22. Liath
LIATH
Lunchtime drowned Ravenwood in laughter, footsteps, and a shrill burst of someone’s ringtone. But it was the snatches of cruel voices that curled around me like nettles.
“Oh, Lorcan… harder, faster…”
A mocking moan floated behind me, followed by a sharp whistle.
I stiffened but kept walking, forcing my face smooth, into something unreadable.
Walking beside me, Nuala scowled. “Don’t mind them, they’re just trying to get a rise.”
A group of first-years near the steps began to pretend-grind the air, bursting into fits of laughter as they nudged each other.
My face stayed blank, but my nails dug crescents into my palms.
Nuala bumped my shoulder. “Boys tease you when they like you, you know. It’s childish. But Lorcan… he’s different with you.”
I snorted, bitterness clinging to my tongue. “Lorcan doesn’t like me. He hates me.”
I mumbled something about needing air and peeled away from her before she could say anything more. The courtyard was too loud, too cruel.
I turned toward the long path behind the old library annex, past the crumbling archways and moss-wet stone. The mist had thickened into drizzle, beading on my lashes and slicking my skin with damp.
I slowed, my stomach twisting, a thick churn of dread and shame maybe. Or grief. The kind that didn’t belong to me but lived in me anyway.
My fingers shook against my skirt. I didn’t want to be Rua.
Maybe I should just leave. Skip the rest of the day, vanish into the mist and not come back until my skin didn’t itch with shame. Until I could breathe without the weight of Rua pressing behind my ribs.
But would running away just prove them right? Would it tell them Lorcan had broken me, that I’d let him win? That I was running, not just from the whispers or the rumors, but from him? From the way his voice still echoed in my head, all velvet and venom.
And where would I even go? There was nowhere in this godforsaken town where Rua’s ghost didn’t haunt me. Nowhere I could go where I could slip her off my shoulders.
And the mask was buried too deep now, stitched over my bones. There was no peeling it off without taking skin.
The hairs on my neck prickled. I was being watched.
I snapped my head toward them, ready to snap.
But the presence stood tall and still, half-swallowed by the hedges, coat blackened by rain, watching me like he’d never stopped.
Deargán.
My feet halted, my pulse punching against my throat. I hated the sharp inhale that betrayed me, hated the flutter in my chest that answered him.
Mist beaded on the sharp planes of his face, on his jaw, on the salt-and-pepper hair pushed loose across his forehead. There was nothing soft about him except the way he was looking at me.
He gave me a subtle nod of his chin. Come.
I glanced around to make sure no one else was watching before I approached him.
The cello hit as I reached him, deep and bassy and pulling, his scent of clove and pepper threading through the damp air and into my chest. My knees went soft for one traitorous second.
“Are you stalking me now?” I hissed, my voice low, steadier than I had any right to expect.
He didn’t smile. Just looked at me with something close to sorrow. “Maybe I just missed you.” His hand came up and his sleeve slid down, my gaze catching on a set of numbers tattooed on his inner wrist.
12081989
A birthdate?
He tucked a strand of damp hair behind my ear and a shiver moved through me before I could stop it.
I hated the way my heart clenched. Hated that part of me had missed him, too. Missed the contained world of the asylum, the strange sanctuary we’d carved in it, doctor and patient, two broken things suspended in a pretty little lie.
For one stupid, aching second, I wanted to lean into him, bury my face into his warm coat and let him take it all away, the rumors, the shame, the hollowness of living a lie. I wanted his hands, his mouth, anything that could scrape this day off my skin and pretend none of it touched me.
I jerked back instead. “What do you really want?”
His hand fell. “Liath.”
“I’m busy.”
Something in his face closed down and his voice turned cold again. “An update. You should have something we can use by now.”
The sting hit low and mean.
Of course. He hadn’t come for me. He’d come because I was useful. Stupid me.
“I’m trying,” I said, my voice cracking with frustration. “But I’m being watched. He doesn’t just leave that shite out in the open. I have to bide my time.”
