Page 42 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“You thought I’d let you have all the fun?” She twirled in place in her houndstooth mini skirt, black tank, and platform heels that brought her eye to eye with Graves. Her burgundy hair flew out like a fan around the shoulders of her faux-fur coat. “A girl can enjoy the market even when there’s nothing to buy.”

“You’re eating goblin fruit now?”

“Snagged a coin from HQ,” she said with a wink at Kierse.

“You just have coins hanging around?” Kierse asked in exasperation.

“I wouldn’t say they were lying around, but a girl knows where to look.”

Graves released a low breath. “Druids.”

Niamh linked her arm with Kierse. “We’ll be so inconspicuous.”

Kierse couldn’t help but laugh. It was hard to dislike Niamh. Though Graves was doing a good job of it.

The trio filed into the back of the line. Two goblins were moving down the line, selling the fruit to each person. In front of them, a teen girl with sallow skin and clothes barely hanging on her thin frame took a little reddish-purple fruit in her hands and immediately bit into the meat. The juice ran down her chin, but her face showed only a look of pure ecstasy.

Graves stood stone-faced, and Niamh could barely contain her disgust, but Kierse felt nothing but pity. She had seen the same thing on the streets during the Monster War.Jason always kicked out any of his thieves in the guild who got addicted. There was no point. Even if there were a cure, no one wanted it.

Luckily, publicly distributing the fruit was made illegal, and most of the crops were destroyed after the Monster Treaty was signed in the city. Goblins raged about the hypocrisy since humans could still be blood donors to vampires and soul patrons to wraiths and the like. But people could survive that; humans didn’t survive goblin fruit.

They stepped forward as the girl headed through the gate, munching on her fruit. The goblin at the entrance was roughly Kierse’s height with a humanoid appearance save for the greige tint to his skin, long, wide, pointed ears, and deep, inset forehead around unnaturally large eyes.

“Fruit?” he asked, gesturing to a carton filled with the reddish purple fruit. They almost looked like plums the size of apples, with the skin of a peach.

“No,” Graves growled.

“Pass,” Niamh agreed.

“Hello again. Remember me?” Kierse said.

The goblin glanced at Kierse and then revealed a row of razor-sharp incisors. “Ah, little girl, did you bring me my bracelet?” He laughed uproariously and elbowed another goblin at his side.

Kierse tugged the bracelet out of the small bag and twirled it before him.

The goblin’s jaw dropped open in shock. “Blessed ore.”

The other goblin punched him in the arm. “Fucking hell, Fraan, is that what I think it is?”

“It is,” Fraan said, slack jawed.

“Where’d you get that?” the second goblin demanded.

“Off a queen,” Kierse told him. “And it’s the price you claimed I needed to pay to get a coin inside.”

“It was a joke, Chots,” Fraan said. He pushed the other goblin away and held his grubby hand out. His nails were nearly black and razor sharp. “I’ll take that off your hands.”

“Rio is going to want to see that,” Chots said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Fraan said, shoving him away irritably. Chots clamped his mouth shut.

Nying Market translated to “gift market,” and the motto over the entrance readA gift for a gift.And while there was always a cost to get in the market, they made it obscenely high because they wanted more people to get addicted to the goblin fruit. So she was unsurprised that they were trying to dick her around when she could easily become another cog in their machine.

“We can all agree that’snota fair price,” Graves argued.

“This is clearly worth more than the price of entrance,” Kierse agreed.

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Fraan snarled. “We agreed. Fair and square.”

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