Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Oh, my favorite,” she crooned.
“Yes. The exit will be our most difficult element. I’ve not found a way in or out of Third Floor without passing through a checkpoint. That would not be ideal with you carrying the spear.”
“Well, the best part, then—reconnaissance,” she said with a grin. “When do we start?”
She didn’t realize how close she had drawn to him as her excitement had mounted. Her shoulder was pressed tight against his. His heat melted into hers. She looked up into his eyes, wondering if he was about to break the tension and acknowledge whatever was happening here. Her stomach twisted, and she recognized it as yearning.
He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something about what had happened. But in that moment, a banging came from downstairs.
Kierse followed Graves out of the library and down the main set of stairs just as Edgar answered the door.
A booming British voice rang out. “Edgar, my old chap, just look at you!”
The breath went out of Graves as if he had been expecting the worst.
A figure strode inside. “There you are, Graves. What in the bloody hell have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Graves laughed at the man. “Hello, Kingston.”
So this was the infamous Kingston.
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.”