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“Hello, Kierse.”

Jason was larger than life, his upper body broad and muscular, clothed in a sharp black suit.

He’d always hated ties, and he didn’t wear one now, just had his button-up undone at the neck.

He’d scrapped the clean-shaven look she’d seen recently in her memories for a full, dark beard.

His eyes were as dark and deadly, but a new scar ran through his eyebrow and lid toward his jaw.

A scar she had given him. His mouth was set in a way that had always made her walk on eggshells.

The tilt of his head revealed the clever snake hidden in his mystique.

No wonder she hadn’t been able to place the familiar Sansara goon. He was one of Jason’s from the thieving guild. She hadn’t even known his name.

“What…what are you doing here?” she asked. She willed her body to stillness, but it wasn’t listening.

She had killed Jason .

It had been her only mission after he’d beat her to within an inch of her life and left her for dead. Gen had found her and saved her. She hadn’t understood why Kierse had wanted revenge, but she’d needed it to be able to move on.

She’d tracked him down. With her own two hands, she had sliced into his face.

He’d tried to fight back. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and now she realized, he’d had magic to repel her.

She’d probably absorbed any attack he leveled against her.

He’d gotten his hands on her throat to finish what he’d started.

Her knife had been out of reach. She’d managed to push him off her.

He’d gone for a gun on the bedside table.

She’d put a knife through his back before he could get to it.

Her body trembled at the memory. Of watching the blood leak out of his body and the life leave his eyes. The only father figure she’d ever known. And all of it had been an elaborate lie.

“Surprised to see me?” He looked down his nose at her. “I thought you might be. Worthless piece of shit.”

She flinched. She was a little kid all over again, getting scolded by the one person she looked up to. The person who threw her off a building and broke her arm and left bruises in his wake. The fear was innate. Ten years away from him didn’t change a thing.

“I killed you.”

“Not quite,” he said on a laugh. “Just paralyzed me from the waist down…for a time.”

She shook her head. “I watched you die.”

“Then we’re even, right? You were supposed to be dead, too.”

She was, but Gen had found her. She’d taken her revenge. Was this his?

He leaned the cane forward, resting both his hands on it. “It took hours of physical therapy and rehabilitation and more magic than you’ve ever seen in your life to get me back to where I am today.” He lifted one arm wide. “Am I everything you remembered?”

“I remember killing you.”

He smirked. “Try again.”

“What do you want?”

Jason laughed. “You know the answer to that.”

Kierse refused to be baited. He always played these games. Made them guess, and the guess was never quite up to his satisfaction. She was trapped in her own personal hell with her very real nightmare.

“Not going to answer?” He clenched his jaw. “Then I suppose I should just finish what I started.”

He nodded at the goon to his right. The man drew a gun and put it to her temple.

“Wait!” she gasped.

He tutted at her, holding a hand up. “Don’t make me go to such extremes. Why do you always make me do this?”

Her stomach flopped at the words. The bullshit manipulation she had endured so savagely for so long. It had taken her years to accept affection. Only with Graves’s help had she learned to want something more in her life. She hated how small she felt in his presence.

“I don’t know what you want. Revenge?”

Jason laughed. His gaze cut her down. “Did you think this was some elaborate trap just for you? That I give a fuck?”

Kierse had thought that. All the rare and priceless pieces he’d had on display. They all made sense if they belonged to Jason. He was the most talented thief she had ever known. Well, after her…

“I don’t know,” she said softly, letting herself look small to him while her mind raced ahead. “Your people said you’d been waiting for me.”

“Not you specifically,” he said with a snort. “You, the little thief who thought they could best me. And then look at the shit that appeared before me.” He gestured to her. “My thieves don’t get caught . Did I not drill that into your head enough?”

She cleared her throat. “I guess not.” Inside, she was furious. He had taught her that. He’d taught her all of his tricks. But that didn’t mean that he knew all of hers. She was going to find a way out of this.

“So where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he said, taking a step toward her. “I know you can’t help it, but I trained you. You’re better than this.”

“The cauldron,” she guessed.

“Ding, ding, ding.” He leaned forward. “Where is it?”

She shrugged. “Gone. Guess I wasn’t too bad of a thief, after all.”

“I see. She doesn’t know shit.”

He turned his back on her as if he really were ready to discard her. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Why did you do it?” she asked him before he reached the door.

He stopped. “Do what?”

“Erase my memories after you put the spell on me.”

He whirled around. Surprise lit his face. “So the spell is broken?”

“Yes.”

All the puzzle pieces fit together, suddenly.

Graves had never met Cillian. He wouldn’t have known Jason and Cillian were the same man, the one who had stolen her life away twice.

Lorcan had said Cillian was dead—someone had killed him during the Monster War.

She was that someone. After she’d paralyzed him, he must have gone underground.

Scrubbed his identity and started a new life.

One where he was still a thief, but no longer the one who got his hands dirty.

It was just like him. Everything fit—and still, the question lingered…

“Why did you do it?” she asked again. “I know that you’re Cillian Ryan. A Druid, cast out after you drained Sansara. You were doing dirty underground work using magic while you started your thieving ring. Before you became this…”

“Is that what you think? I was saving children like you.” He gestured to her. “You were never going to amount to anything. You weren’t going to do anything except die like the rest of your kind. Just like the rest of my little ring of thieves.”

She bristled with indignation. “I’m a survivor.”

“You were a half breed,” he snarled. “Half of anything is a whole of nothing.”

“But you could have told me ,” she yelled at him.

He shrugged, unconcerned. “Then what use would you have been to me?”

And it was that simple. He’d stolen and used children as a way to bring in followers who were devoted to him. As she had been. As had they all. Now he had a cult around him and his stupid tree. More power, more followers, more devotion, just like he wanted.

