9. Liath
LIATH
Iwoke to a noise. My heart hammered against my ribs as I lay still, eyes open in the dark, trying to decide if it was real or if it was inside my head.
A name brushed the edge of my consciousness, not quite a voice, not quite a thought.
Liath.
It pressed. It insisted. It curled around my spine and settled there, heavy and familiar.
My throat tightened as I swallowed hard.
“That’s not real,” I whispered into the dark.
I pushed myself upright and the room felt wrong, the air too heavy, my skin still too awake after my session with Deargán as if my nerves hadn’t settled back in my body.
Footsteps sounded outside, soft and bare.
I froze.
A shadow passed along the crack underneath my door.
My breath caught hard enough that my chest wouldn’t rise again for a moment.
I slid out of bed, my asylum-issued nightgown whispering too loudly in the silence, a soft scrape of fabric, the cold floor biting at my feet as I crossed to the door.
My hand hovered over the knob.
Dervla’s warning echoed in my mind.
Don’t leave your room at night. No matter what you hear.
I cracked the door open anyway.
The corridor stretched long and dim beneath flickering sconces, the light uneven and sickly, like the building was struggling to stay alive.
At the far end stood a figure.
A girl with her back to me in a vintage nightgown, hair pale and loose down her back, barefoot on the tiles, her head tilted slightly, like she was listening for something.
Like she was waiting for someone.
My pulse pounded in my throat.
“Hey,” I hissed, my voice sounding too loud against the quiet. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
She didn’t turn. She must not have heard me.
My bare foot crossed the threshold, toes curling against the cold floorboards as if the floor were pulling me forward.
Clipped footsteps approached from deeper in the building, sharp and measured, each step striking the stone.
Shit. Someone was coming. Someone who would punish me if they caught me out of bed this late at night.
I looked back at her.
For one wild second, I considered stepping fully into the hall anyway. Let them catch me.
But I sank back instead.
“Go,” I mouthed desperately, waving the girl back before I eased the door shut. I pressed my ear to the wood, breath trapped in my seized lungs.
The footsteps passed, the sound tapering off inch by inch until it was swallowed by the stone.
Silence returned, but it wasn’t the same silence as before. It pressed in, thick and watchful.
I counted to a hundred before I opened the door again, slow enough that the hinges wouldn’t betray me, my pulse thudding so loud I was certain it would echo down the hall.
The corridor was empty. Just the flicker of dying sconces and the long stretch of floorboards that suddenly felt much farther away than it had minutes ago.
The girl was gone.
This corridor didn’t feel like the rest of the asylum. It pinched in on itself as we went, narrowing and turning, the darkness feeling like it was swallowing us whole, even with Fiona’s flashlight held low at the front of our little huddle.
The floorboards under my feet were slick with damp and age, and every step I took sounded too loud.
Maeve stayed close at my side, her hand tight on my sleeve.
Somewhere behind us, footsteps echoed.
Maeve’s grip tightened and she shifted our pace without a word, quickening just enough that my breath hitched.
“Where are we going?” I whispered.
Fiona didn’t answer. Her shoulders stayed squared, her red hair a dim flare at the edge of the flashlight.
“Trust us,” Bláthnaid said a little too casually.
“Or don’t.” Dervla’s voice came from the edge of the flashlight. “Up to you.”
I slowed for half a step.
No one else knew we were here. No one was going to stumble into this corridor by accident. If something happened to me back here, if this was a trap, it would be quiet and final.
The corridor widened briefly where another passage branched off to the right. The stone there looked older, darker, the ceiling sagging where part of the plaster had collapsed. Broken slates from the roof lay scattered across the floor like bones.
My gaze drifted down the side corridor.
The darkness there was thicker somehow, swallowing the weak glow from Fiona’s flashlight before it could reach the end.
“What’s down there?” I asked.
Fiona didn’t even look. “Nothing.”
Bláthnaid snorted softly. “Nothing you want to find.” She brushed invisible dust from the sleeve of her uniform straight after, as if the very corridor offended her.
Maeve tugged lightly on my sleeve. “We’re not supposed to go near that wing.”
“Why?” I asked.
Dervla’s voice came from behind us. “Because girls who go wandering down there never come back.”
No one laughed.
Fiona didn’t look back, but she said softly, “You coming?”
Maeve’s fingers tightened. Not forcing. Asking.
I swallowed and kept walking.
We stopped at a set of tall double doors at the end of the corridor, old enough that the wood had warped and split along the grain. A heavy rusted chain was wrapped through the circular handles, pulled tight like the place had been gagged.
