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)
“It was made for the ruler of the Druids since before the doors were closed.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He studied her, those azure eyes earnest. “It could be yours.”
She jerked back to reality. “Mine?”
“You could live here,” Lorcan said simply. “With me.”
“In Brooklyn,” she said slowly.
“Yes,” he said on a laugh. “Here. You, Gen, and Ethan together again. Your little family. I have plenty of space. Ethan is already learning to be a Druid. Gen could work with Niamh as a High Priestess. You are the last of your kind, and I would give you the information you require about the wisps. You could have access to my library. Access to me.”
She hesitated before asking, “Access to you?”
“Me, my throne, my world,” he said, his eyes drifting across his kingdom and back to her face. “I’d like to have you here, little songbird.”
She flushed under his scrutiny, hating that it wasn’t faked. That it wasn’t part of some mysterious plot she was weaving against him. In this faerie glen before an ancient throne, it felt like a real offer. What would her life have been like had her mother taken her to Lorcan straight away instead of dealing with Graves and Cillian? Would she have grown up here? Would she have seen his smiles as kind and not duplicitous? Would she have wanted what he was offering?
She mourned the little girl who would have wanted that life. Who could see herself safe in a place like this, instead of the abandoned girl she was, who could think of nothing if it wasn’t transactional. As fun as it was to imagine her life here in Brooklyn living with the Druids, it felt more like a faerie tale than most of the ones she had read in the last couple months.
Happy endings like that didn’t happen for people like Kierse. She was more likely to be the girl in the tale of the will-o’-the-wisp who was devoured by a bear while straying from her course than the wisp leading people astray.
“And if I say no?” she asked, finally.
“Think on it,” he said, pulling her from the room. “Either way, you are welcome on Druid grounds even if you live…elsewhere. I’ll still train you. I’ll still fight for a triskel.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly.
She wanted that information. She wanted to train with her friends. She wanted Ethan even just an inch further from this place. But she didn’t know how that would begin to work.
When they reached the lobby, he once again opened the door for her. She stepped outside, her mind reeling from the conversation.
His eyes were full of mischief as he said, “I was part of the last triskel, after all.”
“What?” she snapped.
He reached forward, taking her hand in his and placing a soft kiss on the back. “I’ll tell you all about it when you come back to me.”
Then he let the door slip closed.
“Bastard.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The brownstone was empty when she trekked back to the Upper West Side. She hadn’t heard from Gen, which probably meant she was still with Colette. All the better. Kierse didn’t know how to tell her what had happened with Ethan. The disaster that had occurred—with Lorcan, too.
Jet lag pulled at her body, encouraging her to take a quick afternoon nap. She was a thing of midnights. Early mornings irritated her. And Lorcan even more so.
Lorcan had been part of a triskel?
No wonder he’d fucking recognized it when it had happened last year. He’d been so quick to try to scoop them up then, too. As soon as he’d realized, he’d wanted to spirit them all away and hide them forever. He still wanted to do that. And worse, she didn’t know if she could stop it all from happening, if she even wanted to. The training, not the getting swept away part. She had shit to do.
She walked through the double doors of the library to find the massive room empty. Anne lounged on a couch, her black body seemingly twice as large as normal, belly exposed. Kierse laughed at the sight. Well, at least some things hadn’t changed.
“Where’s your person, huh?” Kierse asked her as she walked to the cabinet and poured herself a drink.
“Here,” Graves said, appearing out of the stacks like a wraith.
Kierse jerked around. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I just got back.” He dropped a stack of books onto the table. “I was unboxing what I purchased in Dublin from Oisín.”
“Do I want to know why Edgar isn’t doing that?”
“Because it is my library,” he said simply, stroking a spine. “Books are a singular pleasure. Nothing else in existence can transport you in quite the same way. All you have to do is crack the spine and learn the secrets of the universe.”
“I don’t think you possibly have the time to read them all.”