28. Deargán
DEARGáN
The kids at the boy’s party moved in loose clusters around the bonfire, masks flashing in the firelight whenever someone turned their head.
I noticed him because he stood apart from the nearest knot of guests.
He had no drink in his hand, standing close enough to the tree line that he could disappear into it in seconds if he needed to. He wore a half-mask that looked like a skeleton’s jaw, hiding the lower half of his face, but there was a professional stillness in the way he held himself.
His gaze cut through the crowd without wavering.
I followed his line of sight.
Liath stood in the gap between the rose hedges with Lorcan, the firelight catching the side of her face and turning the dark red of her hair molten. Even from this distance, I could see the edges of her cover beginning to fray.
The little bastard in the skeleton mask was watching her.
Recognition stirred. I swear I’d seen him before at Ravenwood. He’d been there earlier, watching Liath then too, keeping enough distance not to draw her attention but not enough to escape mine.
I kept to the edge of the trees as I circled around the party until I came up behind him. He didn’t hear me over the crackle of the bonfire and the music bleeding out into the night.
Liath slipped away from Lorcan and disappeared into the maze.
The stranger’s head craned after her.
I grabbed the front of his jacket and slammed him back against a tree hard enough to shake leaves loose from the branches above us.
I yanked down his mask, revealing a determined jawline and a smirk. Recognition flared. I knew him from somewhere. But where?
“Who are you?” I said, my hand tightening in his collar. “And why are you watching her?”
He didn’t even flinch. “Steady on, Deargán.”
The sound of my name in his mouth made every muscle in my body go taut.
I leaned in closer. “Who are you?”
His mouth twitched. “Call me Bas.”
Bas. Pronounced Bawss. Death in Irish.
I kept my grip on him. “Okay, Death boy. Why are you stalking her?”
He snorted, glancing meaningfully at my fist knotted in his jacket. “Kettle. Pot.” His gaze flicked back to mine. “Take your hands off me, and I’ll tell you.”
I let go of his collar, but I didn’t step back. My body stayed coiled, every instinct primed to put him through the tree if he reached for a weapon or tried to run.
He straightened his jacket with irritating calm. “I was sent by one of Liath’s friends.”
That wasn’t the answer I expected.
“By who?” I demanded.
“Ava.” He said it with weight. Like she mattered.
I remembered Liath’s raven-haired friend from Dublin. The one I thought might make the most trouble after Liath disappeared. Turned out I was right.
“Okay, so Ava sent you,” I said to Bas. “How did you find her?”
Bas folded his arms. “Liath’s father hired a PI to find out where she disappeared to after you kidnapped her from behind the Vault.”
I went still. How the fuck did this kid know that?
He must have seen the shift in my expression, because a grim little smile tugged at his mouth. “I just followed the PI’s trail to Magdalene.”
“But if Michael found her—”
For one long beat, the world narrowed to the blood pounding in my ears.
Her father had found her at Magdalene. And he’d left her there to rot.
Murder settled into me with the same cold certainty as breath.
“I’m going to kill him,” I muttered.
Bas’s grin sharpened. “Sorry. Already had the pleasure.”
That stopped me. I looked at him properly then. He wouldn’t be much older than the kids at this party. But there was a darkness in his eyes. This boy wasn’t a boy after all. He’d seen some things. Been through some things. And it had spat him out the other end, alive but forever different.
“What do you want?” I asked him.
“To help.”
I laughed once, low and humourless. “Help me?”
He rubbed his nails on his black leather jacket. “I’ll have you know I’m pretty useful.”
“How?”
“Oh, you know.” His grin widened. “Digging out secrets, creating fake identities, and your general chaos and mayhem.”
He said it lightly, but there was a steely competence underneath the joke.
I shook my head. “I work alone.”
Something unreadable passed across his face. Amusement, perhaps. Or pity. Maybe both.
I started to turn away.
“You’ll need my help,” he called after me.
I glanced back.
He was still leaning against the tree, half his face in shadow, watching me with the same unnerving calm he’d worn since the moment I’d grabbed him.
Only then did I realize where I recognized him from.
Skellig Mor prison.
“Until then...” Bas said, “I’ll be watching.”