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Kierse took off after Graves. She tapped into one of her new preternatural abilities—speed. Which, at that precise moment, she was grateful for.

Graves crashed through the palace side door that led back onto the grounds, startling a group of partygoers. Kierse followed as they dashed onto the wide gravel pathway deeper into the gardens.

“This way,” he said.

She glanced over her shoulder. A few guards were chasing them. Many of them were monsters and certainly not slowing. She was glad for the head start, because she wasn’t sure if she could outrun a vampire. She’d never exactly wanted to run the race to find out.

“We’re never going to make it.”

“We’ll make it,” Graves snarled.

They cascaded down a hill, hitting a speed she could hardly fathom. A few months ago, she would have killed for this ability.

Monsters had ruled her life ever since they’d come out of hiding fourteen years ago.

She’d spent her young life abandoned to the streets by her father and then swept up into the thieving guild, when the monsters appeared.

The vampire visionary Coraline LeMort was killed by a werewolf from an opposing faction, and her death sparked a decade- long Monster War.

Millions of monsters and humans alike had been caught in the crossfire as they carved up New York City as their battleground.

Those dark years had only ended with the signing of the Monster Treaty—a new set of laws that governed how monsters and humans would coexist.

And she had just broken the treaty…again.

She knew that she wasn’t human this time when she broke it. It didn’t make it any less likely that they’d kill her for stealing from their queen.

They barreled around the tree line and came upon a group of mer singing in the dragon fountain.

Kierse clapped her hands over her ears to avoid the siren song.

Graves jerked her the opposite direction, down a straight path toward a closed gate.

A troll guard stood at attention as they approached.

Trolls were generally unintelligent monsters, but what they lacked in brains they made up for in brawn.

This one was enormous, with giant muscular arms and tree trunk legs.

Her head was smaller than average and rested squarely on her shoulders.

Between her beady, narrowed eyes and the sneer on her lips, she was terrifying.

Back in New York, trolls were allied with the gangs that crisscrossed Manhattan. The trolls controlled access to the subway stations, and you had to pay the toll to enter. She didn’t think that was going to work here. Nor did she think she could take down a full-grown troll.

Graves seemed utterly unconcerned, which was so fucking Graves.

The troll blinked down at him as he approached and pulled her hand back like she was going to swipe him aside.

But Graves retrieved a slip of paper from his jacket pocket and offered it to the troll, speaking in French.

The troll frowned in confusion at the paper Graves had handed her.

It was always a moment of confusion when the subway trolls were paid off to let travelers through, as if unsure if the toll had been sufficiently paid.

After a pregnant pause, the troll frowned and said, “Expired.”

“What?” Graves asked in confusion.

But the troll gave no response. She let the paper flutter to the ground and swung her mighty fist. It landed in Graves’s stomach, sending him flying a half-dozen feet into the air.

“Fuck!” Kierse yelled as she hurtled toward the troll. “What did you give her?”

“A troll pass,” Graves grunted from the ground.

“That didn’t seem to work.”

“Well aware,” he said as he rolled over to his knees. “Goddamn it, I liked this suit.”

The guards crested the hill behind them.

They were running out of time. Kierse needed a strategy to deal with the massive mountain troll.

She had been certain that she couldn’t take her down, but with her new Fae abilities, was that true?

Seemed like now was the time to test it.

Her eyes darted up, up, up the enormous troll’s back to the flag fluttering above her head, then down to the blocked gate behind her.

She only had a few seconds. Time to improvise.

She took a running start and vaulted up the back of the troll, using her legs and meaty muscles as footholds and her shirt to climb.

The disoriented and now infuriated troll leaned forward, making the hike up her back easier, especially in these stupid high heels.

Just as the troll reached back to try to swipe her off, she grasped at the flapping banner, yanking with all her might and ripping the thing clear off of the pole.

She dodged another swing and whipped the banner around the troll’s neck.

Digging her heels into the troll’s shoulders, she pulled with all of her might, choking the giant beast.

“A little…help here,” Kierse grunted.

Graves finally stood, dusting off his suit. “Looks like you have it.”

The troll wobbled as air left her lungs. She began to topple forward, and Kierse jerked sideways so the monster fell into the giant gate, ripping it from its hinges and sending it screeching to the ground.

Kierse rode the troll to the ground, executing another dive roll to escape the worst of the fallout. Graves was there a second later with his hand extended to help her up.

“Nice work.”

“You could have been useful,” she said as they dashed out the now-open gate just as the guards approached.

“I thought you had it under control,” he said with a smirk on his too-pretty lips.

Should she be upset that he’d left her to deal with it alone? Or happy that he trusted her enough to get it done without interfering? Why did both feel like the right answer?

They hit the main road, and a limousine screeched to a stop. Graves ripped the back door open, and Kierse tumbled into it. He followed, slamming the door and yelling, “Move!”

George, Graves’s private driver, took off, leaving the guards in the dust. Kierse turned in her seat with a laugh to see the guards disappear into the night.

“They’re going to follow the limo,” she said. “We should ditch it and lay low.”

“It’s warded,” Graves said.

“So…no one can get in?” she asked, jerking her eyes back to his face.

“It can’t be tracked.”

“You can do that?”

“So can you,” he told her as he popped the button on his suit coat and peeled his gloves off, tossing them onto the seat between them.