Deargán stepped closer. His gaze moved over me, slow and deliberate, over the damp dark-purple wool of my dress where it clung to my arms, my waist. His thumb brushed along my shoulder, tracing it.
“Bide your time?” he murmured. “Or perhaps you like being her. Pretending he is yours.”
The words landed like a slap. I went very still. My throat closed and heat climbed my face.
Something registered in his expression, just a fraction, before it was gone. He suddenly looked tired as he ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, I didn’t come here to argue. I came here to warn—”
He froze, his gaze moving past my shoulder.
Gravel crunched behind me and I spun.
Lorcan stood behind me, arms folded, rain glittering in his dark hair, close enough that his scent hit me immediately, whiskey and woodsmoke, and a hint of leather from his jacket.
His violins rose up through my chest at the exact moment the cello was still sounding.
The cello, low and gravitational, pulling deep.
The violins, raw and fractured, pulling up and sideways.
They clamored against each other, each fighting to be the only sound, the clash of them filling my skull until I was dizzy.
I had no idea how long he’d been standing there.
Lorcan’s gaze moved from me to Deargán. “Who’s your friend, Rua?”
Deargán’s shoulders were rigid under his coat, the tendons in his jaw standing out for just a second before his face went blank. His eyes moved over Lorcan. Whatever was happening behind that blankness, he was clenching it shut with his back teeth.
Hatred, I guessed. He was staring at the son of the man who had taken everything from him.
I stood between them and the world narrowed, their two scent-songs in my head at once, the weight of their presence pressing in from both sides.
Neither of them was looking at me anymore. They were glaring at each other, violence mirrored in their postures and in the way they held their fists at their sides.
A feeling came over me, a premonition.
In the end, it was going to come down to the three of us.
“He’s no one,” I said, taking a step between them. “He’s lost.”
Lorcan’s eyes dragged back to me. “Looks like he knows you.”
“Thank you for your directions, miss.” Deargán’s voice was perfectly pleasant and revealed nothing. He held Lorcan’s gaze for one terse moment before he turned.
Lorcan’s eyes narrowed at Deargán’s retreating figure, brows drawing down. “Wait. I know you.”
But Deargán didn’t stop. He didn’t even look back to acknowledge Lorcan. He stepped back through the drizzle and let the gap in the hedges swallow him.
Lorcan’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t used to being dismissed. He glared at the gap in the hedge, his body tense like a runner at a starting line. And for a second I thought he’d go after Deargán.
His jaw worked once. Then he nodded. “That doctor. At Magdalene.”
Oh, shite.
Lorcan had been to Magdalene. Cold rushed through me so fast my fingers went numb. What had he found there? How much had he seen? My cover felt suddenly paper-thin, ready to tear straight down the middle.
His attention snapped back to me. “Who is he?”
“No one. I told you.”
“Liar.” His voice dropped, the kind of quiet that had an edge to it. He stepped closer. “Your doctor? An old lover? Someone you’re working with?”
The last shred of my safety dissolved into absolute freefall.
Fuck. He’d aimed straight at the center of it and it struck. One more pull at that thread and the whole thing unraveled. Deargán. The plan. Dervla still rotting in that ward.
Panic climbed hard and hot.
I couldn’t deny too quickly. Couldn’t freeze. Either one would tell him he’d hit something real.
So I reached for the one button I knew I could press.
I tipped my chin up and said, “What’s this really about, Lorcan?”
His features hardened into stone. “I asked you a question.”
“And I think you hate that another man got my attention first.”
His stare hardened. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Then why do you care?” I asked.
His mouth flattened. “Because men like that don’t approach girls like you for nothing.”
“Girls like me?”
His gaze flicked toward the hedge, then back to me. “You know exactly what I mean.”
He stepped closer, crowding the space Deargán had just left behind.
His eyes didn’t smile as he leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear, sending shivers rushing down my body in a waterfall.
“You should be more careful who you flirt with.”