Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“It’s exhausting always fighting you. I want to tell you that you did this to get back to your wife and to get back at Graves and to protect me.” Then she pushed her own feelings aside and met his confused gaze. “But I can sense that those aren’t the only reasons. Not even the main reason.”
“And what do you think the main reason is?” He was guiding her carefully, unsure where the change of heart was coming from. She would have to sell it.
“You had a bond before. You know what it feels like.”
He grasped her shoulders and asked, “What does it feel like to you?”
“Fate,” she mouthed the word more than spoke it. But he read her barely whispered lips, and his eyebrows jumped. Was that too far?
“The bond is fate,” he said. “But I’m surprised to hear you say it.”
“This is a clarity spell, right?” she asked on a harsh laugh as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, things are clearer. What am I supposed to think when I got off at 23rd and you were right there? When I’m half the world away and you can feel that I’m in danger?
When our magic connected in Edinburgh? What other word is there for it? ”
“Fate,” he said finally. The hesitation gone. The hunger apparent in his eyes.
And she wasn’t lying. That was the worst part. It did feel like fate.
Only she absconded from fate.
The bond was open, and she picked at the edges, wanting to take full advantage of Lorcan’s shock at her sudden change of heart. But he wasn’t disoriented enough. She was going to have to dig deeper into that mark.
“I don’t know what to do about it,” she told him truthfully.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Right now. It doesn’t matter.”
She swallowed and nodded. “You’re right.”
He was still looking at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she was real. She had to convince him. She needed her mark to fall so the thief could go to work on the bond. And this distraction was not sufficient.
Whatever it takes.
Then she pushed herself to her toes and kissed him.
For a moment, she thought it wouldn’t work. That he’d call her bluff. But Lorcan was desperate for every scrap she had, and he wouldn’t turn down something like this. She knew he wouldn’t.
He crushed their lips together, and his guard fully dropped.
Her mark had taken the bait, and now it was her turn to go to work. Silly boy. If something looked too good to be true, it usually was.
Except she didn’t anticipate the bond’s reaction.
For a second, she was frozen around the oppressive bond.
Bright and white and illuminating. A fiery inferno that radiated out above their head and blossomed like the sun across the lake and over the brilliant wildflowers.
A golden glow that engulfed this spell-induced fever dream and brightened the entirety of their pocket of the world.
And at the same time the bond was perfect. Utterly perfect. In a way that Kierse would never be able to describe again. This was its purpose. This was what it was made for. A completion like she had never experienced. Forget goblin fruit, this was the most dangerous substance on the planet.
It took all of her control to push aside the bond as she tucked under his defenses. She found the lock with no key where he trapped her magic and controlled what should have been a two-way street.
Kierse was nothing if not a thief.
She didn’t have the key, but she had a mental lock pick. She visualized the lock as if it were a real solid gold structure, just as Graves taught her, and went to work. It took some finagling as the moment of clarity—the bond joining into one piece—weakened the lock.
Then with a final push of energy, the lock clicked. It didn’t open like a deluge ready to flood the world, but like a trickle. She could hold her foot in the doorway to keep it from closing again.
Lorcan’s attention turned to what she was doing. She felt his rage. She felt his betrayal. She laughed in the face of it. Shouldn’t he know her well enough that she always used her thieving tricks?
And now the door was open.
She pushed Lorcan away from her, and the door remained cracked. A touch of her magic trickled into her fingertips. She released the glamour on her ears with a sigh. Her full Fae heritage was visible for him to see. It wasn’t enough. She needed more to break through, but it was a start.
The reality of the con hit Lorcan all at once.
“Kierse,” he said, “what have you done?”
“What I must. I’m going to my enemy’s table tomorrow night, and I’m going as a weapon now instead of this bullshit that you’ve tied me up as.”
“Amberdash’s party? I have an invitation, too. We could have gone together.”
As if that was ever going to happen. The last person she or Graves would want at her back was Lorcan Flynn.
“You’ll be shocked to learn that I don’t trust you.”
“You just kissed me!”
She laughed in his face. “That was a con, Lorcan. You can’t think I would actually want to kiss you?”
His face went pale, but he pushed himself forward. “We’re not enemies. And whatever act you put on, I know it’s not a lie.” He tapped his chest twice. “The bond knows.”
The world softened as the spell came to a close. “Fuck off and die.”
Then Ireland dissolved before her, and she found herself lying on the hard marble of the Williamsburgh Bank building. Magic tingled at her fingertips. Not much more than a trickle compared to what she had when Lorcan opened their magic, but it was enough.
“We’re back in business,” she said to Niamh and Gen with a smile.