Page 145 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

Her parents were there. The babka had just come out of the oven. She had an afternoon snack. They were speaking in careful, cool tones. Low enough she couldn’t hear even with her advanced wisp powers. Well, they weren’tthatadvanced yet. Her mum had told her they’d get stronger.

“…tonight…” Mum said.

“Let’s see what happens tonight,” Graves said, burrowing deeper.

The memory flitted forward. It was dark outside. Kierse was wrapped in a coat as they got off the subway in an unfamiliar part of Manhattan. It was drizzling and cold, fall pressing in on them as winter approached.

She wanted to go home. She didn’t like it here. When she looked up at her parents, their brows were creased, their mouths set in firm lines.

They stopped at a large, red-brick building that looked like it might have once been a warehouse but at some point in the last hundred years had been converted into condos or lofts with the fall of manufacturing in the city. Kierse shuffled forward into the dingy vestibule, and her mum pressed a button on the door. A buzzer went off, and her dad heaved the door open to let them into the drab lobby.

There was no elevator. She panted up the many,manystairs. Daddy offered to carry her, but she didn’t stop. Just trudged along until they reached a long corridor with flickering overhead lights that smelled of piss and vomit.

She pinched her nose. “Gross.”

Mum put a shaky arm around her shoulders, and they continued down the hall. A woman stumbled out of an apartment up ahead, cursing in a foreign language, before careening past them.

“7016. 7018,” Mum said. “Next one.”

Suddenly, the memory yanked her away. She was standing on the street. The rain was coming down in sheets. She had no umbrella, and everything was strangely muted. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t smell. She couldn’t sense the air around her. The tops of her ears felt weird when shetouched them, and not just from Mum’s glamour. Forreal.

Kierse cut it off.

“What happened?” she asked.

Graves shook himself out of her mind. “You moved forward. After the spell.”

“I didn’t do anything. It just jumped.”

“That sometimes happens.”

She took a bottle of water from him and drained half of it. “Let’s try again.”

He placed his hands back on her. Kierse went under. She was at the end of the hallway. Her breaths came out in hard pants. The woman fell out of the room. This time Kierse deduced that she was speaking in an accented Spanish. She walked past on heavy feet.

Adair put his hand on his belt as if to pull out a weapon at her approach. Shannon was trying to stay calm, collected, but Kierse could see the hover of her magic around her, at the ready.

“7016.”

Mum put her hand on Kierse’s head.

“7018.”

She chanced a glance at her husband in fear.

“Next one.”

Kierse was jerked away. She stood in her living room. Mum leaned heavily against the countertop, tears in her eyes. Daddy was speaking to her.

“We had to.”

“I know,” Mum said. “But what do I do? We knew he couldn’t put the spell on a fully developed magical user.”

“Shannon, we will figure this out.”

“I’m a danger to her,” she said with a sniffle. “My magicwill lead him here. I have to go.”

“Shannon…”

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