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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.

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Kierse said. “You have a private plane. You are free to return to New York.”

His gaze landed on her again. “I am not going to let you enter the market alone.”

He returned to his book with a wave of his hand, letting her know he needed to level up.

Something she would also need to do. She’d gotten reliant on always having her powers charged.

It had been months since she’d been this drained.

She’d eaten half of the food on the plane and was certainly going to need to do some pickpocketing to get back to full strength before she could walk into Nying Market.

“At least you’re in a nice part of town,” Graves said as they took the turn onto Leeson Street into the city center.

Kierse turned her attention back to the window as they circled St. Stephen’s Green.

She had made it a part of her morning routine to walk through the historic public park.

Bordered by busy streets, it was a refuge similar to what she had back at home in Central Park, albeit a much smaller area.

She enjoyed feeding the ducks and watching the mer swim in the lake at its center.

“This used to be for grazing livestock,” Graves muttered.

“When was that?” she asked with a laugh. “I can’t even imagine it.”

He shrugged. “A couple hundred years ago.”

She sometimes forgot that he’d been born in the 1500s. It didn’t always feel possible to imagine him having been around during the Tudors and the Paris World’s Fair and so much of history. That he could remember a time when there was livestock in the center of Dublin proper.

They navigated the remainder of the streets before coming to stop in front of a Georgian-style apartment building.

The row of brick buildings along the whole street was dotted with vibrantly colored doors, and the door to Kierse’s apartment was the brightest yellow on the block.

She hopped out as soon as they stopped, relief rushing over her at the sight of the place.

She hurried up the stoop to the elaborate entrance.

Graves cleared his throat behind her, and she glanced back at him with a quick smile.

It was surreal to see him in the Dublin daylight.

Graves belonged in winter, in darkened libraries, and secret passageways under the subway.

He wasn’t spring in the, albeit, rare sunshine of the city center.

It was like she was seeing two people written on top of one another.

“Be prepared to be amazed,” Kierse teased, turning the knob and entering a stairwell. The elevator only worked every fourth trip, and it wasn’t worth it to get stuck for the afternoon, so they took the steps.

She had a giddy lift to her step. She hadn’t even been gone that long, and she already missed Gen. Those weeks she’d lived in Graves’s brownstone had been the longest she had been without her best friend, and she didn’t want to repeat the experience.

It was bad enough that there was no Ethan. The only word she’d had was from Nate, letting her know that Ethan had gone underground with the Druids and no one had heard from him. Not even his boyfriend, Corey. Now…ex-boyfriend? She still couldn’t fathom it.

Kierse stuck the key in the door and turned the antique brass handle. “Gen! I’m home!” She stepped inside to find the sparse living quarters exactly as she had left them.

“Miss McKenna,” Graves said in irritation, stuck on the other side of the door.

“What are you, a vampire? Should I invite you in?”

“Would you like me to take your warding down?” he asked like a threat.

“Can you do that?”

He shot her a look.

“Right.” She pressed her hand to the door and adjusted the ward to allow him to pass.

“You know that you can change the wards without touch once they’re connected.”

“Sure. But I’m low. I didn’t want to use the effort.”

“Kierse?” Gen called. She rushed out of her bedroom in pink sweatpants, a white tank, and oversize cardigan.

Her bright copper hair was piled high on her head in an intricate messy bun.

“You’re back!” She collided with Kierse, wrapping her up in a hug.

Kierse settled into her. Gen was home; she was home.

“I’m back.”

“And you brought a…visitor,” Gen said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

The one benefit of having money was that Kierse had paid a spectacular amount for a doctor to look at Gen’s eyes.

She had been diagnosed with early onset macular degeneration when she was just seven.

She now saw almost exclusively out of her peripheral vision.

Kierse had unfortunately discovered that the doctor who had bailed when Gen was a kid wasn’t a quack, and there wasn’t anything that could be done for her vision.

At least nothing that science had discovered.

“Prophet Genesis,” Graves said with a bow. “Always a pleasure.”

Gen blushed. “I haven’t heard that name in quite a while.”

“It’s a tragedy not to use a talent such as yours.”

Gen had always had a piece of magic buried within her. Just a touch of sight that allowed her to read tarot for truth. Not all the time, but when the cards spoke to her. It turned out that her touch of sight had been a blossom waiting to flower—a flower that meant she was actually a High Priestess.

“I have been cultivating other gifts.” Gen glanced at Kierse. “Though I am surprised to see you here. In our apartment. In Dublin.”

“It’s a long story,” Kierse said with an eye roll. “Graves, tell her about how you engineered our meeting so that I could help you steal the cauldron.”

Gen squeaked. “What?”

“I’m going to go change.” Kierse headed into her bedroom.

“I assure you she was safe the entire time,” she heard Graves say from the other room.

Kierse snorted. “Except for the period I was alone with a master warlock who snapped my magic like a twig,” she yelled back.

“What?” Gen asked in increasing distress.

Graves’s extended sigh was oh so satisfying.