Page 168 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Ahhh!” Kierse said. “Tell me everything.”

“I can hear you,” Walter promised. “And I do not want to know, respectfully.”

“Sure. Sure,” Gen said. “We just met, but I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Walter looked up at her with a tilted head. “All bad, I presume.”

“Heard you’re really strong.”

“Huh,” Walter said and then went back to his computer.

Kierse fiddled with the combination lock. She’d spent the last couple weeks dismantling the thing piece by piece, but the lock still eluded her. It was infuriating. She felt like she was missing part of the puzzle. It had beenyearssince a lock had messed with her this much. Not since she’d been a child, working with Jason as he trained her through the intricacies. And she felt again like that small child again as this lock refused to open for her.

“So, Walter,” Gen said amicably, “you decided to join Team Holly.”

Kierse nearly choked on her own spit. “Team Holly?”

“What? It works! I even designed a logo.” She turned over the notebook she had in her lap to reveal a little holly leaf with the berries in the center,Team Hollywritten in block text over top. “I thought we should get T-shirts.”

Walter stared at Gen as if she were some bizarre sort of creature with horns sprouting out of her head. He shrugged. “I’d wear a T-shirt.”

Kierse sputtered. “You just joined!”

“I try not to do things half assed. If we’re getting team shirts, I want one.”

“I like him,” Gen said with a wide smile.

“How did he convince you to work with us?”

“He didn’t,” Walter said into his computer.

Gen and Kierse exchanged a look. “What convinced you?” Gen asked.

“You did,” Walter said.

Kierse frowned. “Me?”

He looked up at her very practically. “You could havekilled me at any point. You can get through my force fields. You can bypass my wards. You are a weapon. Graves should have used his weapon to kill me, which would have deactivated my wards. Then he could have walked in and taken the spear himself.”

“But he didn’t,” Kierse realized.

“You didn’t kill me. Graves didn’t want me dead,” Walter said simply.

“Huh.”

Sometimes she forgot that Graves could have been even more of a villain. For whatever reason, he didn’t want Walter dead, and Walter knew that. If Graves was asking for his help, Walter also must have calculated it was better to work for the biggest bad on the block than get stuck in someone else’s machinations.

“While we’re on the topic of not killing people,” Gen said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah?”

“Triskel training.”

Kierse groaned. She’d hoped to never think about triskel training again. “Do I have to?”

“You agreed.”

“Yeah, but…”

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