Page 146 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“It’s safer for her.”

“I’m right here!” Kierse burst out. “I’m standing right here. Don’t talk about me like I’m somewhere else.” She ran into her mum’s arms. “You can’t go.”

“I love you,” Mum said as she stroked her hair.

Kierse let her absorption drop again. Her head hurt like someone had driven a knife through her temple. Her magic was considerably more drained than she’d expected.

“What the fuck, Graves?”

Graves stood, striding across the room and returning with a box of tissues. “Here.” She stared at it in confusion. He gestured to his nose. “You have a nosebleed.”

Kierse ripped a tissue out and touched it to her nostril. It was a slow drip, but she wasn’t susceptible to them.

“Why is this happening?”

“It could be because of me. It’s happened before,” he admitted. “Though I’m not sure if it’s me or you.”

“Me? How could it be me?”

“Mafi did say that trauma could block the memories from resurfacing.”

Kierse bit her lip. “But they were working before. It’s just this one room.”

“Then it could be whatever is behind that door is too traumatic for you to witness.”

She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t feel like trauma. It feels like…” She wiped at her bloody nose. “I don’t know. Like the spell is still there.”

“The spell was broken.”

“It feels like there’s still something there. Some kind ofblock.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It does feel like we hit something when we almost get to that room in Tribeca.”

“Tribeca? Is that where we were?”

“Yes, I recall the building,” he said.

“Could we go there?”

“It was twenty years ago. And it was destroyed in the war,” Graves said with a sigh. “No luck there, I’m afraid.”

She swallowed her disappointment. “It was a long shot, anyway.” She rolled her shoulders back. “Let’s go again.”

“Try to think of the magical signature you sensed in Sansara. We’ll see if that breaks through the block.”

Kierse took a deep breath. “I can do it.”

Her absorption dropped away. Graves’s hand was on her, his voice in her ears. “Take us back to the hallway.”

Kierse focused and let the hallway reappear before her. She’d time looped through it twice now. She knew the moment when the door opened and the woman spat something in Spanish. The fear across her mother’s face. The steel in her father’s. They were ready to fight if this went down.

“7016.” Her hand came down onto Kierse’s head.

“Pine and lemon,” Graves breathed so softly that for a second she could smell it again.

“7018.” Mum looked backward with alarm.

Kierse focused here. Let her wisp senses stretch. What had she detected in that hallway? What had she known even without knowing it? She wasn’t blunted yet. She didn’t have the spell on her. There was something under the fear.

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