Kilian scoffed at her naivety. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what our fathers do, Grace,” he spoke in a warning tone, trying to search her face for understanding. Grace blinked to make sure her eyes were deceiving her, but there was a desperation in his eyes when he spoke—like he needed someone outside of his family to understand the pressures of being in a family like either of theirs. “Are you really that stupid?” he growled at her, looking down at her as she stared back at him.
Her fury leaked out from her mouth. “My father wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Neither would mine,” Kilian countered with the same assurance Grace felt inside of her. In their individual furies, there was a moment of clarity between the two of them as they looked at the envelope in Kilian’s hand. There was really only one way to know for certain which of their fathers was lying—only one way to know the truth for certain.
After another moment of silent deliberation, Kilian eased himself off of Grace’s ankles, resting both of his knees on the floor on either side of her. Straddling her to open the envelope in a place they could both see it, Kilian retrieved a folded piece of paper and a leatherbound journal from the envelope. The paper fluttered to the floor, discarded now that the items were pulled out for them both to see. Grace could tell by the way that Kilian was handling the journal and by the small rips at the edges of the sturdy fabric, that the journal was older than both of them put together—maybe even both of their fathers put together.
“What is it?” Grace asked, looking up at the folded piece of paper in Kilian’s hand. As he unfolded the paper with both of his hands, Grace pushed his weight off of her. To her surprise, his body pulled away from hers easily, and as he finished unfolding the map at an angle for both of them to see it clearly, he didn’t seem concerned in the least that she was free now. There had been an unspoken truce between the two of them.
As Grace’s eyes moved from her attacker to the map he had unfurled in front of them, it was impossible to keep the gasp inside of her. It had bubbled up inside of her as soon as she laid her eyes on the map. “I know what this is.”
Kilian turned to look at her but didn’t speak, waiting for her to finish her thought.
“In my family, there’s this legendary book—something way too precious to be kept here where police officers just help themselves…” she couldn’t help but get one final dig at Kilian where she could, especially now that she was considering the possibility of Kilian searching her father’s belongings for the very book she was talking about. She scoffed at the idea, knowing that it wasn’t beyond reason to expect Kilian Kelly of all people to play that game. “I’m not sure what the book is called, my dad never told me—” she continued to explain, knowing that most likely, the detail had been obscured out of forgetfulness rather than pure malice.
“William Shakespeare’s First Folio,” Kilian said in such a monotone voice that it rattled Grace. Despite just wondering if Kilian was trying to get the book for himself, he’d admitted to knowing more about the book than she did—she wanted another person to help her locate the book more than anything, but she knew better than to trust a Kelly.
She narrowed her eyes at Kilian, watching as he looked over the map with a wide-eyed expression. Flipping open the journal, she recognized the chicken-scratch of her father’s handwriting almost immediately—watching as each new entry was just a series of notes left by a man, driven mad with greed for something he didn’t quite possess yet. He had ultimately learned that the book was somewhere close by—close enough that either she or Kilian would be able to find it. There was a fierceness in Kilian’s eyes that confirmed what she already knew; it was going to be more difficult to shake Kilian from the mystery than she knew.
9
Finally able to tear hiseyes away from the map in front of him, Kilian was surprised to see a fire burning intensely behind Grace’s eyes as she devoured the contents of the journal in front of her.
She flipped through the old pages of faded ink quickly, holding the delicate book with both of her hands. Her eyes widened to an unimaginable size as she ingested the pages of notes that someone had left many years ago.
Watching as her face pinched and smoothed as she read through each of the lines, Kilian tried his best to decipher the feelings that crossed over her face. Although he wanted to know what she was reading desperately, to the point that he began peering over her shoulder to get a closer look at the lines of black cursive, he simply waited for Grace to speak when she finished reading. His patience in this moment surprised him, but there was a part of him that relaxed as he watched Grace read through the journal at such a hurried pace—she wanted the truth as much as he did.
