Chapter Thirty-Two

Kingston was half a head shorter than Graves, with jowls and a belly protruding under his waistcoat. He looked like a proper gentleman out of the nineteenth century in a long, black suit complete with a cravat, a top hat, and a cane. He flipped his hat off and tucked it under his arm.

Kingston vigorously shook Graves's hand. "You came all the way from England to berate me?" Graves asked.

Kingston chortled. "Wouldn't have to if you'd be sensible and come home."

"When have I ever been sensible?" Graves asked dryly.

"Ah, right you are. Not as long as I've known you." Then Kingston looked past Graves to where Kierse stood awkwardly apart from it all. Kingston pointed his cane, which appeared to only be used for fashion and not as a walking stick, at Kierse. "Is this her?"

"Her?" Graves asked. His gaze swept to Kierse. "Ah, Kingston, allow me to introduce you to my apprentice, Miss McKenna."

Kingston's eyebrows rose sharply. "You took on another one?"

"It passes the time," he said evenly. "This is my mentor, Kingston Darby."

Graves gestured for Kierse to step forward, but she was still shaken by that word. Apprentice. She was Graves's apprentice? He'd conveniently left that part out when they'd been talking about the warlock levels. Did that mean she had apprentice-level magic and that he was going to train her as a warlock?

She stepped toward Kingston and held out her hand. "Pleasure to meet you. You can call me Kierse."

Kingston took her hand in his, but instead of shaking, he bent dramatically at the waist and brushed his lips against her knuckles. "The pleasure is mine, my dear."

Kierse's eyes rose to Graves's in dismay. Was he always this outrageous?

"Mentor?" she asked instead.

Kingston straightened and looked put out. "What have you been teaching this girl, if she doesn't know that I took you on as an apprentice and raised you up to be what you are today?"

Kierse tried to keep the smile off her lips and failed. "It's hard to imagine Graves as an apprentice."

"You say that now. But he once was a young scrap of a thing, falling into trouble wherever he stepped."

"Not much has changed, then," Kierse said.

Graves slid his hands into his pockets, letting his mentor and his apprentice take jabs at him without comment.

Kingston, on the other hand, burst into laughter and put a hand on her shoulder. "Right you are. Right you are. Now, where is your bourbon collection, Graves? I traveled a considerable distance. And if I'm going to be in this traitor of a country, I might as well imbibe the good stuff."

"Edgar will show you the way," Graves said with a shake of his head as Kingston ambled after Edgar toward the Holly Library.

Kierse stepped up to Graves's side and watched the man. "Apprentice?"

"Are you not?" he asked.

"Am I? I haven't learned a lick of magic."

Graves straightened to his considerable height. His eyes were almost soft when he looked at her. The light shifted on his midnight-blue hair. She ached to brush it out of his dark eyes but chided herself for the response.

"Haven't you?"

"Would it kill you to answer a question with something other than a question?"

A smirk touched his lips. "Would it kill you to do the same?"

Kierse tipped her head at him. "Touché."

"I'll let you know that Kingston's gift is persuasion. In the way that Imani is wish granting and Walter is force fields. It will be interesting to see how much of his magic you will be immune to and how much of it is just the force of his personality."

"And what are you?"

His eyes lingered on hers. "Knowledge."

That was what he'd claimed his business was. Not what he was. But didn't it make sense, with what he did for business and the way he'd acquired information for their plan without her having to lift a finger? "Well, that explains the library," she said at last.

Something flashed in his eyes, dark and hungry. A look she'd seen right before he'd devoured her mouth at the Catos' party. Her lips parted, a bubble of anticipation rising in her throat.

"Well, are you coming or not?" Kingston asked from the top of the stairs.

Kierse startled, pulling away from Graves. Though he didn't appear to be flustered at all. He just strode toward Kingston without a word.

Kierse's heart raced as she followed them. She needed that drink right about now.

Edgar exited right after she entered with a portfolio in his hand that had to contain the contents of their mission, as the table was now empty. Perhaps even Graves's mentor didn't know they were going to steal the spear. Interesting.

Kingston had already settled into one of the velvet armchairs, flicking a vine of holly away from the seat. He'd produced a pipe out of a pocket and added tobacco to it. Graves had gone to the bar. Kierse teetered between the two before taking a seat on the couch that had nearly given her a concussion that first night here and tucked her legs up underneath her. She watched as a container of matches materialized out of another of Kingston's pockets. He puffed on the pipe a few times and then nodded approvingly.

"So, Kierse," Kingston said, assessing her more closely, "Graves is always so reticent with information. I wasn't even aware he'd taken on an apprentice. What ability have you manifested? How are you restoring your reserves?"

"Well," she started, then glanced to Graves to see if he would interrupt the conversation, if he wouldn't want her to tell Kingston, but he didn't seem to mind. Perhaps he trusted this man. "I have immunity."

Kingston pointed to the ceiling. "Ah ha! No wonder he's keeping you here all to himself."

"It's not like that," Graves said, stepping over with a drink for Kingston.

"Thank you, kind sir," Kingston said.

Graves passed one to Kierse, who took a nice, comfortable gulp. Graves returned to the wet bar for his own drink, then sat on the opposite end of the couch with an ankle crossed over the opposite knee. He looked almost pleasant. None of his edges visible at all despite the flickering dim light.

"Immunity," Kingston mused. "That is quite rare. Passive, though. Perhaps you don't have to recharge."

"No, she does," Graves said.

Kierse's head swung to his. He hadn't said any of this to her. "What are you talking about?"

