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“I thought you’d like it, actually. Did you finish the other?”
“I did.”
“And what did you think?”
She brushed her thumb across her bottom lip contemplatively. “I like the story of the Oak and Holly King battles.”
“Of course you do.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Graves’s face was a mask. “You couldn’t like the tale of the High Priestesses and their healing arts.”
She had read that one, too. She wrinkled her nose. “Please. Virgins who live on a separate island from men to help them control the weather for their vessels. No thanks.”
Graves shrugged. “It was a different time. Tell me what you like about the Oak and Holly Kings.”
She bit her lip and wondered what he wanted her to see in this story. She couldn’t deny that there were seeds of it that rang true. Even if she couldn’t put the pieces together. “Well, I like the idea that twice a year there’s a battle for whether winter or summer will dominate. The Oak King is always trying to bring back the light, and the Holly King is always trying to bring back the dark. It’s harmony. Could you imagine if it didn’t work? If the Oak King lost at the winter solstice and we had darkness and winter forever? Or at least until they battled again?”
“You start with harmony and end with chaos,” he said, amused. “I’m not sure I know anything else that perfectly sums you up.”
“I’ve lived much of my life in chaos. I don’t know that I’d know where to start with harmony. Why do you like the story?”
He tapped his fingers against the armrest. “It’s about life. About something real.”
She was aware of his gaze on her. “It’s just mythology.”
“Some would say so. Others would say that it’s as true as any other religion. It only becomes mythology after it has fallen out of favor.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” The book was just as worn as the other she’d borrowed. He must have truly enjoyed it, considering he had such an enormous library yet had read this one book so much.
“Do we not still see the seasons turning year over year?”
“Yes, but we have science that explains that. The planets moving around the sun,” she said, trailing off.
“And yet we have monsters and magic,” he said, “that science still does not understand.”
“True.” She stared down at the little green book for a second longer, wondering about his connection with holly and the love of the story. “Holly is your symbol. It’s in your library and threaded through your wards. Is it because of this story?”
His eyes went distant. “Holly is a symbol of eternal life because they stay green in the winter, and the berries are poisonous. I recognized myself in that.”
Graves stood and retrieved some papers. He laid them out on the table, revealing several blueprints stacked haphazardly on top of one another, the corner of what looked like another invitation, and drawings of various computer components?
“What is all of this?”
“This is the business I’ve been working on. As soon as I had a wardbreaker, I set into motion all the plays I’ve been holding on to.”
She nodded her approval. This was the sort of work she did alone or with Ethan’s help. It was actually nice to have someone else who was competent to have so many of the pieces she required in one place.
“Tell me everything.”
“Have you heard of the vampire King Louis?”
“The name sounds familiar,” she admitted. “He runs the underground or something?”
“Indeed,” Graves said. “It’s a moniker after King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, who was the longest reigning French monarch. The vampire King Louis was cast out after the Monster Treaty and has since risen up as the rightful king of the monster underworld. He runs the Men of Valor. He is not quiet about his distaste for what he considers to be monster suppression and believes he should rule this world. In fact, he was the Monster Treaty’s most vocal dissenter. But a man . . . a vampire like that isn’t going to stop because of a treaty.”
“And he has the spear,” she said.
“Yes. I believe his predecessor was in possession of it. When he was killed, an informant told me that it had transferred to King Louis.”
“So, you haven’t seen it yourself?”
“No,” he admitted. “Not since I lost access to the underworld.”
He pushed one of the hand-drawn pictures toward her. It revealed a vault door with a security system. She squinted at it to try to see if they’d gotten anything she could go off of. “This is where the spear is being kept. The wards will be easy, but you’ll still have to break through the vault without raising an alarm.”
“That’s fine. I think I can break down something like this. It’d be more helpful if we got a make or model on it. Anything like that will help me get through it faster.”
