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“Better?”
She met his usually mercurial eyes and found only warmth there. Maybe last night had changed things. But the way her stomach was flipping said she wasn’t sure that she minded.
“Did you know her?” Kierse asked, gesturing to the statue of the revolutionary whose death started the Monster War.
“I heard her speak once,” he told her.
“What was she like?”
Graves shrugged. “Too young to understand she was doing nothing but putting a target on her back.”
Kierse frowned at that assessment. “Everyone talks about her like she was going to change the world.”
“She did, but not for the better.”
Well, that was the damn truth. “If she hadn’t died, would the world be where it is now?”
“I guess we’ll never know.” Graves gestured to his phone. “I have to take this.”
She waved him off, tugging his jacket tighter around her body and breathing in his purely masculine scent as she leaned back against the base of Coraline’s statue. There was no use wondering about the past. They couldn’t change it anyway. Only move forward to make sure it didn’t happen again.
Right now, her thoughts were trapped by the warlock at her back. The one who had surprisingly given her his coat. She tried to keep the smile from tugging at her lips, but she didn’t quite succeed. She just turned her body to face the sun, closing her eyes and soaking up the last of the dying rays.
“Kierse McKenna?” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
She opened her eyes and found a frail older white gentleman wearing a kippah standing before her. She squinted as she tried to place him. “Do I know you?”
He nodded. “I work at the bakery around the corner. You used to come in regularly.”
“Oh, yes.” Confusion and slight panic shot through her. Why was he here? How did he know she’d be here? “Can I help you?”
“This is for you,” he said. She saw his hands were shaking with fear as he passed her a small, white paper bag.
She took it in her hands before she could think better of it. “What is it?”
“Your favorite. He . . . he said it was your favorite,” the man said and then hastened away.
Kierse frowned deeply in confusion. Her favorite? Her favorite what?
She opened the bag and found an entire loaf of cinnamon babka. Her mouth watered at the same second she recoiled. She had a feeling she knew exactly who would send her babka from her favorite bakery.
“What’s that?” Graves asked, returning from his phone call.
“A man just delivered this to me,” she told him.
Graves immediately scanned the crowd. “What man? How did he know you’d be here?”
“I’m not sure.”
Graves frowned at that, his gray eyes going dark and stormy. “Point him out to me. We need to question him.”
“I knew him. He works at a bakery I used to frequent all the time.” She showed him the loaf of sweet bread. “It’s babka.”
“Doesn’t matter. That means you had a measure of trust. We need to know who did this. Throw it out. You don’t know who sent it.”
“Actually . . . I think I do.” Kierse swallowed. “Lorcan sent it.”
Graves went still as night and dark as shadows. His jaw set tight, eyes hard and uncompromising. He was silent for a tense second before saying anything. “How do you know?”
“Well, I told him this was my favorite food.”
Graves clenched his hands into fists. He looked ready to snatch the babka from her and toss it himself. “It seems he has an . . . interest in you.”
“Yes. It seems that way.”
“I don’t like it,” he said, meeting her eyes.
“That’s probably why he did it,” she said.
He straightened, scanning the area. “I’m sure it is.”
And yet, he still looked furious.
No, not just fury. He looked jealous.
But that couldn’t be possible. Not Graves. She had no idea why he would even feel that way. Was this part of his feud with Lorcan? Or was this about her? Was this about last night?
Kingston traipsed down the steps to meet them at the base of the statue. “Well, well, that was invigorating.” Then he seemed to sense tension between them. “What’s going on?”
“Lorcan sent Kierse a present,” Graves bit out.
Kingston sighed. “Well, he does like to addle you. You know how he is. It’s like the wildflowers he used to send.”
Graves glared at his mentor for the suggestion but then slowly released the coils of tension in his shoulders. His face returned to its neutral blankness. No anger, no displeasure, no . . . jealousy. He’d been angry . . . angry at the thought of Lorcan giving this to her? Or Lorcan putting his own power on display?
Kierse didn’t know. But it certainly felt like both.
“Let’s just go,” Graves said, striding toward the limo.
Kierse followed in his wake, considering Graves’s masked fury. Lorcan had done this to get to him. To get to her. She didn’t like being caught in his little game. She was supposed to be the player, not the other way around.
