Page 247 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

Kierse only had a moment before a rush of energy hit her like a freight train. She screamed as it filled her from top to bottom. Her hands remained glued to the cauldron. She couldn’t have let go if she tried. Her body convulsed, and she thought that she was going to be broken in two at theforce of the working.

This wasn’t healing. This was breaking. Deconstructing. Reshaping. This was tearing her down to her bones and rebuilding her from scraps.

Desolation.

Anguish.

Ruin.

She was going to die from the contact. There was no other way around it. Her body could not hold up to whatever was happening. Her insides were scooped out with a spoon. Her body raw and tender and reeling from the onslaught. Like she might at any moment unravel into thread on the floor. Except it wouldn’t let her. It wouldn’t let her go.

She couldn’t hear her friends. She didn’t know if they were trying to stop what was happening or trying to pry her hands free. If Graves was regretting his decision. If all of them were terrified for her.

All she could do was scream until she thought her vocal cords would shatter and hope for survival. Hope to come out on the other side. Hope against hope.

Then it was over. Just as quickly as it had started.

She dropped the cauldron, and it rattled noisily on the floor. Kierse sank to her knees against the plush Persian rug. Her hands dug into the carpet as she trembled uncontrollably.

“Kierse,” Gen gasped, falling before her with Ethan immediately at her side. “Are you okay?”

Graves was there, pulling her into him, cradling her against his firm body. “Wren?”

She clung to Graves like he was a lifeline. Like he might pull her back from the abyss, past the point of being broken.It took several long minutes before her body solidified into a semblance of a person. Her parts all fit together again. Only her nerves tingled like she’d been electrocuted.

“What happened?” Graves asked.

She tumbled out of his arms and rose unsteadily to her feet. “I don’t know.”

“Did the cauldron break the binding?” Ethan asked hopefully.

Her hand went to her chest. It was still there. Humming. Lorcan just over the bridge.

“No,” she said regretfully.

“Oh, Kierse, I’m sorry,” Gen said.

Ethan looked confused. “What did it do instead?”

She held her hand out. She didn’t feel different. Except that she had been scooped out like ice cream, beat to within an inch of her life, and then set on a cone for consumption.

“Magic,” Graves said.

She frowned at that statement—and then it rushed her fingertips. The scent of Irish wildflowers. The gold-blue glow all around her. The touch of magic that lingered in her veins. She reached down deep and found her empty well was now…full again. The same as it had always been.

She laughed in wonder and reached for her glamour. The easiest spell she had to cover her ears. It fizzed and fizzled and then did nothing. Dissolving into thin air. She tried her slow motion. Nothing. She switched her absorption off. Nothing. She conjured the ability to phase. Nothing.

“I don’t understand. It isn’t working.”

“It could just take time to get used to it,” Ethan added.

Gen frowned. “Maybe it’s different with the new powers.”

Graves tilted his head. “What exactly did the cauldron say to you?”

“It couldn’t break the binding, because it had been done properly. Even if it was done to me. It said that there was another way. I…told it that I didn’t want to give up my humanity. It agreed and then said this might hurt,” she told them. “Then I guess it gave me magic I can’t access?”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Graves said. “It’s a loophole. You’re a wisp, but you only have half the powers of a full-blooded Fae, and those powers are bound. Which means that to the cauldron, your magic was empty.”

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