Page 226 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

No. The answer was all she needed.

She pushed like she had never pushed, sending herself into slow motion with such force that time stood still. The drop of blood stalled at the bottom of Jason’s chin. His goon’s outstretched hand froze. The clock refused to tick.

Between one second and the next, Kierse shifted forward, her body a blur as she went from tied to the chair with iron to standing on her own two feet. Magic suffused her bones and whipped her hair around her face and sang a sweet tune. The scent of Irish wildflowers blooming in the spring burst across the room. Golden magic mingled with blue down her limbs.

She dropped her slow motion. Time ticked forward.

Kierse had phased from one place to the next.

Chapter Sixty-Six

Jason’s jaw dropped in horror as he jerked backward. “You…can’t do that.”

“It seems that I can.”

The power was a torrent through her. She didn’t know how long she could hold onto it. Not long.

“The iron…”

“I’m only half Fae,” she snarled. “Half of anything is a whole of nothing.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said carefully. The mean and ugly persona he’d been spitting at her when he’d had her cornered disappeared in the wake of her power. She watched him try to bring back the charming guy he’d always used to win people over. “You don’t want to use those powers too much or the Fae Killer is going to find you. That’s what I saved you from, right?”

Kierse’s eyes narrowed. “The Fae Killer is still out there? Aren’t all the other Fae dead?”

“He’s still out there,” he assured her.

“Do you know who he is?”

Jason’s lip quirked up. “I do. And I think you do, too.” He straightened up to make himself look more important. “If you kill me, you’ll never find out.”

“Fuck you, Jason,” she said, taking a step forward. The force of holding her powers in her hand was like trying tolift a car over her head. “Your death belongs to me.”

Jason’s eyes darted to his followers. “Don’t just stand there! Stop her.”

Then like the coward he was, he fled the room. She rushed after him, but his followers came out of their stupor all at once. There were only three of them, but they had guns. As they fumbled for them, Kierse had only one chance.

She’d never used her magic in this way before. She didn’t even know if wisps coulddowhat she had just done. Phasing wasn’t exactly part of the repertoire, but if she could do that, then she could do more. She had enough energy to push herself to the brink. Anything to stop Jason.

Her absorption had always been passive. But over the weeks she’d learned how to turn it on and off, how to use it as an amplifier in her triskel, how to feed the power she absorbed to others. This time she only had herself. She needed to be her own amplifier and her own power source.

Grasping her power tightly in her fist, she turned her palm out toward the Sansara cultists and unleashed her energy. Like a fire hose, it rushed out of her skin and hit the first guy hard in the chest. He wrenched backward into the other two guards.

One had already gotten her gun up and aimed for Kierse’s chest. She punched another bout of magic toward the woman. It hit her the same moment that the bullet punched through Kierse’s shoulder.

They both screamed. Kierse dropped her magic and clutched her shoulder. Blood poured from the wound. At least the bullet had gone straight through. If it had lodged in, she would have been extra fucked. But her strength wouldn’t hold up long without a healer.

There was no time to waste.

She grabbed a gun from the first guard, shoved it into the back of her pants with her good arm, and grabbed a second to carry. She stepped over the pile of guards, blood seeping down her fingers as she tried to hold herself together and head toward the elevator bank. She was weak. Too weak. She couldn’t do much more from here, not without assistance. But she had to kill Jason. That was her only mission.

The elevator doors dinged as she reached them. She fired the weapon a few times through the small crack and watched the shots ping wide. The smell of lemon and pine rose up strong. Jason had used his magic to redirect the bullets. His smug face disappeared as the doors closed.

“No!” she screamed, hitting her fist against them.

There was no light that told her what floor he was going to. This wasn’t the movies where she could figure it out and magically appear. She had to make a choice. Up or down. Up meant ballroom levels that led out to the main hotel. Down meant the loading docks and bigger exits. With a bloody nose and in a hurry, he’d go down.

Kierse whipped around and rushed into the nearest staircase, taking them two at a time toward the basement levels. Her legs felt like jelly, and she had to focus on her Fae instincts to get her body to keep moving. She wasn’t going fast enough. There was no way around it. The blood loss and magic loss was taking a toll. She had two more floors to make it.

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