Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Her phone pinged. She pulled it out to see a text from Gen. She still wasn’t exactly used to getting to message her friend whenever she wanted. Technology had been so expensive and difficult to get your hands on after the war, and having money was still new.
Gen: Are you still going to see Ethan?
Kierse groaned. Or maybe she’d been spending all day avoiding this. She had to go back to Brooklyn.
Kierse: Yeah. Do you want me to pick you up?
Gen: I have to work with Walter until I figure this out. Will you tell him I’m sorry? I really wanted to go to see him after graduation…or whatever the Druids are calling it.
Kierse shot back a text agreeing to tell him and then skipped through the park to the nearest subway station at 72nd Street. She descended into the depths, wondering if she should try stealing from the resident troll, when she nearly skidded to a halt.
There was no troll.
In fact, there was nothing standing in the atrium between the stairs and the turnstiles. She re-pocketed the cash she’d already reached for on instinct. She cast her eyes around the whole area as if the troll was going to jump out at her. But there was none.
It was so disorienting she almost missed the symbol spray painted in gold on the floor where the troll typically sat. It was an arrow shot through wings. Kierse’s stomach curdled.
Men of Valor.
She’d already known they weren’t gone, but she didn’t know what it meant that they had put their logo over the place where a troll had sat. She snapped a picture of it and sent a text separately to Graves and to Nate with the caption, Trouble.
Nate: Fuck
She hopped on the B train toward downtown, switching to the M at Washington Square Park before she heard back from Graves.
Graves: I’m on it.
She didn’t know what that meant.
But she’d known the city felt too quiet. The truce too perfect. After what happened this winter, she had been expecting bedlam. Not this cookie-cutter shit. As the heat of the city intensified, she felt the meddling underbelly boiling and ready to burst.
Kierse was well acquainted with the Broadway stop in Brooklyn now. And how her chest started to tighten the closer she got to Druid territory. Except today…Lorcan wasn’t here.
She had never walked into Brooklyn and not immediately known where Lorcan was. It was disconcerting. And considering the Druid acolytes had graduated today, she would have thought he’d be around…congratulating them. Or something.
So she actually felt light—and weirdly empty—as she walked down the street. None of the Druid patrols even blinked at her. She even bypassed Declan giving orders. He glared at her but said nothing. She walked right into headquarters and found Ethan in his room.
“You came,” he said with a laugh.
“Of course.”
He looked behind her. “Where’s Gen?”
“She told me to tell you that she’s sorry, but she got caught up.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointment etched into his features.
She laughed. “Well, at least basic training didn’t remove your heart from your sleeve.”
He wrinkled his nose at her and grabbed a hat, slinging it on backward. “Doesn’t look like you’ve added one to yours.”
“Doesn’t sound useful,” she teased.
“Jerk.”
“Hey, you’re the one who stole all my magic and knocked me out.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know you didn’t,” she said, falling into step with him.
He pulled the door closed and tipped his head to the side. “Come with me.”
There was still distance between the two of them. She wasn’t sure if there always would be from now on. They weren’t holed up in the attic anymore, completely reliant on one another. But at least they were trying. It was better than when she’d first come home and they’d argued. She’d do anything to erase that.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said with a smirk and barreled down the hallway.
Kierse recognized the same route she had first taken with Lorcan when she’d returned. Down a set of stairs and into the long hallway that bypassed his underground vault. Kierse paused at the sight of the thing.
“Think I can get inside?” Kierse asked, her fingers itching.
Ethan grabbed her hand. “Let’s not find out.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t particularly want all of the Druidic Order coming down on us.”
Kierse mock-gasped. “You think so little of me?”
“No. I think so highly of them.”
She laughed. “The brainwashing is intense.”
“Pot meet kettle,” he said, pulling her away from the vault.
She was still arguing with him about going back when they made it into the bank.
She froze.
Where before the mosaic tiles had once been perfectly aligned, a tree rose out of the ground. As if its roots had sprung up through feet of cement and cracked the floor to burst fifteen feet into the air.
“There is a tree in the middle of the room.”