Her eyes went to his fingers. Long and slender, they had always made her think of a pianist’s fingers, even though she knew he didn’t grace the keys but turned the pages of books.

With the gloves gone, she caught a glimpse of the holly vine tattoo snaking around his wrist. She’d seen the vines that wrapped his forearm, bicep, over his shoulder.

Thorns digging into his skin like hands into the flesh of Proserpina in the famous Roman sculpture.

She cleared her throat. “I thought warding kept things out.”

“Magic is about intent,” he told her as he slipped out of his jacket.

The tie went next, and he undid two buttons at his throat.

“Wards work by pushing your magic and intent into an object. My intent could be to keep people from entering my home.” He ripped out the cuff links and rolled the sleeves of his white button-up to his elbows before lifting his eyes to her. “Most of them.”

She swallowed at the sight of his powerful forearms. Not to mention him so…undressed. On most men, it wouldn’t be much to write home about, but Graves wasn’t most anything .

She averted her gaze. “If your intent is to keep people from finding you…”

“Then people won’t find me.” He ran a hand through his midnight-blue hair. “At least, they won’t find the car. It doesn’t work on animate beings.”

She’d learned much about her magic and lineage since leaving his home five months ago, in the wake of his betrayal. Still, five minutes alone in his presence and she was learning all new things. She wished the knowledge had all been as easy to acquire as this.

Graves had lied about who and what she was. And while he might have laid clues for who and what he was, she had still learned he was the Holly King, a primordial Celtic winter god, too late. Or that Lorcan, his enemy and the head of the Brooklyn gang, the Druids, was the Oak King.

The night it had all fallen apart, Lorcan had kidnapped her two best friends and forever family—Gen and Ethan—intending to force Graves to give up the spear and the sword, both powerful Celtic magical objects.

An ancient battle between Oak and Holly had reignited, and in the end, the gods’ magic had hit Kierse, nearly killing her.

Graves had valiantly attempted to save her life, but it hadn’t worked. At the last second, Gen and Ethan had combined their fledgling magic into a triskel—a powerful bond between a wisp, High Priestess, and Druid. They’d healed her and together been forever changed.

When it was over, Lorcan won the sword, and Ethan had gone with him to study as a Druid. While Kierse left with the spear and fled to Dublin with Gen and the spear to get answers that didn’t come with strings.

And now…the strings had followed her to Europe. Here she was with Graves, on his terms, all over again.

“Well, I guess you can drop me off at my hotel, then,” Kierse said.

Graves didn’t even look at her. He’d pulled a book out and was scanning the pages to recharge his powers. Each magical user renewed their powers differently—for Graves, reading, and for Kierse, it had always been stealing. While Graves seemed blue from their encounter, Kierse was revved up.

The goblin bracelet was in her possession, and she was one step closer to the market.

His lips pursed before he said, “You’re not staying at a hotel with that in your possession.”

She slid her eyes to him. “Where are we going then? Your place?”

“It’s being renovated.”

“Could you give me a straight answer?”

He flipped a page. “We’re going to stay with a friend.”

“You don’t have friends.”

He smirked at his book. “A longtime acquaintance.”

“Why?”

“Why did you need to steal the bracelet?” he countered.

She narrowed her eyes in frustration. Around and around and around again. The same as it always was with Graves. He didn’t give unless she did, and even then, only half as much. At first she’d liked the challenge, but now she saw it for the defense mechanism that it was.

“Never mind. You can let me out here ,” she said. “I can find my own way to the hotel.”

Graves finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.

She could still see the cruel warlock master in his expression.

She hadn’t been wrong that he’d had too long to get used to being closed off again.

He didn’t know how to soften on his own.

And maybe it was for the better. He didn’t need to soften for her, because she wasn’t playing his games any longer.

“Her name is Estelle. She’s the warlock of Paris.”

Warlocks were territorial, so each major city only had one master. Graves was the one in New York City. Kierse had also met Kingston, who ruled London, and Imani in Chicago.

“They call her the Game Master. Her magic is primarily illusions, but it also shows up in other, more nefarious ways.”

Kierse shivered at that. “And you want to go to her house?”

“Aveline won’t cross her.”

“And…”

“And I want you to steal something from her.”

“You could have led with that back at the palace,” Kierse said with an eye roll. “I knew there was a price for the audience with the queen.”

Graves was silent a moment. “This isn’t the price.”

“No?” Kierse asked with derision. “So what would you call it? A favor?”

“A job.”

She turned away from him and smoothed her dress. “Nothing is that simple with you.”

“It’s for the cauldron.”

Kierse froze. The cauldron was one of the four magical objects of the gods—the Sword of Truth, the Spear of Lugh, the Cauldron of Dagda, and the Stone of Fal.

Graves had spent a lifetime trying to acquire them all.

At one point he’d had half of them in his possession, and now he had none. Getting the cauldron would be huge.

She met his gaze again. “She has the cauldron?”

“Yes.”

She knew what this meant to him. He’d paid her ten million dollars to get the spear. He’d do anything for this. She didn’t need the money this time, but the thrill of stealing something this powerful was too much for this thief to say no to.

“You could have just called.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you would have answered?”

“No.” She smirked. “But I’ll do this.”