Page 33 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Prophet Genesis,” Graves said with a bow. “Always a pleasure.”

Gen blushed. “I haven’t heard that name in quite a while.”

“It’s a tragedy not to use a talent such as yours.”

Gen had always had a piece of magic buried within her. Just a touch of sight that allowed her to read tarot for truth. Not all the time, but when the cards spoke to her. It turned out that her touch of sight had been a blossom waiting to flower—a flower that meant she was actually a High Priestess.

“I have been cultivating other gifts.” Gen glanced at Kierse. “Though I am surprised to see you here. In our apartment. In Dublin.”

“It’s a long story,” Kierse said with an eye roll. “Graves, tell her about how you engineered our meeting so that I could help you steal the cauldron.”

Gen squeaked. “What?”

“I’m going to go change.” Kierse headed into her bedroom.

“I assure you she was safe the entire time,” she heard Graves say from the other room.

Kierse snorted. “Except for the period I was alone with a master warlock who snapped my magic like a twig,” she yelled back.

“What?” Gen asked in increasing distress.

Graves’s extended sigh was oh so satisfying.

Chapter Eleven

“I’m just going to…” Gentrailed off, and then Kierse heard her scurrying footsteps. “Kierse, Graves is in ourflat.”

“I know. I know.”

“What is he doing here?”

Kierse kicked the bedroom door closed. It probably wasn’t enough to keep Graves from listening in if he wanted to, but he might take the hint and afford them some privacy. She knew how important it was tohim.

“Scheming,” Kierse said. She stripped out of her travel clothes, tossing them into an empty hamper.

“Are you involved in his schemes again?”

“Against my will,” Kierse assured her as she tugged on black leggings. “I was stealing the bracelet and he justhappenedto be there.”

“So he was stalking you.”

“What else is new?” She threw on a fitted black crop top and reached for her new favorite red jacket.

“I really didn’t think he would leave us alone all this time.”

“I don’t think he has. At the very least, he’s been spying on us,” Kierse said as she slid her arms into the cozy material.

Fully clothed, she reached for her most treasured possession—a wren necklace. She stroked a finger overthe bird at the center of the silver emblem. It was the only thing that she had left from her parents. And it was the first sign that had made Graves hire her for that job last winter. Wrens and the Holly King were connected. She’d been his little power booster until the winter solstice. While she may have been the one to walk away from him, she could still hear him saying how poetic it was to fall for the source of his own destruction.

She shivered at the words and then looped the necklace around her neck, where it belonged.

“Well, I can’t imagine him letting you walk away. Not after…” Gen trailed off again.

Kierse wasn’t sure how Gen would have ended that sentence, but maybe she didn’t want to know, either.

“Did you sleep together?” Gen asked.

Kierse shot her a look. She never could get anything past her friend. She had beenthisclose to doing just that. “Not yet.”

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