Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SELENE
My pulse was still settling from the startle when Maeve’s question fully sank in. Had the ground just shifted beneath our feet?
Oh God. If Maeve had sensed when Bren touched me, then we were in big trouble.
Then I realized her face was alight with delight and mischief, nothing in it close to fear. I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Do you mean the Earth actually rumbled, or are you teasing me?”
Maeve came down the last few steps, her robe cinched loosely at the waist, the hallway lamp catching the red in her curls as they bounced. “What I mean is, do my ears deceive me, or did you and Bren just pledge yourselves to a future together?”
Heat rushed into my face. “You heard that?”
She scoffed. “Stop trying to evade and answer the question.”
Before I could, she kept going. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.
I heard the car in the driveway and came down for details.
That door is not as airtight as you’d think.
I heard him say you’d work together to figure things out.
” A chuckle escaped her. “And then you threatened to kiss him. You’re a bold woman. I love it.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Though I wonder what he was on about when he spoke of protection and being watched over?” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Did you tell him what Gran said? About ward witches being hunted?”
I dropped my shoulders, the weight of the entire evening and her many questions settling over me at once. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“In times like these,” Nora said from the kitchen doorway, “I’d say a drink is in order.” She gave me a small, knowing shrug. “Or two.”
The thought of a glass of something strong and two people I trusted to listen sounded like exactly what I needed. “That’s a grand idea. Let’s do it.”
Maeve broke into a grin. “A grand idea, indeed. Lead the way, Nora.”
The keeper chuckled and turned back, moving with quick steps that belied her age.
I dropped my bag on the table by the door and shrugged out of my coat, draping it over the back of a chair as I followed. The kitchen wrapped around me with the smell of peat smoke from the stove, warm and familiar, and I sank gratefully into my chair. “It’s so good to be home.”
Nora opened the fridge, reaching for the bottle of table wine on the door shelf, but I called out. “I need something stronger than that, Nora.” I tilted my head, giving her my best mischievous look. “What’s the most expensive bottle Cillian keeps in this house? I’ll have that.”
She turned, widening her eyes in surprise. Maeve let out a delighted gasp. “What’s this? Are you expecting to be sacked, or just hoping to be?”
A snort escaped me before I could stop it. “It’s the least he owes me after all the lies and the manipulation.”
Maeve’s mouth fell open, and she dropped into the chair beside me. “I think I need to sit down for this.”
Nora brought the table wine despite my request and sat across from Maeve. She poured us each a glass while I spilled what I’d learned. Cillian’s betrayal still burned as I told them how he’d sensed me from the first moment I stepped off the plane, and that he’d known what I was from the start.
I moistened my lips. “Not only that, but Cillian is not entirely human. Otherwise, he couldn’t have accomplished what he has.”
Silence filled the cozy kitchen, leaving us with nothing but the soft tick of the stove cooling. Maeve blinked at me, looking shell-shocked. Nora, however, did not seem surprised.
I pinned her with a look. “Did you know?”
The keeper held my gaze, her eyes blue and sharp with wisdom. “Cillian has never told me such a thing.”
It was quite possible that was true, but she was an astute woman who missed nothing. “But you know, don’t you?”
Her jaw ticked. For a long moment, she didn’t answer. When she did, her tone was subdued. “I can’t say. You must understand my first loyalty is to him.”
It was then that I realized the full impact of my request. Though she’d answered my question indirectly, asking her to choose between her loyalty and my curiosity wasn’t fair. If she crossed that line for me, she could lose far more than I’d gain.
I nodded in understanding. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”
Her shoulders eased, and she gave me a hint of a smile that said more than words would have.
I turned to Maeve with a determined look. “I know already anyway, and he’ll answer for what he’s done.”
My friend snorted, fascinated and concerned at the same time. “You’re going to confront him?”
“I am.” I slipped the phone from my pocket, fueled by the fury over what Cillian had done. “Right now, in fact.”
Neither of them tried to talk me out of it as I muttered my message while tapping it on my screen. “There’s a dire problem in Killarney. I need you to come as soon as possible.”
I glanced up with a sarcastic smile and then tapped the send button. “Done. My guess is he’ll call or text shortly.”
My phone rang just as I finished speaking. I shook my head as I silenced it and set it down on the table. “I’m not answering. Don’t you either, Maeve. I want to speak to him in person. And I want him to worry and wonder until he gets here.”
