24. Lorcan #2
I climbed the spiral staircase slowly, listening for more noise.
At the top, the swollen attic door stood slightly ajar, and weak light flickered through the gap. I pushed the door open.
Liath sat on the edge of Kathleen’s bed with a letter unfolded in her hands. She looked up when I entered, then turned the letter face down against the blanket. I guessed it was her mother’s letter that we’d found.
I almost asked about it. But something stopped the question before it reached my mouth.
Things had never truly settled after Nuala. We moved around each other carefully now, like two people pretending the cracks in the floorboards weren’t there.
Before, she would have shared her thoughts with me without hesitation. Before, I would have known what haunted her before she ever spoke it aloud. Now there were silences between us that neither of us seemed able to cross.
She carried things alone now. She no longer trusted me with every sharp edge of herself.
It hurt more than I wanted to admit.
And beneath the hurt sat the fear that I had done this. I had damaged us beyond repair, and no matter how badly I wanted to reach for her, she would always hold part of herself just out of my grasp.
I crossed toward the bed and sat beside her carefully, close enough to feel her warmth but not close enough to touch.
God, I wanted to. The distance between us since Nuala felt unbearable. I missed Liath so badly even sitting right next to her that my body ached.
My hand moved toward hers where it rested against the blanket, but I stopped myself and redirected it to my own knee.
Liath noticed. I saw it in the flicker of her eyes, though neither of us acknowledged it.
“The Sons are holding an auction,” I said.
Liath recoiled as if struck. “An auction for…” she trailed off, tears already gathering in her gray eyes.
I nodded.
Yes. An auction for the girls of Magdalene. The cage and the girl I recognized too well made it undeniable.
She listened, her arms wrapping around herself, silent tears falling off her jaw while I explained the caves, the invitations, the buyers converging from different countries, and our deadline.
The Spring equinox.
Then I told her about the cage. About the naked girl inside it who had been sold.
Her fingers curled into the cover. “Who?”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“Who?” her voice cracked.
“Bridgit.”
Liath folded in on herself with a broken sob, one hand flying to her mouth as if she could hold the sound back, her shoulders curling inward. “No, Bridgit,” she whispered, horror cracking through her voice. “God, I’m too late.”
My chest ached at the sight of her unraveling in front of me, every sob scraping my insides raw. I couldn’t just sit there and watch her fall apart.
I reached for her and pulled her firmly into my lap, wrapping both arms around her like I could shield her from everything at once. I didn’t care if she shoved me away or told me to stop. Right then, none of that mattered. I just needed to hold her.
By the grace of God, she let me. She just sobbed into the crook of my neck. Maybe she just didn’t have the strength to push me away.
My hand pressed against the back of her head, my fingers threading through her hair while the other tightened around her waist. My jaw clenched as I rested my cheek against her temple, my eyes squeezing shut for a brief second as her pain soaked into me.
Her head snapped up, her glossy eyes wide on mine. “Nuala?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t there.”
Relief flickered briefly across her face before dread swallowed it again.
“She’s still being held at Magdalene,” I said.
At least for now.
The unspoken part sat between us. The auction was only weeks away. If we failed, Nuala could be sold, too.
Liath took in a deep breath and brushed the tears from her cheeks with her palms.
“We have to stop them before the equinox,” she said, her voice sounding steadier now.
“We will,” I said, even though I had no fucking idea how.
I watched her for a moment while candlelight softened the edges of her face, my hand still around her waist, aching to pull her closer, but not daring to move unless she shifted off my lap.
This was the closest we’d been since Nuala.
I wanted to stay here all night, with her right here.
But there were more things I hadn’t told her. I could not keep hiding things from her. I had to tell her about Alistair. About him not being my father.
But this still felt too raw. Too jagged in my chest.
So I started with the easier thing.
I looked down briefly at the space between us before forcing the words out. “There’s more. A name I noticed on the invitations.”
Her whole body tensed. “Who?”
“Aleksei Mikhailov. Deargán’s cover.”
I watched her face carefully when I said his name, waiting for a flinch, a softening, something to tell me where she stood with him.
But her face gave nothing away.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “Maybe we do need a truce with him.”
“No.” The answer came out of me instantly.
“There’s no way the two of us can take down an entire secret society alone.”
“We can’t trust him.”
“Lorcan—”
“His agenda isn’t ours.” The words came out harder than I intended. “His ends with my family destroyed. Ours ends with Nuala free and the Sons exposed. Those aren’t the same thing.”
I didn’t say the other sliver of truth that had lodged in me like a splinter. That I still saw him climbing into her window every time I closed my eyes, and that some ugly terrified part of me believed he would always know how to pull her away from me if he wanted to.
Liath stayed quiet for several seconds before speaking again. “Fine. We’ll hold off asking him for help.”
The relief that moved through me felt thin and temporary.
Then she added quietly, “For now.”
The words settled heavily between us. The mission and whatever remained of our relationship had tangled together so tightly now that there was no separating them anymore.
If we failed, she lost Nuala.
And if we failed, I lost her.
She was the one thing I would not survive losing.