Chapter Twenty-Five #2
She flipped the pages before landing on another one.
“I killed so many of them. I have to tell him that what we did was wrong. Their blood is on my hands this time. Not just his. I was the one who could find them even if he was the one who finished them off. I messaged Kingston to tell him that the memories are coming back. He said he would come visit, and we’d sort it out. ”
Graves nodded. “He was there the same day. And her next entry isn’t for months later.”
Kierse found another highlighted part. “I have to hide or he’ll wipe my memory again. But I needed to put it somewhere before I forget again. It’s Kingston.” Kierse fumbled over the next line. “He’s the Fae Killer.”
The words punched through her. She sank into the chair opposite him, the stack of books hiding her from view as she processed those words.
“Graves,” she whispered. She looked up over the stack. “How can this be true?”
“I’ve been considering it for a while,” he admitted, the initial fear having already left him. No wonder he’d been dissociating when she’d walked in.
“We went to his house!” she said, jumping to her feet. “I could have been killed.”
“Why do you think I never wanted to leave you alone with him?”
“Were you testing him?” she demanded.
“No.” Then quieter. “Yes.”
“Graves!”
“But he never gave any hint. He’s never given any hint.
I’ve had hundreds of years to know that he’s every bit as much of a monster as I am,” Graves said.
“But I can live in this imperfect world. He hates that there are things out there that can hurt us, that can kill us. He abhors change. He abhors anything that isn’t a warlock honestly, but I don’t know why he would kill the Fae. Except…”
“Except?”
“He almost died a hundred years ago,” Graves said softly. “By Lorcan’s wife, in fact.”
“What?” Kierse asked.
“He was in his country estate when Saoirse stumbled upon his house and asked for aid because she was wounded. He wrote to me to ask about her. I told him that she was harmless. He wrote again saying that in giving her help, she had absorbed his magic and ran for her life.”
“What did he do to her that made her react that way?”
Graves ran a frustrated hand back through his hair. “I never got the full story from him, but I confronted him after Saoirse’s death.” Graves shook his head. “He’d already heard the news and had a full alibi. He had me set out the ancient rites for her death with him.”
“So he conned you?”
“I wouldn’t think him capable of it if I didn’t have the evidence looking me in the face.” Graves looked stricken at the pile of papers as if his worst fears had materialized. “Kingston is the Fae Killer.”
“Fuck,” Kierse whispered. The horror of it settled over her and at the same moment that she was not the only person who needed this news. “So let’s go.” She turned away from him. “I can sketch a door and we can go kill him right now.”
“He’ll portal away and then he’ll know we’re onto him,” Graves said.
She whipped around. “We’re stronger than him together.”
“He’s a master at portaling even as his lesser power. If he’s threatened, he might be able to use his persuasion on me. We need to think of this very carefully. Kingston isn’t just anyone to fuck with.”
“Then what are we doing? What can we do?”
Graves looked off toward the fireplace. “He’ll be here for the convocation.”
“That’s weeks away!”
“Which gives us time to set a trap. You can’t skip Amberdash’s party anyway. We need to know his plan before the city gets more chaotic, and to do that you need to get the ledger.”
“Fine. I’ll still go to the party, but…” She paused at the tone of his voice. “You have a plan for Kingston?”
“One that’s forming,” he said with a nod. “I hadn’t been able to get past the disbelief, but now…”
“Now we can stop him. We can get my revenge.”
“We’re going to need Walter,” Graves admitted.
She startled at that. “What can Walter do?”
“If I’m right, and I usually am,” he said with no hubris, “he might be able to use his force fields to stop Kingston from portaling.”
Kierse’s eyes rounded. “Holy shit. You think he’s capable of that?”
“Maybe.”
“Does that terrify you?”
Graves shrugged. “A little. Going to keep him on my side this time.” She laughed, but he continued, “You’re going to have to use your portals to help him train.”
“I’ll do it.” She hesitated before asking, “How are you handling this?”
Graves clenched his jaw. “Fine.”
She tilted her head. “It’s Kingston.”
He released a breath and met her eyes. “What else can I do?” His words became more archaic as he talked himself into killing his oldest friend.
“He killed the Fae, thus he has earned his death a thousand times over. It does not matter who or what he ever was to me if he had destroyed the population of people who did no harm to him. My own feelings matter not in that scenario. And if I didn’t kill him, could you even look at me? ”
“I’ll do the killing,” she said.
He released a long breath. “I would prefer that.”
Which was quite an admission from a man who had never shied away from death.
“Graves,” she said. “I’m going to invite Bram. He deserves to be there, too.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” he said as he dropped his head forward.
When he looked back up at Kierse, he was tortured.
When he finally spoke, it was with a century of regret.
“I should have stopped him. A hundred years ago, I should have stopped him, and then the Fae wouldn’t be gone.
You wouldn’t be the last will-o’-the-wisp in existence. ”
Kierse stepped around the books and came back to his side, sliding her hands around his middle. “Place the blame at his feet, not yours.”
Eventually, he dropped his arms around her waist and his head to her shoulder. “He’s earned his death.”
“He has, and we’ll do it how we’ve done everything else,” she told him. “Together.”