She agreed with a nod. “I’m turning mine off right now, so I won’t feel guilty if he calls.”
I shifted my gaze to Nora, and my phone vibrated with another call before I could speak. “He’ll likely try you when he can’t reach us, and you should probably expect him to be staying here tomorrow.”
She tried to hide her smile, but the lines at the sides of her eyes crinkled anyway. “I don’t plan to answer, though I think you’ll see him much sooner than the morning.”
I arched my brow, and Maeve leaned closer. “Do you think he’ll drive here tonight? It’s nearly a four-hour drive.”
Nora dipped her head once, appearing confident in her assessment, and my friend turned to me. “Should we try to get some sleep first or not?”
I didn’t want my stress to become hers. “We can’t miss work, so you might as well go to bed.”
Her gaze turned suspicious. “Are you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll wait a while. I don’t think I can sleep now anyway.”
She scoffed and reached for the bottle of wine. “If you’re staying up, then I am. If you think I’d rather sleep than watch the fireworks, you don’t know me very well.”
I actually did know her that well, but it only seemed fair to give her the option. I pushed my glass toward her. “Fill mine while you’re at it.”
Nora sucked her teeth and stood. “I’m tempted to pull out his best whiskey. It’s certainly a night that calls for it, but we best not. However, I will take a moment to bury my phone upstairs in my handbag, where I won’t hear it. I believe it’s called plausible deniability.”
She left the room, and I strode to the cupboards, snagging a bag of crisps before returning to the table. “If we’re staying up a while and drinking, I need something to snack on too.”
I opened the bag and inhaled the tantalizing scent of fried potatoes. Maeve curled her fingers toward herself. “Grab yourself a handful and pass ’em over.”
Nora rejoined us, and we managed polite chatter for the next little bit, avoiding the subject of my boss entirely. But it wasn’t long before the stressors in my life caught up to me and my bed called.
I tried to stifle a huge yawn, but it won.
Perhaps Cillian wouldn’t show up at all that night. I’d thought to scare him into thinking something had gone wrong, but perhaps whatever senses he possessed allowed him to see that everything was, in fact, not dire after all.
Then the front door opened, and my sleepiness evaporated.
Nora paled. Maeve’s eyes went wide as she froze. My pulse jumped, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
I lifted my gaze to the wall clock. Only twenty minutes had passed since I sent my text. Twenty minutes.
I couldn’t guess how Cillian had made it from Dublin to Killarney in anything close to that amount of time. Unless he hadn’t been far away.
But somehow, I doubted that.
The distinguished older gentleman strolled into the kitchen a moment later, perfectly put together, his jacket still buttoned. But something about his usual composure had slipped at the edges.
He looked at me and no one else, ignoring Maeve and Nora. “Your text suggested an emergency.” His gaze swept the room, the unburned house, the three of us obviously not on fire. “And yet here you all are. Is this about the castle then?”
He’d been worried. I could see it now, underneath the polish, and for one unwelcome moment, I almost felt sorry for dragging him across the country so late in the evening. The feeling didn’t last.
I stood to face him. “Actually, it’s about you.” I tilted my head, questioning him with a look. “How did you get here so fast?”
He blinked. Otherwise, nothing in his expression moved. “I beg your pardon?”
I’d caught him off guard, and a small ripple of satisfaction rolled through me as I watched him try to recover from it. “I said, how did you get from Dublin to Killarney that quickly?”
He gave a short laugh and looked away, breaking eye contact for several seconds. “I wasn’t in Dublin, Selene. I was closer.”
I could see the lie in his eyes. “If you won’t tell the truth about that, maybe you’ll tell the truth about something else. Like why you’ve been lying to me and managing me since the day we met in the library at Trinity College.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “I should have known. A job offer, in the exact field I love, on my first day in the country. It was too good to be true. It always is.”
Uncertainty flickered across his face, there and gone, and I thought of the question he’d asked me on my first day, over coffee, before I’d even unpacked.
Do you prefer fixing what’s broken, or preventing the break in the first place?
At the time, I thought it charming. An interview question dressed up as philosophy.
It had never been about restoration work at all.
Cillian turned to Nora. “Would you mind retrieving the whiskey from my study?”