’t seen one.” Evan plopped down onto his butt as well. “Even the shifters and basajaunak running through the town, snarling—even that was exceptional. Can you give me a day, Jessie? Austin? Can you guys give me until tomorrow to talk to my advisors and some of my Guardians and see what people are thinking?”
“Sure, yeah.” I wasn’t planning on going anywhere today, anyway.
“Fantastic.” He pushed to standing. “And I’ll fill you in on our best kept secret, something only leaders and top personnel get the benefit of experiencing.”
“It’s boring.” Gerard patted me on the back before he got up. “I’d much rather drink with Niamh. I saw her spear someone with that horn, earlier. Right in the leg.” He grimaced. “Had to hurt. Where’d she go?”
“There are three bars.” I groaned as I got up. “She’ll likely be in one of those.”
“Good. I could use a libation after all that effort. This time, I intend to shirk all my duties. I deserve a day off!” He walked off.
Austin stepped close and wrapped an arm around my waist. He nuzzled my neck. “You looked sensational up there, baby. Everyone was in awe of you.”
“Yes, they most certainly were.” Patty beamed at me. “This’ll shut that ol’ Nelson up for good, mark my words. I’ve got his number, now. He won’t be able to weasel away from me.” She nodded and trudged off across the grass toward the city.
