Chapter 32
More than a year had passed since Cormac left.
The estate had grown quieter with every season. The servants had left one by one until only the gardeners remained, living in the bothy beyond the orchard.
Halverton still kept to his side of the house, which stood mostly empty now.
In the early days, he’d tried to leave the estate.
The Sheedar turned him back every time. Once a fallen oak blocked the road.
Another time a wall of mist rose so thick that he could not see the gate.
Once the sky darkened without warning and rain fell so hard it turned the drive to mud beneath his horse’s hooves.
He had never crossed the boundary.
At first, he raged against it.
Furniture crashed, glass shattered, doors slammed hard enough to shake the walls.
When that failed, he turned to strategy.
He tried to bribe the gardeners to carry letters beyond the estate. Most ignored him. A few took the gold, though whether they ever delivered the messages was another matter. The handful of letters that left were never answered.
After that, he took to waiting by the gates, calling out to passing traders.
Aoife had watched him the first time he tried it.
A delivery of silks had arrived, ordered long before his fall. The merchant had dismounted to hear what Halverton wanted, wary but curious. When Halverton caught at his sleeve and raved about curses and monsters in the woods, the man’s expression shifted.
He pulled free, hurried to his wagon, and drove off without another word.
Halverton tried the Sheedar next.
More than once Aoife saw him by the stump of the old hawthorn, speaking into it as though it might answer him. He shouted promises, threats, and bargains. The Sheedar, for their part, did not care to listen.
After that came the quieter attempts.
He walked the boundary for hours at a time, searching for some weakness, some place where the unseen barrier might give. Once he made it as far as the outer field before the ground itself turned him back, leading him to the house no matter which direction he chose.
He had even come to the servants’ side once.
Aoife hadn’t seen it herself. One of the gardeners said he’d found Halverton standing in the yard at dawn, asking after Mrs Harrow. Not commanding. Asking. Mrs Harrow had long left the house, and no one bothered to fetch her.
After that, he stopped trying.
Now he kept to his rooms. Some days the weight of his presence in the house was like a storm that never broke. Other days it was as though he had already left, and only the echo of him remained.
Aoife rarely saw him.
She preferred it that way.
The dress she wore today had once been two of Halverton’s gifts. With Clíona’s help, she had taken them apart piece by piece. She had no use for layers and wide hips and fine silks that were hard to clean. That luxury had belonged to another life.
She had cut the skirts shorter, taken out the layers, replaced the tight sleeves with loose ones she could roll above her elbows, and stripped away the lace.
She could not go back to the girl who had arrived at Blackthorn Hall, but she was not Lady Eva either.
It had taken many months, but Aoife had finally found the path between, and Lady Eva’s dresses had been remade into garments Aoife could work in.
Aoife straightened from the herb bed and brushed the dirt from her hands. The autumn air was cool and bright; the orchard stretched away in rows of pale trunks and thinning leaves.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her.
She turned, expecting one of the gardeners.
The basket slipped slightly in her hands.
Cormac stood at the edge of the orchard.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
He had filled out since she’d last seen him, his broad shoulders softer beneath his coat. There was a steadiness in him now that she did not remember before. His hair had grown longer, falling loose around his face, and the wind lifted it slightly as he watched her.
“Aoife,” he said.
Her throat tightened.
“You came back.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I said I would.”
She set the basket down slowly, wiping her hands against her skirt.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” she said.
“Only a year.”
“Eleven months and 8 days,” she corrected before she could stop herself.
The smile deepened a fraction.
They stood there a moment longer, studying one another. Aoife took him all in, every change. What she noticed most was the smell. His smell, ash bark and wet leather, was gone. He smelt like a summer day after the rain.
Cormac gestured toward the path. “Will you walk with me?”
She nodded.
They moved slowly through the orchard, fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet.
“It’s quieter here,” he said after a while.
“Most of the staff left,” Aoife told him. “Clíona and Ultán married in the spring. They’re living in the village now.” She glanced at him. “Didn’t you see them on your way through?”
Cormac shook his head. “No. I came straight here.”
Warmth unfurled in her chest.
“Oh.” She turned away quickly to hide her smile. “Well… they’re happy. He built them a small house by the river.”
Cormac nodded. “Have you seen my parents? Are they all right?”
“Riona was here a few days ago.”
Cormac gave a relieved smile.
“They’re well. Everyone is. The murreroot harvest was better than we’ve had in years.”
Cormac stopped, turning to her. “How?”
“We started again, with the few plants that survived the blight,” Aoife explained. “You’ll have to ask Ultán if you want all the details.”
“He’s still managing the estate?”
“Not just the estate, the whole county. The shipments still go out as they always have; the records are kept the same way.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “As far as anyone beyond the estate is concerned, Lord Halverton is still in charge.”
Cormac huffed a quiet breath. “And no one’s questioned it?”
“Not yet. I think they’re used to not seeing him.” She shrugged lightly. “And Ultán’s careful.”
They walked a few steps in silence, the orchard thinning around them. Cormac opened his mouth several times to speak, but kept changing his mind. Finally, he settled on, “How is your family?”
Aoife smiled and shook her head. “They’re well. Eoin tells me Mrs Harrow comes over for dinner almost every day.”
Cormac chuckled. “What does he think about that?”
“Mrs Harrow is good with him.” Despite her age, the former housekeeper had boundless energy for Eoin’s antics and endless patience for Maire’s questions.