"Graves, honestly. Should I take over the girl's education?" Kingston asked with a wide smile. He turned back to Kierse when Graves said nothing. "All warlocks have at least one main ability. Immunity for you. For me, persuasion. But I also have a lesser power—portaling. It's how I arrived here, in fact. I stepped out of my home and straight onto Graves's doorstep."

Kierse couldn't help herself. Her mouth hung open. "You... have the ability to step between one city and another?"

"Indeed. Very handy power. But it's my lesser ability. Lesser powers take more energy to achieve properly. But all magic comes with a price. You will feel weaker after you've used your abilities, and then you will need to recharge them. Discovering your limitations, boundaries, and weaknesses comes first in training. That way, no one else can catch you unaware."

Kierse looked to Graves in all but shock. He had been... training her this whole time. He'd nearly gotten her killed stealing those letters, but she could see now that it was part of his training regimen.

"You could have told me," she hissed at him.

"I did tell you it was a test."

"Ah, did he almost kill you?" Kingston asked with a boisterous laugh as he sucked on his pipe. "Classic weakness tactics."

"Did you almost kill him?" Kierse blurted.

Kingston tipped his drink at Graves. "Naturally."

Kierse shook her head. These people were ridiculous.

"Now, simultaneously with your other training, you should be discovering how you regenerate your abilities. Sleeping and eating help," he said, patting his belly, "but using those alone takes much longer than a proper recharge."

"Then how do I do it?"

Graves sighed. "It's something different for everyone. Sometimes it has something to do with your past. A thing you did when you were a child that brought you peace, or something that gave you back a sense of your life as an adult." His eyes went distant. "For Kingston, it's art. He looks at, analyzes, critiques, and makes art, and his powers rejuvenate. He has a mild obsession with art museums."

"We should make reservations for tomorrow, while we're discussing it," Kingston said.

"And you?" Kierse asked.

"I read," Graves said simply.

Ah. Well, that explained why he was always reading. Always regenerating his powers.

"And me?"

"I'm still working on that," he admitted. "You recovered slower than I would have liked after the wish powder, because I didn't know how you recharged before we broke into Imani and Montrell's."

"Sloppy," Kingston said.

So many of the pieces were falling into place. The reason it had taken so long to recover from the wish powder was because she had to recharge.

"Speaking of Imani and Montrell," Kingston said darkly. He rattled the loose ice in the bottom of his empty cup. Kierse realized her drink was gone, too.

Graves grabbed the bottle off of the bar and brought it to the table, refilling everyone's glasses. "Must we discuss them?"

"They were the ones who let me know about your little project. Though... you didn't inform them she was a new apprentice. In fact, you gave them an entirely different name. Wren?" His expression was knowing. "Montrell had a fit."

"That's not my problem."

"Is she a wren?" His gaze swept back to her. "Are you?"

Kierse's hand went to the pendant at her throat. "Last I checked, I wasn't a bird."

Kingston laughed.

But she didn't know what was funny. Graves had called her "Wren," and it had gotten a reaction out of them, but she hadn't realized at the time that it meant more. Was she not the first wren in his employ, then? Something like disappointment was there for a beat, and then she pushed it away.

"It was a name I used to get their attention, and it worked," Graves snapped at Kingston.

"That it did. And it kept them from looking too carefully for her own magic."

"Was I required to inform them?" he asked, his voice dripping in bridled anger. He was not one to take orders, and he would not be told how to run his empire.

Kingston just threw back more of the bourbon and laughed. "Of course not, but there's a balance to things, you know."

"Yes, and they were disrupting the balance. I put it back in order by reclaiming what was taken from me."

"They'll want retribution," Kingston said.

Graves's voice turned dark. "Let them try."

"You are more powerful than both of them. Bloody hell, son, you're more powerful than every warlock I've met, save myself. But you are not invincible."

"I am well aware," he said evenly.

"Well, anyway, I came at their behest. My warning has been delivered. I have officially put you back in line," Kingston said with a chuckle as if he knew that was impossible.

"Did they tell you about their little operation?" Graves asked so low and casual that Kierse could only assume it was a bomb waiting to go off.

"Of course. Of course," Kingston said, waving his hand. "I know all about the new version of wish powder. Very clever, actually."

"And that she's selling it."

"In Chicago, she is queen."

"What about outside of Chicago?" Graves asked. "What about here? What about in London?"

Kingston stilled. "She wouldn't dare."

"She didn't want me to tell you about it, but since they sent you to me as reprimand, I see no reason to hold their secrets."

"What's wrong with selling it elsewhere?" Kierse asked.

"Magic is more volatile the farther from its owner. And volatile magic threatens all magic users," Kingston said furiously. "You are one of us now, Kierse, so listen well. Your greatest objective is to keep magic hidden. We are not like the other monsters. The revelation of the magical world can only doom our way of life."

Everyone was silent a moment as that answer soaked in. There was a reason "monsters not magic" was the motto. Magic was dangerous in its own way. She'd seen it as soon as she entered this strange world.

"Perhaps you should remind Imani of that," Graves said.

"Believe you me, I will," Kingston grumbled. Then he waved his glass at Graves again. "Enough business. Tell me everything since I've seen you. It's been too long, and I plan to finish this bottle yet."

Graves visibly relaxed at the change in topic.

Kierse leaned back in her seat. Maybe having Kingston here was a blessing in disguise, because she was content to sit in the library all night to have him reveal more of Graves's many secrets.