Chapter 6
Dervla
The lantern over the boathouse door throws enough light for me to see the lake properly, and I instantly hate it.
Black water. Still on top. God knows what underneath.
Professor Gallagher steps in front of me and removes his hood again. His face holds that infuriating academic calm, his eyebrows slightly raised, his mouth pressed into a thin line of disappointment, his eyes assessing me as if grading every breath I take.
I hold his gaze for about a second, and then he leads me into the boathouse.
One of the Board members, taller than the others, clamps his hands around my biceps with bruising force, fingers digging into my arms. He drags me toward a metal chair bolted to the floor and shoves me down.
“Hey!” I snap, my voice echoing off stone walls as he yanks my arms behind the chair back. Cold steel bites into my wrists with each metallic click of the handcuffs. “What the hell is this?”
“The question portion of events,” Roisin says.
“Questions? Did everyone else go through this shit?”
“Not everyone.”
I struggle, but the cuffs bite into my wrists, so I go still. “What do you plan to interrogate out of me?”
“Why are you here?” Gallagher asks.
“My dad would’ve wanted it.”
“Is that the only reason?”
I don’t answer.
“Why did you apply here when you were rejected after your A-Levels?”
“Because my dad would’ve wanted it.”
“And?” He stands there like he has all the patience in the world.
“And I knew I had a better shot this time. Look, I know my A-Levels weren’t that great. But university is more my speed. You can’t fault my grades at Dublin City.”
“True. They are impressive.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“No problem. Just curious.”
Yeah, right.
But I say nothing else.
“Who murdered your father?” a woman in the corner asks.
It’s like a knife to the heart. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
“You found him, didn’t you?”
“And? Are you accusing me of killing him?” I scoff, struggling against the cuffs again.
“Did you kill him?”
“No, you cunt. I didn’t, so go fuck yourself.”
“Mature,” she mumbles, and I’d give the finger if I could. “You mean to sit there and tell us that you have no idea who killed your father. Absolutely none? No suspects at all?”
“The butler? The maid? The professor with the candlestick?” I glare at Gallagher.
“Why are you here, Ms Callaghan?” he asks again.
“I already told you twice. Are you hard of hearing?”
“Because it was your father’s wish.”
“Right,” I grit out.
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Fair enough,” he says and takes a step toward the door. The others follow him. “The third test is to get yourself out of those cuffs, Ms Callaghan.” He places Henrietta on the windowsill and sweeps out with the rest of the Board members behind him. The door slams.
For one second, I just sit there in the stale dark, breathing hard through my nose and staring at Henrietta on the windowsill, wishing I could drive it into the throat of the woman who thinks I killed my dad.
Then, I get to work.
I test the metal properly this time, twisting my wrists, ignoring the bite of steel. Proper cuffs, not novelty bullshit. Tight enough to hurt, loose enough to move a fraction. The chair is old but not rusted, bolted into the stone floor with iron brackets. No give there either.
There is only one way out of this, and it’s going to hurt. But Dad was paranoid, and he taught me things I didn’t think I’d ever need to know.
How wrong I was.
I blow out a breath and flex my hands once, twice, feeling for the angle.
Thumb first.
“Bastards,” I mutter, bracing my right hand against the metal cuff and forcing my thumb inward. Pain detonates white-hot up my arm. My vision goes blurry as I bite back my shout.
Again.
There’s a horrible little give, a sick shift in the joint, and then my hand slims just enough that I can wrench it through with skin tearing at the base of my thumb. A sound rips out of me, half hiss, half animal. I hang there for a second, sweat breaking over my lip, my pulse hammering in my ears.
“Fuck.”
I bring both hands to my lap and cradle my right one with the left for a few seconds while I work up the nerve to pop it back in.
The door to the boathouse opens. Not bursts. Opens. Slowly, deliberately, like someone who already knows what they’ll find inside.
Aidan steps through first, his gaze sweeping the room before it lands on me. He takes in the chair, the dangling cuff, my free hand cradled in my lap, and something shifts behind his eyes. Not concern. Inventory. He’s taking note of what I did, how I did it, and what it cost me.
Cormac and Declan file in behind him, and Cormac’s stare goes straight to Henrietta on the windowsill. He crosses the room and picks her up, turning the blade over in his hands with the easy familiarity of someone who knows steel.
“Give that back,” I say.
He doesn’t. He holds the blade up to the lantern light and examines the edge.
“Nice steel. Shame they left it where you couldn’t reach it.
That was the point, though, wasn’t it? Make you choose between the knife and your own bones.
” He looks at me, and his smile is all predator, no mercy. “You chose well.”
“I didn’t choose for your benefit. Give it back.”
“When I’m done looking.”
My blood heats. “You’ll be done when I put it through your hand.”
His grin widens, and he tosses Henrietta into the air, catches her by the tip of the blade, and holds her out to me hilt-first. It’s a show of skill that’s also a message: I can handle your weapons better than you can.
I snatch her with my left hand, gripping it too tightly, hating that my right hand is too fucked to grip properly.
Aidan hasn’t moved from the doorway. He’s watching this exchange like he’s watching a chess match, and I’m not sure if I’m one of the players or one of the pieces.
“You dislocated your thumb,” he says. Not a question.
“Well spotted.”
“Give me your hand.”
“No.”
He crosses the space between us in three steps and takes my wrist. Not gently. Not roughly. With the precise, impersonal grip of someone who has done this before and doesn’t care if I consent. His fingers find the joint, and before I can pull away, he wrenches my thumb back into place.
The pain is a white flash. A sound comes out of me that I’ll deny until I die, and my left hand flies up with Henrietta in it, the blade stopping a centimetre from his throat.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. His fingers are still wrapped around my wrist, and now we’re locked together in a stupid, dangerous standoff: his hand on my arm, my blade at his neck, our faces close enough that I can see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes.
