Page 51 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Don’t move,” Niamh insisted.

“What happened?” she groaned.

“You got a knife to the ribs. I’m currently healing you.”

“How?”

Niamh winked at her. “High Priestess, remember?”

“Oh,” she said as the groggy memory returned to her. She wasn’t in her apartment back in Dublin. Niamh hadn’t come to check on her. She was in the goblin market. And it had almost taken her life.

She winced at the pain in her side, but it was already much better than it had been. If Niamh hadn’t been here, would she have died?

Then she remembered the sound of Graves’s voice when he’d seen her injury. No. No, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have left her for dead. He would have found a way.

“You’re awake,” Graves said as he entered the bare room. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone tried to kill me.”

“All in a day’s work.”

She blew out a harsh breath. “Going to try to not die anymore for a while.”

“That would be satisfactory.”

“What happened while I was out?”

“We’re at Vale’s…apartment,” Graves said, looking around at the four walls as if they offended him.

“He saved me.”

Graves nodded. His expression was carefully blank. Was he beating himself up because he’d let her get hurt? Or because he’d almost lost his prized thief?

“Does he have the information we need to find Rio?”

“Maybe we should end this fool’s errand.”

She glared at him. “I made it this far.”

“You almost died,” he snapped back. His calm evaporating for a moment. “Is your memory worth all of this?”

She’d asked herself the same question. Wondered if all of it was worth dying for. And no, she didn’t want to die.

“Aren’t you at all curious what happened to me?” she asked instead.

Niamh glanced back at Graves, then eyed Kierse consideringly. “Who do you know who can take memories?”

Graves’s gaze hardened. “It was the spell, which is nothing like my magic. It’s more likely a Druid.”

“You don’t know that!” Niamh fought back.

Kierse winced. “Can we bring the volume down on all of this? I still have internal bleeding. I don’t know who did this or why, and I need to know, okay? I don’t want to die for it. I just need answers.”

Graves sighed. “We’ll move out when Niamh gives you a clean bill of health.” He disappeared from the room, and Kierse knocked her head back against the pallet.

“He’s infuriating,” she muttered.

“Tell me about it. I’ve known him for like five hundred years, and he’salwaysbeen like this.”

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