Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
When they passed a trash can on the way back to his limo, she dumped the babka inside. She didn’t want to think at all about where that left her loyalties. Or why her stomach flipped when Graves looked back at her with approval.
She slid into the seat beside him in the limo, and he leaned in close until his mouth was nearly against her ear. Her heart leaped at the nearness. Memories from last night flooded her mind. “You didn’t tell me you like babka.”
She blinked. “You didn’t ask.”
He nodded. “Well, now I know.”
He pulled away as Kingston dropped into the backseat beside them and said cheerfully, “Time to go, Georgie-boy!”
They made it back to the brownstone later that evening. Kingston stretched, hemming and hawing about getting the portal just right.
“Maybe I should do it tomorrow,” Kingston said. “Just to be sure.”
“You’re getting cautious in your old age,” Graves said with an arched eyebrow.
Kingston’s nostrils flared. “I can do it just fine. No need to be belligerent.”
“Of course,” Graves said, but his glance cut to Kierse, and she stifled a smile.
Clearly, he was ready for Kingston to be gone. Urging him along in his own way.
“I won’t wait another year,” he promised Graves. He held out his hand, and they shook.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Graves replied.
Kingston tipped his hat at Kierse. “Good luck with your training.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Then he sketched a doorway of his own making. One second, he was on the sidewalk outside of Graves’s house, and the next, she could see that he was on a different continent. The doorway winked back out of existence behind him.
“That must be the most useful ability ever,” she breathed.
Graves shrugged. “It makes things too convenient.”
“Too convenient?”
“All magic comes with a price. Every power is as much weakness as strength. I have become immune to how humans interact. You will become immune to the dangers of magic. Kingston is immune to consequences.”
“You were certainly ready for him to go,” she said.
“I usually am,” he said with a shrug at the empty space where Kingston had been standing. “I had a thought about Lorcan.”
“That I should stay away from him?”
“Maybe we can use his interest in you to see what he knows about you, the mission, your friends.”
Her smile turned lethal. “I like how your mind works.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he admitted.
High praise from her reticent warlock.
“But we’ll have to discuss it at a later time. Emmaline called while we were at the museum. She found something interesting in your blood.”
Her heart soared. “Really?”
“Yes. And the last thing I wanted was for Kingston to look too closely at you.”
She bristled. “What does that mean?”
“He has a history of killing things that he doesn’t understand and asking questions later.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Now that he’s out of the way, we’re leaving.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kierse followed Graves out of the house. The streets were empty as they navigated down 75th Street toward Amsterdam. Instead of fear, excitement pricked her. This was her favorite time of day.
“We should take witching-hour strolls more often.” She stuffed her hands into the pockets of his jacket, glad that she hadn’t given it back to him.
He quirked an eyebrow. “Witching hour? At least I know you’re reading the assigned books.”
“They’re good,” she admitted. “I love the stories in them.”
“What story are you reading right now?”
She considered what she’d last read. “The gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
A smile cracked his features. “It’s pronounced Tew-ha day dahn-en.”
“Oh. Well, have you ever tried to pronounce Irish words out loud? There are a lot of vowels.”
“Gaelic was my second language,” he said smugly.
“Of course it was,” she said with a pointed eye roll. “Anyway, I like The Morrigan.”
He directed her into an underground parking garage. “I should have known.”
“What woman in a modern world wouldn’t want to have the amount of power The Morrigan had? She was a ruler, a goddess of war, and foretold the future. Granted, it was mostly doom, but still.”
“Indeed.” They took the stairs.
“Plus, she’s depicted as three sisters. I kind of like the idea that one person can also be a trio. Like Gen, Ethan, and I are stronger together.”
“That’s an astute observation. Three is sacred to the Irish—life, death, and rebirth.”
“All the better.”
Two levels down, he patted a slick black car. “Here we are.”
“Why do you have a car in a parking garage when you have your own underground garage?”
“For emergencies.”
She didn’t even question it. Why bother? It was Graves.
He revved the engine, and they were off, zipping out of the garage and through the empty NYC streets. Graves handled himself behind the wheel with the confidence that he did everything else in life.
“Is that all that you got out of the last book?” Graves asked once they were heading toward Queens. “There was a lot more than the gods in there.”