Chapter Thirteen
“There is a door in the tree.”
“Yeah, the day that you learned portaling, a door appeared in the middle of the tree’s trunk,” Ethan said.
“The Ash Door,” Kierse said as if she had always known its name.
Ethan shivered. “Yes. The Ash Door.”
“We both came running when we felt the connection and watched it appear like it was being painted onto the tree,” Gen said.
Niamh crossed her arms and looked on, pensive. “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening in all my years.”
“But none of the other wisps were directly connected to a sacred tree, were they?” Ethan said.
“No.”
Kierse shook her head. This made no sense. She stepped forward and touched the handle. A sense of rightness fell over her body. As if this was the entire reason she had been made in the first place. As if everything else would just disappear the moment she opened the door.
“Can you open it?” Kierse asked.
“No luck,” Gen said. “Ethan couldn’t manipulate it open, either.”
Kierse should be able to. It was right there. It was her door. She painted it into existence with her magic. She twisted the handle, pulled the door, grunted, and pushed it.
It didn’t budge.
But it didn’t disappear into smoke like the ones she tried to make with Kingston.
She dropped her hand. “Well, that sucks.”
Gen blew out a hard breath.
“Maybe I have to train my portaling?” Kierse suggested. “If I can’t open my portal doors, maybe this one won’t open, either.”
“We can do that,” Niamh said. “I don’t have the best experience with portaling, but we could try it.”
“Yeah. Come hang out in Brooklyn more,” Ethan said, slapping her on the back.
“You know who has experience with portaling,” Niamh muttered.
Kierse narrowed her eyes. “I’m not talking to him.”
“Lorcan?” Gen guessed. “Your aura is all black when you mention him.”
Kierse sighed. “Yeah. He’s been in my head, and the bond is…” She trailed off and pressed her chest. “Annoying.”
“Should I get my cards out?”
“No. No cards,” Kierse insisted. Tarot was Gen’s specialty, but Kierse wasn’t sure she wanted to know her future right now. “They almost always make me do things I don’t like.”
Ethan snorted. “Isn’t that right.”
“I’ll keep working on it,” Kierse said. “We have enough to figure out anyway. The stone is still missing. The Fae Killer is still out there somewhere. The convocation is coming up fast. Did you see the trolls are openly advertising the Men of Valor now?”
“Yeah, that started this weekend,” Niamh said. “We’re looking into it.”
Kierse nodded, but she couldn’t help but feel like they were two steps behind whatever Amberdash was planning. She wanted to stomp up to his tower and demand answers. Before he’d been the leader of the Men of Valor, he’d been someone she trusted, after all. Well, almost.
He was clearly even worse than a monstrous wraith who literally fed on human souls.
“Okay. I have to get going,” Gen said.
“Going?” Kierse asked. “I thought we’d hang.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t text back. I make plans.”
“She has a date,” Ethan cooed.
Niamh’s face went purposefully blank. She could give Graves a run for his money with that expression.
“With Ronan?” Kierse gushed.
“Yeah. We went out this weekend, too,” Gen said, her cheeks turning the color of her hair.
Kierse loved that Gen was making things more official with the new Dreadlords’ werewolf alpha. “I need all the details. Actually, if you’re going to Five Points, I’ll check in on Maura.”
Nate’s wife had discovered that she was pregnant only weeks after his death. The news had been wonderful and devastating after everything they had done to help her break the incubus curse from her youth. Only for her to end up with a child and no Nate.
“I’ll get Corey to meet us, too,” Ethan said, pulling out his phone to text his boyfriend.
“You three have fun,” Niamh said.
“You could come with us,” Kierse offered.
“I’m running headquarters. Too much to do.”
She said it like she meant it, but her eyes were on Gen, and the tension between them was palpable. Kierse wanted to tell her to make her move, but Niamh had been hurt when Saoirse died. It was clear that she may not be ready or ever ready to move on from that.
They said their goodbyes to Niamh, and Kierse went with them to get dressed.
Gen came out in a floor-length, flowy dress that she’d gotten from a boutique in Soho while shopping with some of the other High Priestesses.
Kierse was simultaneously happy for Gen having new friends and jealous that they existed.
“So…Lorcan?” Gen asked as they headed to the subway station where they were meeting Ethan.
“Showed up when we were getting the stone. Just sitting in the vault room waiting for me,” Kierse said. “And he was all in my head and shit.”
“You didn’t feel him there?”
