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 smile turned lupine as she turned away from her old lover. What a pretty game they were going to play, if that were the case.
“What are you smiling about?” Aveline asked.
Estelle looked at the love of her life, who she would never have again. The woman who had pieced together her world and then crushed it. She wanted to play another game with her. Wanted to have another chance to win her over. But she had chosen her place as the premier warlock of Paris, and Aveline had chosen Versailles. They were two sides of a coin—forever connected, never meeting.
“The Curator will take it from here,” she told her. “Let the games begin.”
Part II
the robin
Chapter Ten
Graves was aghast that she’d flown commercial into Paris, let alone that she would debase herself in coach. As if she didn’t have ten million dollars in her bank account from the job she’d completed for him to steal the spear. That didn’t change the fact that she had grown up stealing for her next meal. It didn’t matter that the first time she’d ever flown had been on Graves’s private jet—she couldn’t imagine paying for anything other than coach. But getting on the jet again on their way back to Dublin reminded her that his over-the-top luxury was maybe a little better than her quiet suffering.
They touched down at the Dublin Airport two hours later, where a limo was waiting on the tarmac to whisk them away. George stood at the back with the door open.
“Do you fly the plane, too?” she asked him as she stepped off the stairs.
“Maybe,” George said with a cheeky smile.
“He can,” Graves said. “But I keep a pilot on standby as well.”
“A backup pilot,” she muttered. “So like you.”
“Let’s hurry this up, George,” Graves said as Kierse ducked into the limo. “I want to get out of this country as soon as we can.”
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as he was seated, Graves pulled another old brown leather book into his lap. His head was buried in it before they started moving.
“Why don’t you want to be in Ireland?”
“I’m not exactly welcome,” he said.
“You’re not welcome in the entirety of Ireland?”
“Where do you think Druids come from?” Graves grumbled.
Kierse chuckled. “Ah, the age-old Oak and Holly King affair.”
Graves glanced up at her, amused. “It is not an affair. It is a battle for the turning of the seasons.”
“That you engage in every summer and winter solstice. Yes, I know,” Kierse said, waving her hand. “I remember the Oak King magic obliterating me.”
Graves frowned. They hadn’t discussed how she had felt when the god magic had blasted into her the night she had saved Graves’s life. How it had felt like it was eating her from the inside out. Like she was going to implode at any moment. That she wanted it to be over, no matter how much Graves had begged her to keep fighting.
Since her arrival in Dublin, she’d spent time researching the Druids as well as the Oak and Holly Kings. The stories were long but obscure. The Romans had destroyed so much of what was known about the Celtic history. Druids were scholars and priests who ruled and educated the masses. They were known for their spirituality, association with nature, and prophecy. If all the stories were to be believed, they were the forever good guys.
Her own experience differed considerably. In the short time that she had known Druids, they had tried to kill her, kidnapped her, threatened her friends, stalked her, broken into Graves’s library, and blasted her with magic. Not the heroes described in the histories. Even if Lorcan had changed his tune when he discovered that she was a wisp.
It made sense to her, based on her knowledge of Druids, that Lorcan, the head of the Druids, would be the eternal Oak King heralding in spring and summer. While Graves, a warlock and Lorcan’s eternal foe, would be the Holly King, the winter god incarnate.
The stories said: Druid, good guy. Warlock, bad guy. Reality was that they were all weapons cloaked in gray.
“Anyway, there are Druids elsewhere,” Kierse said. “Are you not welcome in Scotland, Wales, or Brittany, either?”
Graves blinked at her. “Someone has been doing some reading. Or have you been acquainted with more Druids since our last meeting?”
“Trust me. I don’t want to be involved with Druids any more than you do.”
“At last, something we can agree on.”
“I can tell when you’re avoiding my question.”
“The problems with my mother’s people originated here.”
Graves had admitted to her that his mother, who had died in childbirth, had been a High Priestess from Ireland. After his father had named him a monster and sold him like a cow, he’d managed to escape to Ireland, where he was welcomed by association with his mother. Until it had all gone wrong. Yet another story she had never gotten the end of.