Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SELENE
The paint was wrong.
I stood in the center of the boutique hotel lobby in The Liberties historic neighborhood, with my hands tucked into the pockets of my linen trousers. I tilted my head, trying to give myself a new perspective as I studied the wall behind the reception desk.
It was a warm, muted clay, a lovely color I’d chosen to complement the carved wood paneling and the brass sconces I’d sourced from a salvage yard outside Wicklow. I’d expected it to settle the room, to ground it the way a good anchor color always did by pulling everything else into agreement.
Instead, it pressed forward.
I buried my forehead in my palm as I inhaled slowly through my nose, catching the scents of fresh paint and polished oak. I could not tell what was off, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Or me.
Weeks had passed since that weird night in Killarney, and my life had been off-kilter ever since.
It was as if spaces stopped speaking to me, and I’d lost my natural intuition when it came to my work. I released a string of mental curses, working to ease my frustration, before I lifted my gaze once again.
Tourists drifted through in rolling waves of chatter and wheeled luggage, as the light from the tall front windows fell across the floor in long, pale rectangles. That light should have softened everything. It usually did.
Maybe the discord I sensed wasn’t from the paint color after all.
I stepped forward and nudged an armchair by half an inch. Nothing. I crouched and adjusted the angle of the rug beneath it. Still nothing.
Something should have shifted, whether it was good or bad. But there’d been no easing, no click of rightness, just the same low resistance pressing against my chest like a held breath I couldn’t release.
Rooms didn’t resist me. Ever. So what was up with this one? I turned my gaze back toward the reception desk. It had to be the color of the paint that was off. It just had to be.
Clara came up behind me, touching my arm. “You’ve been staring at that wall for ten minutes.”
“I know.” I pressed my tongue to the back of my teeth. “It’s wrong.”
A light scoff echoed from her. “It’s paint.”
“It’s wrong.”
I crossed to the front desk and ran my fingers along the polished wood, trying to read the area the way I always did, with the quieter part of my instinct that had never once steered me wrong.
The space should have felt calm. It didn’t.
It felt unsettled, as if something had been disturbed and hadn’t quite resettled, like a room after an argument that everyone had agreed not to mention.
I feared we’d need to try a different color.
We’d already repainted it once, and the thought of trying to explain that to the hotel’s owner tightened my stomach.
My heartbeat ticked up, irrationally fast. In a world where I’d learned to mold my surroundings into something solid and sustainable, I was flailing.
I glanced at Clara and gave her a light laugh, trying to minimize any frustration she might perceive. “Perhaps I just need a good night’s sleep and then to take another look with fresh eyes tomorrow.”
Her dubious gaze shifted to worry. “We’ve already missed our deadline. Cillian hasn’t complained, but I have the sense Mr. Doyle has lost his patience and wants us out of here.”
She was right. Worse, my comment about needing a fresh perspective only brought about another wave of anxiety. The truth was, I hadn’t slept well in weeks. At first, it had been the dreams. Then it was also the fear of them.
Eventually, my body would give way to exhaustion, but the little rest I might have gotten was quickly stolen by those damned dreams. His face now seemed too real. As if he was standing right before me.
Clara cleared her throat. I blinked, coming back to the present. I couldn’t think about that night. Not now. I buried those thoughts deep inside, where I hoped they’d never find their way to the surface again, and turned to my friend.
What remained of my hope splattered on the tile floor when I caught sight of our bald and portly client making his way toward us. As he neared, I plastered on my most professional, friendliest smile, wondering how to broach the subject of paint. “Good afternoon, Mr. Doyle.”
He glanced around the lobby with a tight expression, and I feared he’d come up with the same conclusion I had. “My wife and I were talking earlier about the restoration project, and we feel there’s an issue.”
As did I, but I remained quiet, allowing him to finish.
He drew his brows. “It’s as if the direction has shifted.”
I widened my eyes. “Shifted? This is the direction we agreed upon.” I looked at Clara, and she responded with a noncommittal shrug.
Gods, was I failing that badly?
Our client clasped his hands together as if he’d already made his decision. “Perhaps we need someone a bit…steadier.”
The word landed clean and precise, cutting into my psyche as the lobby chatter, the roll of suitcases, and even the faint hum of the espresso machine in the adjoining café dulled to a low, distant murmur.
Steadier?
Steady was what I did. I made rooms breathe evenly, made tension dissolve, made people settle into spaces without ever quite understanding why. I did not wobble.
Clara stiffened next to me. I felt as stable as a woman six pints into her Guinness, and the room spun around me.
Mr. Doyle quickly filled the awkward silence. “I’m not questioning your talent, of course. Merely suggesting—”
“That the space feels unstable?” I finished quietly.
He hesitated, which was answer enough.
I exhaled, slow and controlled. “Give me a second.”
I turned away before I said something I couldn’t retract. The clay wall blurred slightly as my gaze drifted past it, and my sense that something was wrong deepened.
It wasn’t the paint. Or the room.
Then something above us moved. My gut tightened as an ominous feeling crept over me. Followed by a faint metallic creak. I frowned and lifted my gaze.
The enormous crystal chandelier hanging above the center of the lobby swayed. Not wildly. But just enough to cause me alarm.
The chain above it twisted slowly against the ceiling mount, and a cold sensation washed over me as I muttered my thoughts. “It’s going to fall.”
Time distorted the next several moments. Clara glanced at me. Mr. Doyle frowned. Yet no one moved.
The chain snapped, releasing the massive chandelier. Its crystal prisms chimed as a shout tore from somewhere across the room, and people scattered.
I lifted my hand without thinking. “No.”
The air tightened, and the chandelier stopped.
Just for an impossible second.
I blinked as crystal prisms hung suspended mid-fall, their facets catching the afternoon light in sharp flashes. Dust drifted around the fixture in a glittering cloud, and I couldn’t breathe.
Everything above us froze for only seconds, and then gravity reclaimed its dominance. The chandelier crashed onto the marble floor, and the sound of shattering glass exploded through the lobby.
Someone screamed as tourists scrambled backward, and chaos rushed in all at once.
Clara grabbed my arm. “Selene!”
I stared at the wreckage as my pulse thundered in my ears. No one had been hurt, but—
It had stopped.
Just for a moment.
I shook my head, feeling dazed, and turned to Clara. “Did you see that?” I whispered.
She looked at me as if I was daft. “I’m standing right here, Selene. How could I miss it?”
“No. Not the crash. What came before, when the light froze and everything stopped?”
Clara drew her features in confusion. “It stopped?”
I would have explained, but Mr. Doyle turned slowly toward me, his face an alarming shade of red. “What did you just do to my lobby?”
His voice trembled with fury, and his words struck harder than the crash. “I’m sorry, Mr. Doyle. I don’t think—”
“You don’t think?” He thrust a finger toward the exit. “Out. I want you out!”
I yearned to explain that our crew hadn’t touched the chandelier, that we hadn’t caused it to fall. But something in me faltered, and I wondered if we might have disturbed it enough to compromise the mount.
My chest tightened, and the pressure in the room threatened to suffocate me. Clara gripped my hand hard enough to clear my mind as she leaned close and whispered, “Go. I’ll talk to Mr. Doyle.”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I stumbled toward the exit, completely off-balance. But as I pushed through the door, the street felt too bright and too loud. All I could do was replay those few seconds between when the chain had broken and the chandelier had shattered on the lobby floor.
The light fixture had paused.
It had.
Or had I?