Page 95 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“In theory, what we’re trying to do is the opposite of that. Drawing magic out is one half of the equation andnotabsorbing at all is the other side.”

“Is it the opposite?” she asked, scrunching her nose. “Is absorbing the opposite of turning the powers off?”

“Think of active absorption like turning your powerson. Right now, they’re on standby. When you drew the magic from Ethan, they were on. We need to recreate that. Once you can pull energy, then we’ll think of shutting itoffinstead of letting it slide back into standby.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly. She’d been in deep, desperate shit when she’d done that for Ethan. She hoped that she could do it again here.

“One step at a time,” he encouraged. “I am going to use my magic to try to read your thoughts and just feel the absorption that stops me from doing it.”

Graves touched a bare hand to her wrist. She concentrated on his hand against her skin. When they had first attempted anything like this, she hadn’t even been able to see or sense the magic, but now it came to her easily.

The soft gold of his magic swam into her vision. Just the lightest touch against her skin and she could smell the leather and books and feel his internal heat, the inferno that was always raging from his constant magic use. When she focused even harder, she could see the golden glow flow away from her, out into the library, out the door, out into the world. It was everywhere. His magic was everywhere.

“Focus,” he said gently. “Just here, Wren.”

She swallowed and reined it all back in. She could do this.

The magic was part of her. She could control it if she wanted. That was what she had been doing with her slow motion her entire life. She could walk in and out of that likebreathing. This was the same, just a different ability.

Her own magic rose to the surface as she felt around for her absorption and the space where it was drawing in Graves’s magic.

“Good,” he said. “Whatever you’re working on, I can see it.”

She narrowed her eyes. There was a key turn here. When she went into slow motion, she pushed forward into it like flipping a switch. She needed to find the switch here.

She grappled with it like reaching for slippery soap until she felt her absorption magic settle over her. She gasped. It covered her entire body, like a blanket across her senses. It hugged her tightly, skin to skin, until there was no place where she started and it ended.

With reaching tendrils of magic, she tried to extend that blanket outward. Her hands shook as she fought with herself to stretch her power as easily as she slipped into slow motion, but she couldn’t do it. This felt like it was glued to her skin.

“Wren,” he murmured, his eyes warm on hers. “Steady. Just drag in a little bit. Don’t reach out with your entire body. Just where I’m touching you.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice trembling.

She focused on his hand. His magic. A tiny trickle in a giant river. All she needed to do was drag the river toward her. Just an inch.

She tugged and there it was. Graves’s magic open and waiting for her. Not a trickle—atorrent. A giant, unwavering, magnificent tidal wave of power. She could see past the stream he was offering her to the intense flood within him. So much magic it was blinding. He went fromher dark winter god to a diaphanous sheen of golden light. Magic beyond measure.

Except…something was missing.

She didn’t know how she knew, only that there was a piece of that overwhelming abundance that felt…injured. As if someone had cut a piece out of it and it had never grown back. Which felt impossible. All magic could be rechargeable.

“Enough,” Graves grunted.

The connection abruptly severed. Kierse’s absorption switched back into neutral. The light suffusing his body disappeared. She felt suddenly bereft.

“I…”

“That was more than sufficient,” Graves said, rubbing his hands together.

“Did I take too much?”

“No. You didn’t take anything,” he said. “You…” For a moment, he said nothing. But he was looking at her with something like concern in his features. “You touched my magic.”

“Was that bad?”

“It was…invasive.”

“A taste of your own medicine?” she quipped.

---