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“The…robin,” Kierse repeated, uncomprehending.

“What’s the robin?” Gen asked.

Graves looked between them as if personally affronted by their lack of knowledge. Niamh cocked one hip and flipped her hair, waiting for him to explain.

“You’ve read the stories,” Graves said. “Surely you can piece it together.”

“So you haven’t changed at all ,” Niamh said with an eye roll. “Can’t give a girl a single straight answer.”

“Niamh,” he snarled.

The way he pronounced her name, Neev , with a slight Irish lilt instead of his customary British accent, knocked something loose in Kierse’s mind.

“Like a wren?” Kierse guessed.

“But for the Oak King,” Graves said with distaste.

Kierse was Graves’s wren. A bird that was aligned with the Holly King, able to enhance his power up until the winter solstice.

Traditionally, wrens were hunted and killed the day after Christmas to symbolize the return of spring.

Kierse had heightened Graves’s power during that time before she’d known any of these Celtic myths were real.

After leaving New York, she’d read every story she could get her hands on regarding the Oak and Holly Kings.

Tales of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—a classic tale of the separation of the seasons—but also of the Wild Man, a Dionysian-esque figure, and the most famous Divine Kings who were mortal representations of the seasons, sacrificed to sustain their relentless cycle.

Yet, while the stories were fascinating, none of them compared to meeting the actual Oak and Holly Kings.

The tales were incredibly vague about the role of the wren and the robin.

They mentioned a wren in relation to the Holly King and a robin aligning with the Oak King, but they made the connections seem metaphorical.

Since Kierse knew them to be more fact than fiction, that meant… Niamh was here for Lorcan.

“No,” Kierse said, shaking her head. “Niamh is our friend.”

Graves scoffed. “I’m sure Lorcan would want you to believe that.”

“Niamh?” Gen asked in a small voice. They had been particularly close in the intervening months. It was Gen who had convinced Kierse to get the apartment down the hall from Niamh after befriending the girl in the bookstore. “Is all this true?”

“Okay. He makes it sound bad,” Niamh said. “It’s not so dramatic.”

“Did Lorcan send you?” Kierse demanded.

“Yes, but…”

“Then it is that dramatic.”

“I am not reporting to him,” Niamh said with another eye roll. “Fuck Lorcan Flynn and all his drama.”

“Then why are you here?” Gen asked.

“Let’s see her twist this one up,” Graves said. “We all know why she’s here. She’s here to spy on you for the enemy.”

“Drama,” Niamh muttered.

“For the record, you were spying on me, too,” Kierse argued. “You knew that I was going to be in Paris.”

“I had someone making sure you were safe. I didn’t send an agent in to pretend to be your friend and monitor your actions,” he said, as if they were two different things, when it sure felt like two sides of the same coin.

“Hey! I am their friend,” Niamh argued.

The glare Graves shot her was deadly. She knew that, at any moment, he might actually murder Niamh—it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d acted similarly. And as much as she wanted answers for Niamh’s behavior, she did like the girl.

“Can we all calm down?” Kierse asked. “You’re going to freak Gen out.”

“Already there,” Gen said. “Just tell us the truth.”

Niamh gestured to Graves. “Like he even knows the definition of truth. Can’t believe half of what he says.”

“Why don’t you let us decide for ourselves?” Kierse said.

“All right,” Niamh said. “Lorcan did send me as his robin. But I don’t work for him, and I didn’t report on you.”

“Are you a Druid, then?”

“She’s a High Priestess,” Graves said.

Gen gasped, her hand going to her chest. Kierse could see the hurt on her face. All this time they’d connected more closely than Gen had ever known. “You didn’t tell me.”

Niamh frowned. “Sorry, babe. I hated not telling you.”

A light went off in Kierse’s head. “You were training her.”

“Both of you, as much as I could,” Niamh admitted.

Kierse touched her ears, thinking about the little bit of glamour that could magically hide them when she wanted to appear wholly human.

Or the healing abilities that Gen had been working on for Kierse’s nightmares.

Both of which Niamh had shown them. “All of those books that magically appeared in your hand as if you knew exactly what we were looking for and how to find it.”