This wasn’t how it ended. This couldn’t possibly be right.

“So, that’s it. You did it to get followers. You couldn’t earn anyone’s respect, so you stole our memories and made us your little devotees.”

“Not everyone,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug. “Just those with magic.”

“But you have magic. You’re a Druid. You have Sansara!”

“Power begets power,” he said. “The more power I had, the more likely I was going to be able to replant Sansara’s power, making my own power infinite.”

“But why would hiding our magic, taking our memories, give you anything?”

“It gave me everything ,” he said with the calm assurance of someone who had been doing this so long that he was fully convinced of his righteousness. “Just like draining Sansara did.”

She stilled at the smug look on his face. The spell. The block. The reason she couldn’t see into that room.

A horrible thought hit her. She had been weaker with the spell over her, but she could still access her powers. As if the spell had only been a dampener. But with Jason standing before her in all his pomp and egoism, she had another thought.

He’d siphoned away the magic of Sansara, letting the tree crumble to ash, and then retained those powers for years, making him one of the most powerful people in the city.

Then he’d rounded up a ton of children and made them his thieving guild.

He could have had anyone at his side, but he’d chosen the most vulnerable.

A power source.

The spell hadn’t hid her magic at all. It was…a siphon.

“The spell wasn’t what you told my parents at all, was it?” she asked in horror. “The room in Tribeca…”

Shock flashed across Jason’s face for the span of a second. “You shouldn’t be able to remember Tribeca.”

“You took the memories, because you didn’t want anyone to be able to piece together what you’d actually done.” She looked up into his eyes. “You were siphoning my magic.”

He leaned against the cane and clapped twice, sardonically. “Took you long enough to figure out.”

“My magic flowed into you, continually replenishing you. When the spell broke, you knew, because you felt the loss.”

It was only after the spell was lifted that she’d had the full force of her magic. She’d thought that was because the spell was hiding her. But it was just that she was no longer continuously giving most of it away.

“I was powerful enough by then with Sansara regrown that it was but a blip,” he told her.

“And I wasn’t the only one.” She glanced at the two guards at his side. Likely other magic wielders who he was stealing from. “Just the strongest. Especially considering my absorption was a standby effect and could draw in powers for you at any time.”

“That was rather useful,” he agreed. “Though you were hardly the strongest.”

She didn’t believe him. She could read him too well.

She didn’t believe in good guys. People like Jason, they always won. That was how her world worked. But for once, just once, she wanted it to be the case that what was dead stayed dead. She came out ahead. This bastard didn’t win.

“All of this, just for your own power?” she asked him. “That can’t be your end game. You’ve built too much to keep it hidden and unappreciated. Do you want to take on the Druids?”

He scoffed. “As if I care about them. They lost long ago with their ‘goodness above all’ attitude.”

“That’s not exactly how they’ve appeared to me.”

“You’ve had interactions with Druids, have you?” he asked, leaning toward her with a smirk on his lips.

“Unfortunately.”

“That’s my girl,” he said with a laugh. “Always did have a problem with authority.”

She didn’t know how she had gotten to this point. Jason’s head games always gave her a headache. One moment degrading her, the next praising her. She was done playing with him.

She rattled against her chains, trying to use her magic.

Jason laughed. “Oh, I have missed you, Kierse. You always were entertaining. And I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She bared her teeth at him. “You owe me.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“Because I saved your life. The Fae Killer destroyed your kind, and if it wasn’t for me, you’d have died alongside them.”

“You didn’t save me. You destroyed my life,” she accused. “You’re spinning more bullshit tales to make yourself feel better about stealing the powers of children. You’re pathetic.”

Jason stalked toward her like a predator, but she saw him for what he really was. “You’re the one currently tied to a chair.”

“You’re just a man desperate for attention and caught up in your own grandiose fantasy. A narcissist who preyed on children,” she snarled at him. “You think this means you win? Because people worship you?”

“Better to be worshipped like a king than be another sheep in the herd,” he told her, leaning down until they were at eye level. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Who would follow you?”

Kierse boiled with rage at the sight of his smug smile.

She wasn’t the same girl she’d been when she’d gotten out.

She’d been sixteen and still both enamored and terrified of him.

She’d had enough gall to try her hand at killing him, but she knew now that she should have put a bullet between his eyes just to be safe. And she fucking intended to this time.

She reared forward and slammed her head against his nose. The crunch as his nose broke and blood spurted was extremely satisfying.

“You fucking bitch!” he cried, reeling back and reaching for his face.

All that remained after her fury was her magic.

Not the place she’d gone while trying to reach Lorcan, but the center of her wisp powers.

They were weakened from the iron, but still vibrant enough from the heist to latch onto.

The guards rushed to Jason, who yelled and sent Maya off for medical help.

The other goon fretted over him, and Jason pushed him away. He never could stand looking weak.

She smiled. Let that energy rush to her fingertips. The burst of power came to her like an emotional avalanche. He thought he was just going to get away with it. He was going to leave like he hadn’t destroyed her life.

No . The answer was all she needed.

She pushed like she had never pushed, sending herself into slow motion with such force that time stood still. The drop of blood stalled at the bottom of Jason’s chin. His goon’s outstretched hand froze. The clock refused to tick.

Between one second and the next, Kierse shifted forward, her body a blur as she went from tied to the chair with iron to standing on her own two feet.

Magic suffused her bones and whipped her hair around her face and sang a sweet tune.

The scent of Irish wildflowers blooming in the spring burst across the room.

Golden magic mingled with blue down her limbs.

She dropped her slow motion. Time ticked forward.

Kierse had phased from one place to the next.