Page 94 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

His eyes flashed when he looked at her. “I’m more powerful in the library.”

Mmm. As if that was all it was.

She took a seat. He dragged a chair over before her, and her body trembled. She was nervous. She hadeveryreason to be nervous. Graves, no matter how much she was attempting to put her trust in him, could destroy her mind. She was certain of that. It was what he was good at. If she let him in, he could hurt her…like he had before. But she couldn’t afford Nying Market every time she needed information. Graves was right here.

“Your absorption is a problem,” he said flatly. All business.

Good. Business made sense.

“It serves me well.”

“Generally, people have to learn to keep others out of their heads. There’s an entire discipline devoted to strengthening the mind to deflect anyone seeking to get their claws in.”

“To stop you, you mean.”

Graves shrugged. “They’re not usually good enough for that, but sure.”

“Modest.”

“It doesn’t suit me.” He passed her a book. “If you want to work on mental fortification, then this would be of use to you. In the event that your absorption fails you, you want to make sure you still have teeth.”

She cradled the book in her hands uncertainly. He was giving her information to deflect againsthim? That was…strange.

He must have read that in her eyes. “We’re building trust,” he reminded her. “I’d be remiss not to teach you self-defense.”

“Right,” she agreed.

“So training today will focus on lowering your absorption. And if I can get you to do that, then we can look for your memories.” He tapped the book. “If not, I’ll start you reading the theoretical side of that mental work, and we can work on mental fortitude. There are some easy exercises that you should start doing on your own either way.”

Kierse leafed through the book. “More homework.”

“You thought you’d escape it?”

She laughed. “With knowledge incarnate before me? Not really.”

“Seems you did plenty of research back in Dublin. Youshould be used to it.” He reached for another book and tipped it open. “As far as tackling your absorption, I needed a different plan.”

“Have wisps ever done this kind of work before?”

Graves glanced up at her thoughtfully. “Most wisps wouldn’t let me close enough to find out.”

Kierse laughed. “Yeah, I bet not. That has something to do with me being able to kill you?”

“Something like that.”

“And how do I do that exactly?”

Graves grinned, all teeth. “Another lesson, perhaps.”

“Oh, how I look forward to it.” She set the book aside. “You did call me the source of your destruction.”

“And I meant it literally, in every sense of the word,” he said, his voice pitched low. Suddenly, they were talking about something else entirely. She flushed, and his smile only grew. “Lay back.”

Kierse did as instructed. The chaise was a soft, midnight-blue velvet with enough cushion to cocoon Kierse’s body. She swallowed and waited for more instruction.

“Absorption, as you’re currently using it, is passive. Just in the way we believed that immunity was. But absorptioncanbe active. I’ve seen wisps siphon magic, store it, and redirect it. You aren’t a warlock, but you still follow the rules of magic. You can recharge as I can, but you can also be charged through your absorption. Just as you burn it off when going into your slow motion.”

So far all of that made sense. “I need to make it active. Like when I pulled the wish powder magic out of Ethan?”

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