Page 148 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

Kierse sighed with relief and closed her eyes again. “I’m ready.”

Graves had her pull up the image of the guy she had seen in Sansara. He still seemed vaguely familiar, but no more recognizable than before. No idea how he knew her name.

She was sluggish as she searched through that memory for something familiar. She latched onto his face as Graves guided her forward, slipping through her murky thoughts like through sewage.

“Where have you seen him before?” Graves asked.

But she hadn’t seen him before. She didn’t remember, and Graves’s magic couldn’t seem to coax it out of her. Frustration bit at her as she pressed and pressed and pressed…

She was in the hallway again, staring up at the next doorway: 7020. The magic signature coming off of it—the warding in place—all the answers right there before her. She pushed and pushed and pushed, felt the memory almostcrackalong a fissure. She was going to get in. She would be able to open that door. To find her answers.

Then the memory physically drove her backward. She gasped at the rebound, and Graves hastily severed the connection.

“Fuck,” she hissed, bending forward and cradling her head in her hands.

Her vision went blurry. Jagged edges sliced through her brain. She winced and shielded her eyes from the dimlighting. This was turning sharply into migraine territory.

And she was bleeding all over Graves’s chaise. Not just from her nose but from her eyes. She’d never fucking bled from her eyes.

“You aredone,” Graves said firmly as he bent to one knee and pressed a tissue to her nose. “For at least a few days. This shouldn’t be harming you this severely.”

He handed her another one that she used to wipe at her eyes. Tears streamed from them now, mixing with the blood. They ran in pink stains down her cheeks.

“We were close,” she whispered. “I felt it start to crack.”

“I am going to prioritize your health the way I wouldn’t if you were anyone else.”

There were shadows in his eyes at the proclamation. Fear. He’d hurt people with his powers before. Maybe many people. He knew the signs.

And if he wanted to keep her safe, he would. Even from himself.

She nodded. They’d pushed too hard. Even if she wanted to try to get through the crack in that memory, she couldn’t do it today. She could barely think. Her magic was shot like touching a frayed electrical wire.

“Why did it react like that?”

“We were pushing against something.” He took a fortifying drink of liquor. “Take a moment. Why would you not be able to get past that? Especially withmyhelp.”

“He…he fucked with my head,” she guessed.

“Either the spell erased that memory or…he did.”

Kierse frowned. She had been so focused onhowto get past the block that she hadn’t stopped to consider the why. The why that had been plaguing her since the beginning ofall of this. Why would someone erase her memories? And whythismemory?

“You think he didn’t want me to remember him.”

“That’s a theory.” Graves took another drink. “And with the power of Sansara, on a full moon, at the fall equinox,” he said, rattling off parts of the memory that she hadn’t even put together, “he’d be capable of it.”

“So what’s behind the door that he doesn’t want me to see?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

She wiped her nose and met his eyes. He nodded as if he wanted her to say it first. “So where do we go from here? Maybe if we just tried again.”

“No,” he said sharply. “I won’t let you continue to bang your head against a brick wall. We need another solution.”

She stared up at the ceiling. “We could go back to Covenant.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’re ready for that?”

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