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)
She hesitated. If she did that, then Lorcan won.
“No, I just need to change,” she said, gesturing to her dress. “And a shower.”
He nodded, visibly relieved. She followed him into his room. He ran the tap on the shower for her, set out a fluffy white towel and change of clothes. She wanted to ask him to stay. She could see that he wanted to. But she…couldn’t.
“Take as much time as you need,” he said instead, closing the door behind her.
Her hand went to her necklace, the wren that always comforted her throughout her life. But it wasn’t there. In the empty space against her chest, she found only him.
She ripped at the stupid white dress, promising to burn it. She removed the braids from her wind-tangled hair before stepping under the spray and letting the scalding water wash away the night. She lathered with soap, trying to scrub him off of her. She rinsed and did it again until her skin was pink and raw. She did her hair next and still after two washes felt that it smelled of summer sunshine and spring showers. It was infuriating.
She sank to her knees in the shower, the water cascading over her head as the reality of the situation hit her in the face all over again. A sob escaped her throat. With it came the tears again. Tears that she hated so desperately and couldn’t seem to stop or control. Lorcan had done this. He’d done this to her.
She would cry now. She would let the tears fall. Embrace the agency that he’d stolen from her. And when she was done, she’d figure out what to do about it.
When her tears finally gave way to fury once more, she stepped out of the shower and into a towel. She slicked her dark locks into a messy bun and pulled on comfortable sweats. It was shocking that her face in the mirror could look the same as the day before and yet she felt utterly broken inside. Like Lorcan had carved out a piece of her and paved over it with his bullshit. She hated it. She hated feeling this way. Twenty years she’d been tied up by magic, and after only six months of freedom, she was back to being trapped.
Kierse stepped out of the bedroom and found Graves standing over his small collection of carved bird figurines. “Hey,” she whispered.
He looked up at her. “You look refreshed.”
“I feel hollowed out.”
“I can only imagine,” he said gently. He palmed one of the carvings in his hand.
“What’s with the birds?”
“I started carving them in Ireland when I joined the Druids,” he admitted. “It relaxed me then. It still does.”
“They’re beautiful.”
Graves set a little carved raven down next to a wren. “Can you tell me what happened tonight? Where did I go wrong?”
“You? You got the cauldron and got away. You did nothing wrong.”
“Kierse.”
She dropped her head. “The Curator was expecting me. He kidnapped me and had me bound in iron.”
“Fuck,” he whispered.
She swallowed and lifted her gaze. “The Curator is Jason.”
Graves’s eyes widened. “Jason? Your old mentor? But you killed him.”
“I thought I did, but it just paralyzed him. He’s gone through a lot of therapy and uses magic so he can walk with a cane now, but it’s him. He’s taken on many identities. Cillian Ryan, Jason, Curator. All the same person.”
“No wonder he’s scrubbed his identity from the web.”
“I think it’s why I kept skipping through memories at the scent of the pine and lemon,” she explained. “I’d think of the smell and go to Jason. It was showing me the truth all along, but I thought it was the block.”
“Did you kill him?” he asked, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“He got away. And the reason for the block—the reason he completely erased my memories of that day, instead of just hiding them in the spell—was that the spell wasn’t actually to hide me from the Fae Killer. That was a handy-dandy side effect to him siphoning my powers away and giving them to Jason instead. That’s why I looked weak before you broke the spell.”
“Fuck, I should have seen it.”
“And he knows who the Fae Killer is.”
Graves blinked in surprise. “He knows their identity?”
“He said he did. He suggested that I did, too, but in the memory when he kills my parents, I don’t see his face.” She shrugged. “And now I can’t lift my absorption to look again.”
“We’ll find a way around that.”
She doubted it.
“Had Jason done that spell on others?” he asked.
“Yeah. I bet he’s done it on the people in his cult, too. He’s using them as a replenishable energy source.”
“You know what that means?” he asked. When she stared back at him blankly, he continued, “You might not be the only wisp.”
The revelation staggered her. Tonight had been almost too much. Too much bad news. This almost didn’t feel possible. The very thought that something positive could come out of all the shit she’d endured was too much.