“Feel better?” he asks.
“I will when I open your windpipe.”
“No, you won’t. You need that hand looked at, and I’m the only one here who knows how to strap it properly.”
“I’ll manage.”
“You’ll lose mobility in the joint if it swells wrong.” His voice is calm, measured, factual. He isn’t trying to help me. He’s telling me I’m damaged, and he has something I need. There’s a difference, and I fucking hate that he knows I can feel it.
His gaze flicks to my face, not my hand, like he’s checking whether I’m about to bolt or bite.
The look is almost… familiar. Not kind. Not gentle.
But like he already knows the exact shape of my stubbornness, and he’s decided it isn’t a flaw.
It’s a weapon.
I lower the blade. Not because he told me to. Because holding it up hurts, and my hand is starting to shake.
He lets go of my wrist at the exact same moment, and the synchronicity of it makes my teeth clench. He steps back, and the absence of his grip leaves a cold ring around my wrist that I refuse to rub.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“We told you. Moral support.”
“You three have been following me since the chapel. You waited outside while they cuffed me to a chair and asked me if I murdered my own father. That’s not moral support. That’s surveillance.”
Aidan’s mouth curves. Not a smile. A concession. “You’re not wrong.”
“So what do you want?”
“Your father’s seat is up for grabs in four weeks,” he says, like he’s discussing the weather. “Every legacy, every alum, every power-hungry prick on and off this campus wants it. Including people in this room.”
The words settle in my chest like ice water. “Including you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say it either.”
Declan pushes off from the shadows at the back of the room, the floorboard creaking under his shifting weight as he steps forward, speaking for the first time.
“What he’s saying is that you walked into a game tonight that’s been running since your father’s body went cold.
The Board didn’t put you through the gauntlet because they want to rank you.
They put you through it because they want to know if you’re a threat. ”
“And you three want to know the same thing,” I say.
Cormac shifts his weight, and his gaze drags over me. Slowly. Not the way you look at someone you’re worried about. The way you look at something you’re deciding whether to acquire. It starts at my torn hands, moves up my soaked top, lingers on the blade at my waistband, and ends at my eyes.
“We already know,” he says. His voice is low enough to vibrate through the damp air.
“Then you know I’m not interested in being anyone’s asset.”
“Good,” Aidan says. “Assets are disposable. We’re offering something else.”
“And what’s that?”
“An alliance. One that benefits both sides.”
“You want me where you can see me,” I say flatly.
“I want you where the Board can’t use you without us knowing about it.” He pauses. “There’s a difference. But you’re right to be suspicious. You’d be stupid not to be, and you’re not stupid.”
“Wow. A compliment wrapped in a threat. Is that your love language?”
“Something like that.”
I stare at the three of them. Up close in the weak lantern light, they’re worse than I thought.
Not worse-looking. Worse for my ability to think clearly.
Aidan with his polished control and the way he touched me like I belonged to him already.
Cormac with that heavy, acquisitive stare and a mouth that looks like it’s been used to deliver cruel things.
Declan with the hard-edged stillness of someone who watches everything and volunteers nothing.
Three predators in a wooden shack, and every single one of them wants something from me.
“I don’t do alliances,” I say. “I don’t do trust. I don’t do whatever game you’re running where you follow me in the dark and then act like you’re doing me a favour.”
“Noted,” Aidan says.
“So, fuck off. All three of you.”
Nobody moves.
“I said—”
“We heard you,” Cormac says, and something in his voice pins me in place.
He takes a step closer, and the air between us thickens.
“Here’s the thing, pixie. You can tell us to fuck off.
You can wave that pretty knife around. You can go home and pretend tonight didn’t happen.
But the Board just tested you, and by morning, every faction on this campus will know your results.
You’ll have people at your door offering friendship, protection, favours, all of it with strings you can’t see.
” He stops closer. “We’re offering you strings you can see.
That’s the only honest deal you’ll get at this university. ”
My pulse is doing something I don’t approve of. “That’s a very pretty speech.”
“It wasn’t a speech. It was a warning.”
“I don’t respond well to warnings.”
“I know,” he says, and his mouth turns up at one corner in a way that is nothing like a smile. “That’s why I like you.”
Something hot and unwanted sparks in my blood, and I crush it. “Liking me is a terrible idea.”
“Most of my ideas are.”
I hold his stare for a beat too long. Two beats. Three. Then I step around him and walk to the door.
Aidan is still standing beside it. He doesn’t hold it open for me this time. He blocks it, just barely, just enough that I have to stop or shoulder past him.
“Think about it,” he says quietly.
“Move.”
He holds my gaze for one more second, and in it I see something I don’t expect: patience. Not kindness. Patience. The kind that comes from knowing you’ll get what you want eventually because you always do.
I shove past him, my shoulder catching his chest, and step into the night air.
My skin is crawling with cold, with adrenaline, with the ghost-heat of his fingers on my wrist. I walk without looking back, my right hand throbbing, Henrietta warm against my spine, their silence pressing against my back like a held breath.
I should feel furious.
I do feel furious. But it’s threaded through something uglier: relief.
Because when I shoved past Aidan and walked into the night, part of me expected footsteps. Expected a hand on my elbow, a knife at my throat, a voice telling me I’m not leaving.
Instead, they let me go.
They watched. They waited. They held back.
For the first time since Dad died, I’m forced to face the truth I’ve been avoiding. I don’t just want answers.
I want witnesses.
I want someone to see what this place does to me and not look away.
But they don’t follow.
Or if they do, they’re better at it than I am at detecting, which is a thought that keeps me awake long after I lock my front door and stand in the dark of my hallway, flexing my ruined hand and wondering what the fuck I’ve walked into.