Once Grace had read through the final line on the very last page of the journal, she looked up. Her eyes were set across the office from them, but Kilian could tell by the expression on her face that her thoughts had her a million miles away from either of them—she began chewing at the back of her bottom lip. He watched as her teeth pulled at the soft tissue from the inside, releasing it as it sprung back into place. Her soft lips looked a deeper pink than they usually did underneath the warm lighting of her father’s desk lamp. Her eyes remained focused on a point on the far wall as if she was taking in a large, formidable landscape, overwhelmed by the vastness.
After a silent moment, the corners of her mouth began to peak. She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head as she lifted the closed journal up to peer down at it. She had a wistful smile on her lips that parted as she spoke. “I know how to find the book,” she said, finally lifting her gaze from the journal to look at him. The firmness in her eyes surprised Kilian—a determined assurance that even granted a small amount of confidence to Kilian. She held his gaze as the fire burned in the backs of her eyes, flickering and sputtering out embers with measured intensity. It faltered for just a moment, the flames flickering as if a great wind inside her mind threatened the determination that Kilian had just been inspired by moments ago. “I’m going to need your help.”
Kilian’s face froze, locked in a permanent state of disbelief. The only feature on his face that moved were his eyes, blinking as they searched her face for the hidden cache of humor that didn’t exist. That was something he never expected Grace to say to him, especially after finding what they just had in her father’s safe and after physically attacking one another. He smiled at her nervously, hoping that it would bait a smile out of her in return, but her features never shifted. She only looked back at him with an impatient, almost bored expression. The smile slid off his mouth.
“You can’t be serious…” he spoke hesitantly, focusing his eyes on the corners of hers for any sign that she was hiding a smile, that she was trying to get a rise out of him as he had done to her tonight and so many times before. “We couldn’t possibly work together,” he chuckled, gesturing to the room around them, to the evidence of their scuffle from earlier—the bunches in the rug, the disorganized desktop with papers and personal items strewn about and knocked over, the armchairs that had been turned to odd angles.
As badly as Grace wanted to deny that he had a point, she couldn’t. There would obviously be a learning curve when it came to trusting one another, but a lot of teams had overcome similar feelings like this and had come out successful in the end—Grace’s optimism bored even herself at times. Wanting to roll her eyes at the notion of actually working with him, Grace stifled her palpable dislike of Kilian when she looked at him. In the low lighting of the office, his hair looked less intense, softened by the dull yellow color of the bulb. Holding the journal in her hands—the first solid proof of her father’s intense researching throughout the years—Grace spoke clearly, with a deeper sense of confidence about herself and where she came from.
“Every member of my family has spoken to me about this book at one time or another. My father did it the most; telling me stories about how it had moved from one of my ancestors to the next on their wedding days. I know that you said it’s an heirloom from your heritage as well and I want to believe you.” Grace tried her hardest to make it convincing that this was the truth, but she wanted to be right more than anything in that moment. She wondered if he could see that in her eyes; she looked down at the journal. “But I swear to you that it belongs to my family. I’ve heard way too many legends about the book’s power, about my ancestors’ strength and persistence to keep it in the bloodline… my family has killed for this book,” Grace said.
Kilian’s face was difficult to read. His mouth was set in a firm line and his blue eyes had what Grace imagined was a thin layer of ice over them—one that captured her gaze like a fish caught in a net. Feeling her heart beat in her ears, Grace dared to stare back into Kilian’s eyes, feeling a cold settle around her shoulders that reminded her of a wet towel.
Fearing the silence that stretched out between them would prompt Kilian to speak, Grace pressed on. She turned around to rest against the heavy, wood desk while she absentmindedly thumbed through the journal. The paper pages made a soft fluttering sound, as if it were a small bird cradled in between Grace’s hands. “One of the stories about the book that my dad told me, usually before bed, was about the last time someone in our family had been with it—the day they hid it away from the people who had been—” Grace paused, refraining from using the same language that her father had used to conjure the image of evil pirates or cunning thieves in Grace’s mind, “—who had been looking for it.” She stopped on a page in the journal that had a long layer of pen ink on it, notes about the last known whereabouts of Grace’s great uncle, Reginald Walsh, the last holder of the book in the recorded family history. “And he sealed it off in some underground structure, somewhere on the outskirts of a large city, possibly Dublin.”