Unease rose in me, thick and sour. “So, what are we doing here?”
The four girls all exchanged looks with each other, quick and loaded.
Fiona turned her head just enough that flashlight cut across her cheekbones. “You wanted to know about Maggie. Right?”
The name landed like a cold coin dropped down my spine.
I remembered the dining hall going silent. I remembered Maeve’s wide eyes. I remembered the way everyone had told me not to ask.
I nodded.
Dervla shoved one of the doors with a small grunt of effort. The chain groaned, metal scraping against itself, the sound echoing down the corridor like a warning bell.
We all stilled.
My pulse jumped hard and didn’t settle.
Bláthnaid pressed her finger to her lips. Her manicure gleamed pale in the silver light, and her hand trembled. “Keep it down. If Murphy hears us in here, she’ll kill us.”
Fiona’s smile sharpened. “Yeah, and if you tell anyone about this place, we’ll kill ye.”
For a second, it didn’t feel like a joke.
There was something too bright in her eyes, too charged, like she had said it half to frighten me and half because fear always came out of her wearing different clothes.
Then she laughed, quick and sharp, and slapped my arm. “Only messin’. Don’t look so shook.”
The gap in the door was just wide enough for moonlight to slip out and for us to slip through.
My heart kept thudding as I squeezed through, my shoulder brushing cold wood, my skin prickling like the door had teeth.
Inside, the air changed.
It was colder. Older. Thick with rot and old wood, damp stone, candle wax, and underneath it a metallic thread that itched the back of my throat, the scent pulling a sound up in my head, thin and piercing like a screech.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the dusk pouring in from a collapsed section of the ceiling. Moonlight spilled through broken beams, and wild ivy hung down in thick ropes, curling through the ruin like it had claimed the place.
Bláthnaid moved through the room lighting candles with practiced ease, setting each one down with neat little adjustments until they sat evenly spaced, as if symmetry itself might keep the dark in check.
The flame caught and caught again, and each new pool of light pulled another detail out of hiding, the ballroom revealing itself in pieces.
Parquet flooring, splintered and buckled, spread beneath our feet. Mirrors lined the walls, some shattered, others darkened with age.
A warped sideboard. An overturned chair. A window seat tucked into the far wall, resurrected with pillows and threadbare throws, all arranged too carefully to be accidental, all in the same pale green as the asylum bedding.
Dervla closed the doors behind us and wedged a broken chair leg through the handles. The scrape of wood against wood made my teeth ache.
I guess I wasn’t leaving now.
Maeve’s soft voice broke through the thick hush. “No one comes here unless we bring them.”
Bláthnaid looked over her shoulder, candle flame making her curls appear golden. “We don’t bring just anyone.”
Dervla didn’t bother hiding her glare. “And if you tell anyone about it, you don’t come back.”
Fiona’s smile sharpened. “Ever.”
My mouth went dry.
Maeve tugged at my hand. “You might not want to stand there.”
I stared down at the center of the room.
Under my feet, rust-colored stains marked the warped parquet, blotched and smeared. The metallic scent tightened again, and the sound in my head went high and thin.
“Is that paint?” I asked, even though the metallic screech in my head had already given me the horrific answer.
No one answered.
I let Maeve pull me aside, my guts churning and a shiver running down my spine.
Something terrible happened here.
We clustered in a huddle. Dervla pulled out a small naggin from her bra, unscrewed the cap, and took a swig before passing it on.
Bláthnaid’s voice dropped into a reverent hush. “This place used to be a baronet seat. Belonged to one of the old Ascendancy families round here. The Blackwoods. They named the town after them.”
“But the family…” Fiona shuddered. “They were cursed. Or at least, she was.”
“She?” I asked, wincing as the cheap whiskey burned down my throat.
“The daughter,” Maeve said. “Maggie.”
“They said she had always been unstable,” Fiona murmured, her eyes going wide as she clutched the naggin, already half inside the thrill of her own story.
Dervla pulled the naggin back. “They always say that.”
“They said,” Bláthnaid added, smoothing her skirt before folding her hands in front of her, “she imagined things that weren’t really there.”
Maeve looked at me, and there was something in it, not fear exactly, but a warning.
“She just snapped.” Fiona clapped her hands together, sharp as thunder.
I jumped.
She leaned into the candlelight so it cast her face in eerie shadows. “Slaughtered the lot of them. Father. Stepmother. Baby brother. Every last servant. Blood ran like wine in this very ballroom.”