Page 239 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Are you sure?” Gen asked.

“Yes,” she said at once. “I can’t touch my magic. We couldn’t link.”

“Maybe we could link with you.”

Kierse shook her head. “Even if youcould, you’d be linking withhim.”

“We’re not doing that,” Graves said at once. He slid his hands into his pockets. The tension was bleeding off of him. Gen and Ethan looked up warily.

“All right,” Gen whispered. “I don’t want him to have any more power, either.”

“But we’ll think of something,” Ethan said at once.

“Genesis, would you mind showing Ethan to a spare bedroom?” Graves asked. “Kierse needs to rest.”

“Sure,” Gen said. She squeezed Kierse’s arm. “Find me if you need me, okay?”

Kierse nodded hopelessly.

“Bed,” Graves suggested, gesturing to his room. When she didn’t move, he dropped his arm. “Or do you require…space tonight?”

She hesitated. If she did that, then Lorcan won.

“No, I just need to change,” she said, gesturing to her dress. “And a shower.”

He nodded, visibly relieved. She followed him into his room. He ran the tap on the shower for her, set out a fluffy white towel and change of clothes. She wanted to ask him to stay. She could see that he wanted to. But she…couldn’t.

“Take as much time as you need,” he said instead, closing the door behind her.

Her hand went to her necklace, the wren that always comforted her throughout her life. But it wasn’t there. In the empty space against her chest, she found only him.

She ripped at the stupid white dress, promising to burn it. She removed the braids from her wind-tangled hair before stepping under the spray and letting the scalding water wash away the night. She lathered with soap, trying to scrub him off of her. She rinsed and did it again until her skin was pink and raw. She did her hair next and still after two washes felt that it smelled of summer sunshine and spring showers. It was infuriating.

She sank to her knees in the shower, the water cascading over her head as the reality of the situation hit her in the face all over again. A sob escaped her throat. With it came the tears again. Tears that she hated so desperately and couldn’t seem to stop or control. Lorcan had done this. He’d done thisto her.

She would cry now. She would let the tears fall. Embrace the agency that he’d stolen from her. And when she wasdone, she’d figure out what to do about it.

When her tears finally gave way to fury once more, she stepped out of the shower and into a towel. She slicked her dark locks into a messy bun and pulled on comfortable sweats. It was shocking that her face in the mirror could look the same as the day before and yet she felt utterly broken inside. Like Lorcan had carved out a piece of her and paved over it with his bullshit. She hated it. She hated feeling this way. Twenty years she’d been tied up by magic, and after only six months of freedom, she was back to being trapped.

Kierse stepped out of the bedroom and found Graves standing over his small collection of carved bird figurines. “Hey,” she whispered.

He looked up at her. “You look refreshed.”

“I feel hollowed out.”

“I can only imagine,” he said gently. He palmed one of the carvings in his hand.

“What’s with the birds?”

“I started carving them in Ireland when I joined the Druids,” he admitted. “It relaxed me then. It still does.”

“They’re beautiful.”

Graves set a little carved raven down next to a wren. “Can you tell me what happened tonight? Where did I go wrong?”

“You? You got the cauldron and got away. You did nothing wrong.”

“Kierse.”

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