She shone when she was with the children, and for the first time Aoife could imagine Halverton as a child, listening rapt to Mrs Harrow’s every word.
It wasn’t hard now to understand why she had been so forgiving of him.
She’d known the small boy with endless potential he had once been.
It could be hard to see the person standing in front of you when you still saw the child they once were.
Cormac stood in front of her, and it wasn’t hard to see the man, not the boy she once knew. He’d changed while he was away; he looked older, more rugged, stronger. He wasn’t just the friend she’d climbed trees with; he hadn’t been for a long time, and she found it hard to say when that had changed.
They reached the old bench beneath the apple tree and sat next to each other, a tiny distance between them now, and Aoife longed to close it.
For a while, neither spoke. Aoife’s heart raced. She needed to speak before she burst.
“What’s the Otherworld like?” Aoife asked, only to stop herself from saying other, more vulnerable words.
Cormac shook his head slightly.
“It’s hard to describe, at least in human terms.”
She studied his face, relieved to find he had not learned to lie while he was away.
“Did it help?”
He nodded slowly.
“It helped me understand what I am.” His voice was quiet now. “And where I want to be.”
When he said it, he looked directly at her.
The weight of his gaze made her chest tighten.
The uncertainty stirred in her again. Would he see the changes in her? The habits she hadn’t shaken? The pieces of Lady Eva that still lingered beneath her skin?
She had made her peace with the woman she had become.
The question now was whether he could.
Neither of them moved.
The air between them hummed with everything left unsaid.
Cormac leaned in.
“I’m not the same girl who came to this house,” she blurted out.
Cormac sat up straighter. “I know that. How could you be?”
Her breath was coming fast, fear mixed with excitement. “I can’t be the girl you fell in love with. The girl who danced barefoot at the harvest festival.”
“Aoife, you’ll never stop being that girl.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I mean it. The girl I fell in love with is the one who looks at the world and thinks it can be made better. The one who cares about everyone else more than herself. The healer who won’t turn anyone away.”
His voice softened.
“That girl’s still right here.”
A tear slipped down her face, and she tried to keep her voice steady. “You said that if I changed, I’d be lost to you.”
“Oh, Aoife.” He reached for her hand. She pulled it away on instinct. Cormac looked as if she’d hit him. “I didn’t mean… not like that.” He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what I can say to make this better.”
Aoife’s eyes were wet with unshed tears.
“I love you, Aoife. Yes, you’ve changed, but not in any of the ways that matter. I don’t care what clothes you wear or how you speak.”
“What if I’m broken?”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Cormac didn’t speak; his face softened as though he understood more than she had meant to say.
Aoife forced the rest out, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I let him touch me,” she said. “Even when I hated it. Even when it made me feel sick.” Her hands twisted together in her lap. “After a while I stopped knowing whether I was choosing it or just… yielding.”
She swallowed.
“And now I don’t know what will happen if someone touches me again. I want you to,” she added quickly, the confession burning on her tongue. “What if my body remembers him instead? What if it feels wrong and I can’t bear it?”
For a long moment, Cormac said nothing.
He held out his hand.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said gently.
Aoife stared at it.
Her heart was beating so hard it pulsed in her throat. For a moment she was certain she wouldn’t be able to move at all.
Slowly, she placed her hand in his.
Cormac’s fingers closed around hers, warm and steady.
Nothing else happened.
No nausea. No creeping dread.
The quiet certainty of his hand holding hers.
Before she could lose her nerve, Aoife leaned forward and kissed him.
It was soft at first, and when she drew back, his eyes were bright.
“I missed you,” she said.
She kissed him again.
This time his arms came around her, pulling her close until their bodies pressed together. The warmth of him seeped through the layers of cloth between them, familiar and strange all at once.
His hand slid to the small of her back.
For a heartbeat, her breath caught.
Halverton had held her there.
The memory flashed through her like cold water.
Aoife shifted his hand gently higher, guiding it without breaking the kiss.
She let herself forget everything else.
***
The next morning they lay tangled on the floor of the hothouse, the air heavy with the scent of earth and green things. Light fell through the glass in pale gold strips, warming her skin where it touched.
Aoife traced her fingers over the scars on his back, gentle and reverent.
Cormac stirred beneath her touch. He shifted, turned his head, hair mussed and damp with sweat, sticking slightly to his temple.
“Next time,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep, “we should find a bed.”
A soft laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“Probably wise.”
He blinked up at her, still half-lost to sleep, and for a moment there was no guard in him at all.
The words rose in her throat, sudden and undeniable.
“I love you,” she said.
The words slipped free before she could think to swallow them.
Cormac stilled, then smiled.
“I love you too.”
Aoife gasped.
It was as though something tore loose deep in her chest. The pain came fast and fierce, stealing the air from her lungs.
Cormac was upright in an instant. “Aoife? What is it? What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer. Her hand flew to her chest, fingers pressing hard as though she could hold herself together.
The pressure built… and was gone.
Aoife gasped for breath.
The faint tightness that had lived in her chest since the day she entered this estate, so constant she had long since stopped noticing it, was simply… gone.
Cormac’s hand hovered near her shoulder. “Aoife?”
She smiled.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said softly.
Before he could question it, she leaned forward and kissed him.
This time there was no hesitation, no shadow lingering beneath the moment. Warmth and breath and the steady certainty of him.
When she drew back, her forehead resting lightly against his, she let out a slow breath.
“Let’s go home,” she said.