Kilian’s stoic face had hardly changed, but Grace felt a swell of relief when he leaned against the desk beside her. “That’s frustratingly vague of your family.” He sighed and crossed his arms, his strong jaw jutting out from the rest of his side profile. “It must be a shared family trait to be annoying,” he leaned over slightly, peeking at her from the corner of his eye to see if he’d struck a nerve.
Grace exhaled through her nose, imagining heavy puffs of steam coming from each of her nostrils. Tucking the journal underneath her arm, Grace held the book in place tightly with the meat of her arm. Eyeing the map that Kilian held onto loosely in between his fingers, she prepared herself to reach for it—her fingers stretching as a way of limbering up. “All I’m saying is that I know where to start looking and the stories must have been passed down in my family for a reason—if I had known there was a map this whole time…” her voice trailed off, thinking of all the times she’d fantasized about leaving her life behind to search for the legendary book. She’d always wanted to become a brave adventurer, like the people from the stories her father used to tell her before bed each night—but as an adult, she knew that wasn’t a lifepath that most people fell into. She laughed at herself, staring at the marbled design of the wallpaper in front of her.
“There were plenty of times I was ready to leave this town behind, even if it was only for a little while.” She felt Kilian’s gaze focus on her, watching his dark hair shift in the lights out the corner of her eye. Grace met his eyes, pretending to search his eyes for something meaningful as she prepared her hand to strike, to rip the paper map from Kilian. Getting a hold on the book would bring prosperity back to her family and embolden the changes that they’d recently made to survive—the underground fighting ring sprang to Grace’s mind immediately. She swallowed the guilt that bubbled up inside of her when she realized she was nearing the possibility of missing her brother’s first ring fight. Grace was certain that she’d never forgive herself if something happened to Mark while she was back here, fighting with Kilian—it was like a giant brick on the center of her chest. In the wake of this horrid feeling—a sickly guilt that made her joints ache—Grace lunged forward for the map. Her hand curled as it near the paper, grabbing the corner of the hand drawn map. The feeling of the paper against the pads of her thumbs thrilled Grace, knowing that she was close enough to touch the missing piece to the puzzle she’d been trying to solve since she was a little girl.
Pulling back from her with impressive speed, Kilian dove towards the far wall of the office and spun on his heel. He gave her a knowing smile, but one that still radiated amusement. Grace ground her teeth together, trying to hide her embarrassment for him having seen through her feeble attempt. He had seen her move coming and from the look on his face, Grace guessed that he had just been waiting for a reason to jab at her.
“So much for trust, hm?” He laughed, folding up the map to hold it more securely in between his fingers. “You’re not going to get the map from me that easily, Grace,” he looked down at her as he stepped closer, holding the map up in between his fingers just in front of her face. His mouth morphed into a low smirk, waiting for her to reach for the map once more—his mouth practically twitching with cat-like anticipation.
“Wherever the map goes, I go,” Grace said confidently, placing her hands on her hips. If she followed him long enough, Kilian was going to have to let his guard down eventually—he was going to have to leave the map unattended somewhere and when he did, she was going to get it. Holding the journal in between her arm and side, Grace reached one of her hands up to hold onto it directly. The challenge that sparkled in Kilian’s ocean-blue eyes made her fear for the family heirloom she had in her possession—but there was no way that the safe was going to keep it from falling into the hands of a Kelly boy.
Kilian leaned in closer to Grace’s face, his lips parting into a nasty sneer. “Pass,” he said simply. As he stepped around her and the desk, headed straight for the door to exit the office, he rolled his eyes—the very reaction that Grace herself had stifled to spare his feelings.
Fuming now, Grace spun around, her wild, brown hair swirling around her like a wave of fire. Kilian was just a few feet from the door—she had to move quickly if she wanted to stay with the map. Stepping up onto her father’s desk, Grace threw herself across the room and narrowly jumped in between Kilian and the door. She planted her feet firmly on the ground, rocking Kilian back onto his heels by pounding her fists into either one of his shoulders. As soon as she sent him backwards, Grace pulled her fists up to the sides of her face—a defensive strategy she’d learned from her older brother when he’d first started training.