Kierse shrugged. “I did, I guess. I was trying to ignore the feeling and thought it was a ghost, which by the way I saw an actual ghost. Terrifying.”
Gen shot her a look that said, You can’t change the subject on me. “So you’re doing pretty well keeping him out, then?”
Kierse hesitated. What was pretty well when he could slice through her defenses?
“Or not?” Gen said through her silence. “What’s going on?”
“Well, shit changed.” She explained about how Lorcan had given her magic back, how incredible it had felt, how the three of them had worked so well together, and how she’d killed Archie, but how Lorcan had then shut her powers back down.
“So now you’re conflicted?”
“No, I’m madder than ever at him,” she said. “He gave it back just to take it all away. Like dangling a carrot. And now he’s getting bolder.”
“Bolder how?”
Kierse hung her head. “Graves and I were kissing when we got back, and Lorcan got in my head.”
“What did Graves have to say about that?”
Kierse went silent again. Because right, she hadn’t told Graves. She didn’t want to have to tell Graves about it.
“Kierse,” Gen said on a sigh. “Tell me that you’re talking to Graves about this.”
“Not…exactly.”
“Look, I’ve done a lot of reading on the bonds since it happened. I know you want it to go away, but without the stone, that doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. You’re going to have to face this.”
“And do what?” Kierse asked. “I don’t want it, Gen. I want my magic back. I want Lorcan Flynn dead. How do I work past that?”
“I think you start by telling your boyfriend how you’re feeling.”
Kierse ground her teeth. “It’s not that he doesn’t know. He knows exactly what’s happening.”
“Maybe he does. He’s Graves, after all. But maybe you wouldn’t feel this bad if you two were communicating.”
“We’re not not communicating,” Kierse said.
“I can’t bring my absorption down, but I know what he’s thinking.
And then the one time I did have my powers down, it hurt him.
What he saw hurt him.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I don’t want to do that again. I can’t control the bond. I want to focus on getting rid of it.”
Before Gen could respond, Ethan appeared on the subway platform. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Kierse said before Gen could explain.
“Are you ready for sushi?” Ethan asked, oblivious to their discomfort. “The new place in Hell’s Kitchen sounds incredible.”
Gen and Ethan chatted about the new sushi restaurant they were going to on a double date while they took the subway to Chelsea to visit their respective beaus.
She padded around behind them, visiting with Maura, until jet lag hit her like a freight train.
It was the middle of the night somewhere in the UK.
And though it was only early evening in the city, she was ready to crawl into bed and not move for a few hours.
Kierse stepped into the brownstone and shed her jacket as she headed up the stairs, listening for Graves somewhere in the house.
She suspected the library, but when she peeked her head in, she only found Walter, typing away on his computer.
She slunk out before he noticed her and found a light on under Graves’s office door.
When she popped open the door, he sat near a mountain of books.
A laptop was propped open to his right, and he stared at it absentmindedly with his thumb holding a page open and a pen between his teeth.
The gloves were discarded on top of the tallest pile.
His button-up was rolled up to reveal his holly vines tattoo, the top two buttons undone at the neck.
His dark hair hung like a curtain in front of his eyes as he bent his head over the laptop.
“Hey,” she said.
His head swiveled to the side, his hair swinging out of his eyes as he took the pen from his mouth. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”
“It’s late, and I’m still on London time. Are you not jet-lagged?”
“I’ve been reading all day.”
So no. He was fully recharged. Kierse should have found a spot to pickpocket, but her head was still in the clouds.
“No stealing for me today.”
“Unusual.” He leaned back in his chair, and her eyes dipped to the exposed skin at his throat. How she wanted to forget the rest of the world and run her tongue along every inch of exposed skin.
Her eyes darted back up. “Just checked in with everyone. Maura’s morning sickness is unabated.”
“Mmm,” he said, sliding the pen into the book. “That happens.”
“Yeah. Ethan and Corey are double dating with Gen and Ronan. Apparently, there’s a new place in Hell’s Kitchen for sushi.”
“That should be interesting.”
Kierse shrugged, leaving her friends to their own relationship issues. “There was a development at the triskel tree. A door appeared in the center.”
He reared backward.
“An Ash Door. Do you know anything about that?”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He looked frustrated as he made a note in his open legal pad. As if it was one more thing to add to his studies.
“Do you think it was because I was opening portal doors?”
He pursed his lips. “Perhaps. I’ll look into it.”
“You seem pretty busy.” She tipped her chin at the pile of books. “What’s all this?”
“Research.”