46. Deargán
DEARGáN
Afterward, I lay beside her in my bed and watched her sleep.
The room had gone quiet, with the faint tick of cooling pipes somewhere behind the wall and the soft hiss of wind worrying at the eaves.
Liath’s breathing settled slowly, one breath folding into the next, and I found myself counting them without meaning to.
Her mouth had softened, the hard line she wore when she looked at me, judged me, fought me, had eased. A strand of hair had fallen across her cheek.
She looked so human like this. So mundane. So effortlessly alive.
Liath shifted in her sleep. Her hand slid across the mattress and settled against my chest.
For one dangerous moment the room was almost peaceful, like something fragile had been allowed to exist.
Something in my chest tightened.
I couldn’t do this to her. Couldn’t send her into that house with those monsters. She had no idea what waited her. No idea what I still hadn’t told her.
The stillness in the room broke, a subtle wrongness, like the space beside the bed had been empty one moment and occupied the next.
When I lifted my eyes, Pie was in the doorway with one shoulder lost to shadow, watching me. “You’re going to let her go, aren’t you?”
Guilt curdled my veins. But I didn’t answer.
“You let her sleep in your bed.” Her voice hardened. “Just like I used to.”
My eyes flicked down to her and my body curled over her instinctively.
Liath shifted in her sleep. Her brow pulled tight. Her breathing changed, shallower now, like something in the room had brushed against her even if she couldn’t name it.
When I looked back, Pie was even closer. The floorboards hadn’t creaked beneath her feet. They never did.
I had trained myself not to look too closely at things like that. Grief made its own rules if you let it, and I had let mine come to life.
“You said you’d burn them for me,” she said, her tone growing louder, more bitter. “And now you’re choosing her instead.”
My jaw tightened until it hurt. “That’s not true, Magpie.”
Liath’s eyes opened.
Her gaze went first to me, then to the doorway, then back again, blank with sleep and faintly confused. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” I said, glancing to the spot where Pie stood glaring at me, the edges of her image already beginning to fade.
Liath pushed herself upright, the sheet falling down to her waist revealing her breasts.
“But you spoke to someone.” Her eyes narrowed. “Magpie.”
Something sparked in her eyes. She lifted a hand and brushed my chest, fingers stopping over the tattoo there. “That’s what you called her, isn’t it? Maggie?”
I said nothing.
I slid back down and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her firmly against me until her back pressed to my chest.
She stiffened at first, but I didn’t loosen my hold.
My hand settled at her throat, not choking, just holding.
“Sleep,” I murmured against her hair.
For a second I thought she’d fight me. Then the tension bled slowly out of her body. Her breathing steadied again.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. I lay there in the dark with her tucked against me and watched her drift back under.
I understood exactly what the plan would demand of her. The danger. The lies. The way the Lasairs would tear her apart if they discovered the truth.
She might die inside that house.
My arm tightened around her without meaning to.
Maggie’s voice came again, not from the doorway this time, not from anywhere I could point to, but from the place I had kept her all these years.
You promised me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed in the smell of black violets and sex, and tried to memorize Liath’s warmth pressed into me. My chest hurt in a way I had no language for anymore.
Then I opened my eyes, my decision settled, my heart hardened.
It didn’t matter what I felt for Liath, Maggie had come first.
I had failed her then. I could not fail her now.
Maggie would be avenged.
Whatever it cost.
Whoever it cost.