Chapter Eleven
Kierse grasped the doorknob to Graves’s brownstone and pushed through his wards before he could even pull them down, using the full momentum of Kingston’s portal to roll into the foyer. She crashed into the bottom of the stairs with a groan.
A voice cleared, and she opened her eyes to see Edgar, Graves’s butler, standing over her. “Welcome home.”
She rubbed her head and came to a seat on the stairs. “Glad to be back.”
They’d left the evening gloom in London for a sunny New York City afternoon in one step. Kingston was not lying when he said that was the way to travel.
Meanwhile, Graves stepped through the front door like getting off an airplane. No tension propelled him through like a freight train. He smirked at where she rested on the floor and offered their coats to Edgar.
“Was your trip pleasant, sir?” Edgar asked. “Walter and George returned a few days earlier without you and said not to worry about your trip. I chided them for not flying into London to accompany you anyway.”
“I told them to go home. I’ve known Kingston long enough to know that he wouldn’t let us fly home,” Graves called from the downstairs study. He appeared a minute later with a stack of very old books that he held against him like his most prized possessions.
“Walter is upstairs in his room. He said that he was working on the assignment you left him about his force fields.” Edgar looked at him blankly. “Should I tell him you’re home?”
“Do that. I’ll check in on him later.”
“Very good, sir. Is there anything else you require?” he asked.
“Have Isolde send up some tea and scones. I like hers better than what we had in the city.”
Kierse’s hand went to her chest, and she rubbed the center of it where it connected her to Lorcan. She could sense him in the city, somewhere in Lower Manhattan.
A part of her ached to walk down the street and keep walking until she was there. The other part tried to force down that feeling with everything she had in her.
The best part about London? Lorcan had been on the other side of an ocean. She’d forgotten how oppressive the bond was when she had a reprieve from him.
Now she could almost sense Lorcan noticing her. As if he felt the bond snap tighter. It was like altitude sickness. It wasn’t so bad when you drove up the mountain, but flying into it made it come on all at once.
When Graves had helped her regain her memories, he taught her how to keep someone out of her head as much as she let him in. For her, she’d envisioned a place where she was learning to open vaults. It helped now when dealing with Lorcan.
“Are you going to stay down there all day?” Graves asked, his expression flat. He held his hand out to her.
She dropped her hand from her chest, but it was there all the same. The unsaid thing between them lingered. They’d gotten good at tiptoeing around the obvious.
“Not all day.” Kierse let him haul her to her feet. “The tea was very good in London.”
“It always is. But I poached Isolde for a reason. Why go to London when I can have the best of London right here?”
“Fair.”
She followed him up the stairs, pushing Lorcan farther out of her head.
When they reached the second-floor landing, her heart stuttered at the sight of the entrance to the Holly Library.
The massive double doors with the ancient language carved into the frame of Graves’s warlock symbol, holly, reinforced the magic of his wards.
A plaque at the top read The Holly Library, and when she pushed through the doors after Graves, the sight was even more beautiful.
The library was full to bursting with thousands upon thousands of books.
Holly vines choked the stacks. A skylight far overhead revealed the afternoon sun.
A black cat curled up in a new blue velvet couch that had mysteriously appeared one day to replace the chaise Kierse had been using for her memory lessons since they were on an indefinite hiatus.
Isolde rushed up behind her with a teapot and freshly baked scones on a tray. “So glad you’re back.” She patted her back. “I heard you went to London.”
Kierse took a scone with relish. “We did. No worries. Your food is still the best.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried,” Isolde said with a laugh. She hugged Kierse around the middle. “Just glad to have you back is all. Too quiet without you especially when the others are all gone.”
“We’re here to stay,” Graves said, appearing out of the stacks with more volumes in hand.
“Excellent. Let me know if you need anything else,” Isolde said before hustling back out of the room.
Kierse took a bite of her scone and then offered Anne Boleyn, a tempestuous fixture of the library, her hand. “Hello, Anne.”
The cat swatted at her, hissing, and jumped down to circle Graves’s feet. The cat had clearly chosen him and not the other way around.
“He’s a bird, too,” Kierse accused. “He told me himself that he’s a raven.”
Graves managed a small smile. “She adores you.”
“She has a funny way of showing it.”
He pulled from his pile and headed into the stacks. “That’s how she shows it.”
“Her and her owner are so similar,” Kierse teased.
“Are you saying that I am tempestuous?”
“That you adore me and have a funny way of showing it?”
Graves moved out of the stacks with a question on his lips. “Should I show you?” He lifted her around the middle and set her on the table. “I can spend a very, very long time showing you.”
Their lips met, and she tried to push all her need into that one motion. Just her and Graves against the world. It would be enough.
“Welcome home, songbird,” echoed in her mind as the kiss turned heated.
Kierse ripped backward from Graves and half scrambled across the table. His eyes were round with alarm. Her hand went instinctively to her chest and the bond and the reality of Lorcan in her head. Was that…was that real? Had she made it up?
“Stay out of my head!” she yelled back into the aether.
No answer came back. What was happening?
“Wren?” Graves asked slowly, hands up as if he were approaching a wild animal.
“Sorry. I…I don’t know what happened.”
She did. She did know.
The way he tilted his head said he knew what was going on, too. That he’d recognized the problem the moment they landed back in New York and she rubbed at her chest. Lorcan was close again. The bond was close again.
“It’s been a long few days,” Graves said finally. “You need to rest. Maybe take a long shower.”
“Yeah,” she said, jumping to her feet and feeling like her body had been shot through with electricity. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. I don’t know if I can nap, though. I might go see Gen and Ethan.”
“All right,” he said slowly.
He waited as if expecting her to say more. To admit what had just happened with Lorcan. But she didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t even want it to be real.
“I’ll be back later,” she said, shuffling toward the library doors. She glanced over her shoulder once to find he still watched her with those all-knowing eyes.
She ducked her chin and left the library and Graves behind.
Kierse ran her hands down her face. What was she going to do about this? She loved Graves, and she couldn’t keep tiptoeing around the problems they were having. But she couldn’t end them, either. They didn’t have the stone. They couldn’t break the bond.
But maybe there was another way.
She’d fought too hard for Graves to let anything get in the way now. All she knew was that she couldn’t let Lorcan win.