Page 127 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Yes,” George said. The daredevil asking for patience. How ironic.

“Edgar, go back for another coin. I’m calling Vale for backup,” Graves said. His hands were fists at his side. “We’ll wait here for my wren.”

Part IV

the cauldron

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The tracker directed her up. Past the main streets of the New York side of Nying Market, away from the elevator, to a set of laborious stairs. Up, up, up they went.

Her heart beat a fast staccato in her chest while the streets grew quieter, darker, more dangerous. She held her gun out in front of her as she navigated the streets with the help of George’s cell phone. The red dot on the map was the only thing telling her she was going the right direction.

A pair of goblins rushed out at her on the next corner, and she leveled her gun at their heads. The first one reared back, stumbling into the second, who pushed him out of the way and snarled at her, “Pretty little thing’s lost?”

“No,” Kierse said. Her last market experience was traumatic enough to put steel in her voice.

She probably looked lost. Mostly naked save for the cutoff dress that hid next to nothing, walking barefoot in the grimy streets. It wasn’t how she wanted to be spending the night, but she was going to leave the market tonight with or without the cauldron, and no goblins were going to stop her.

“Do you even know how to use that?” the goblin asked.

She fired at his feet. He yelped and jumped backward.

“Yes,” she spat. “Now let me pass.”

The goblins dashed away, a furious “crazy bitch” muttered under their breaths as they left.

Kierse didn’t like that the sound of the gunshot would call attention to her, but she had bigger problems. The tracker had stopped.

She jogged forward, hoping to make up for their head start. Luckily, her speed had increased, and though she needed some concentration to see where she was going, she didn’t let up. Just let the thrill of the chase rush through her as she promised herself that it’d only be one more minute. One more minute and then she’d have the cauldron.

She’d just need to get the thing out of here. A problem for later.

Kierse whipped around a corner, chancing a glance at the phone, and caught the moment the tracker blinked and then disappeared.

“No,” she gasped.

This couldn’t be happening. She was this close. Just around this corner.

Her breathing was ragged as she jogged ahead into a deserted alley. She turned in a circle, encountering only blank walls. Where could they have gone?

With acrunchshe stepped on something with her bare foot and yelped.

She bent down to retrieve what she’d stepped on. She groaned. It was the tracking device. Busted.

“Fuck.”

She didn’t know what to do. The tracker was destroyed. The cauldron was gone. She’d come in here alone for nothing. Anyone who’d managed to get into the market after her would never find her now without the tracker’s signal.

Kierse cursed softly under her breath. The alley wasempty. Just a long stretch of concrete between two turns. It was strange, considering the rest of the market was packed full of monsters and storefronts and apartments, as if ants had been building on top of one another for centuries. How could everywhere else be alive and breathing and this backstreet be dead?

She turned in a slow circle. No, it wasmoresuspicious that nothing was happening here on this strange, empty street. She focused her magic on the wall opposite her. Nothing. Just a wall.

But suddenly, pine and lemon wafted toward her—the same smell she’d gotten off of the decoy cauldron. She turned toward the scent and gasped softly.

There was a door.

A door, made out of the golden sheen of magic, with a glowing doorknob that seemed to beg her to turn it. Wards were etched into the otherwise blank wall, but they had been magicked to be unnoticeable. Kierse could sense them now that she was looking for them: little crossed swords swooped together by the language of warding.

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