“I wanted to tell you,” Niamh said, momentarily sheepish. “I just liked you and knew you’d probably not take kindly to Druid interference after Lorcan’s bullshit.”

“As if you weren’t interfering ,” Graves said.

Niamh flipped him off. “This doesn’t change anything between us. Yes, I’m a High Priestess, and I’m even sort of in charge.”

“I thought Lorcan was in charge,” Kierse said. “I don’t understand how the hierarchy works.”

“He’s technically the head of the whole thing,” Niamh said on a sigh. “But you can’t think he can handle everything back home from Brooklyn, can you? Didn’t you lot throw tea into the Atlantic because you were upset with the Brits for doing exactly that?” Niamh winked. “Honestly, good for you.”

Gen giggled and then carefully forced her mouth back to neutrality.

“Sorry ’bout it, Brit,” Niamh said to Graves.

“I assure you that I am as much Irish as I am English, and I was never on the side of the colonizer in history anyway,” Graves said stiffly. “Could you get to the point?”

“Lorcan told me to ingratiate myself with you and report back,” Niamh said. “Well, then we met at the bookstore and you didn’t seem like what Lorcan had suggested.”

“And what did he suggest?” Graves asked, deadly low.

Niamh shrugged. “I gathered that he thought you might be controlling her. But you weren’t around. There were only two lost girls in my city, and I just couldn’t have that. So I offered to help. I haven’t been reporting anything to him, and here we are.”

“Obviously she’s lying,” Graves said.

Kierse tilted her head at Niamh. She’d known the girl for the better part of five months and felt an unexpected kindred connection with her. There was no way to discern the truth for certain, but Kierse usually trusted her gut.

“I don’t think she is,” Kierse said.

Graves clenched his hands into fists, but he said nothing further, though she knew he wanted to. He was in her apartment. She could make her own decisions. And despite everything, she liked Niamh. Maybe she was still working for Lorcan. Maybe she wasn’t.

“Come on. Oisín will tell you the right of it,” Niamh promised. She yanked the door open for everyone. “The man doesn’t lie.”

“At least someone doesn’t,” Kierse grumbled. But she followed everyone else out the door, double-checking the warding before taking the stairs.

“He knows how to twist the truth to suit him, though,” Graves said.

“Did he learn that from you?” Niamh asked, tilting her head. She might look like a bubbly Catholic school girl, but Kierse knew that there was more to Niamh than met the eye. Maybe that was what had drawn Kierse to her to begin with.

“From the Fae.” Graves turned away from Niamh in exasperation. “I agree that a trip to Oisín will be illuminating. He can convince you to leave this foolish task you are set on, as well,” he said, glancing at Kierse.

“What task?” Niamh asked as they reached the landing.

Kierse rolled her eyes. “I am not changing my mind about going into the market.”

“Wait, you’re going into the market?” Niamh asked in alarm. “What could you possibly want in Nying Market?”

“She’s been having nightmares,” Gen explained.

Graves pushed past Niamh and opened the building’s front door. “The market is the nightmare.”

“He’s not wrong,” Niamh said.

“It’s unnerving to agree with her this much,” Graves told Kierse.

“Is that what the potions have been for?” Niamh asked. “The nightmares?”

Kierse nodded. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Gen the nightmares were possibly real memories when they had been alone together. She was going to have to figure out how to tell her that things had changed.

Graves gave her a knowing look as the limo pulled up to the curb.

“Uh…the bookstore is around the corner,” Niamh interrupted. “We don’t need a limo .”

“It’s for safety,” Graves said, opening the door for them.

“It looks like convenience. Don’t you want to walk the Dublin streets while you still can?” Niamh asked with an antagonizing smile.

“‘While I still can’?” he all but growled.

“Seriously, Graves, it’s fine,” Kierse said. “I’ve walked this route a hundred times. But if you need the limo…”

Gen sealed her lips shut as if she could barely suppress a laugh.

Graves shut the door and tapped the top twice in some signal to George. “A walk sounds lovely.”

“I’m sure,” Niamh said with fluttering eyelashes. “Well, come on, handsome. I bet you still remember the way.”

“I certainly do.”

“Oisín will set this all right,” Niamh promised.