“Follow her,” I said, passing Oran another two coins. “Make sure she gets where she’s going without incident. And when you find out where she’s staying, come back and let Orla know.”
He bobbed his head and reached for the handle. I caught his arm, digging my nails into his flabby flesh. “And Oran?” His beady eyes met mine. “If you touch her or tell heranything, I’ll split you open and feed you your own entrails.”
When I let him go, he stumbled into the door.
“N-no sir. Wouldn’t dream of it s-sir.” Oran drew the collar of his overcoat around his neck and disappeared into the night.
I collected my coat from the stool. The sound of rusty hinges whined from behind me. Orla leaned a shoulder against the doorframe to her flat located in the back of the pub, fiddling with the laces on the corset she wore outside her dress. The satin slipped through her thin fingers without making a sound. With the glamour removed, she looked like her old self: wavy black hair, straight nose. Full lips.
“Don’t go,” she said.
Those two words left me frozen in place, her wanton will taking over my own. I was so feckin’ hungry I could eat an entire bakery’s worth of desserts.
Her dark hair slipped over her breasts when she glanced back toward her home. “Come inside.”With her heel, she pushed the door open a bit wider and took a retreating step into the candlelit room behind her. I could make out a crass wooden table, a worn woolen rug in front of the fireplace, the side of a settee—
That’ll do.
A shudder ran through me as my curse broke free from its tether. By the time I reached her, the main door was locked and all our clothes were on the floor.
* * *
A surge of magic and a focused mind was all it took to get me back home. Evanescing was like using a portal without the portal. Magic opened the door to where I wanted to go, and all I needed was to step through.
My body vibrated with exhaustion when I landed on the other side, my castle waiting like a shadowed fortress rising ominously against the blue-black sky. On wobbly legs, I breached the wards around the gates, hurrying through the empty courtyard to the heavy front door. Oscar, one of our only servants, wasn’t around to open it, but it remained unlocked. Thank goodness for that. I wasn’t sure I’d have the magic to evanesce inside. I briefly considered going upstairs and falling into bed.
But after the night I’d had, I needed a drink.
The parlor remained dark except for a blazing fire flickering off the worn stone floor. My brother sat on a wingback chair, his legs draped over one of the chair’s arms while his head rested on the other. He didn’t bother unpinning his gaze from the book in his hands. Snores echoed from the settee. Ruairi’s mouth gaped open; an empty bottle of faerie wine was tucked beneath his arm.
I poured myself a glass of puítin from the decanter on the coffee table, then kicked the leg of Rían’s chair. “Looks like I won.”
Rían’s nose wrinkled. “What time did you leave the pub to go off with whoever-she-was?”
“Quarter past eleven.”
“You beat me by five feckin’ minutes.”
Before he’d met Aveen, my brother would’ve still been out, prowling the streets looking for trouble—or a bed to warm. Now he was my constant companion, which irritated me to no end.
Aveen had been mad to trust Rían, let alone fall in love with him. He didn’t deserve any of it—and definitely not from a woman willing to sacrifice a year of her life to be with him.
I wouldn’t even sacrifice this drink for Rían.
Still, she must have seen something in him worthy of redemption.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
He was handsome, I supposed. Blue eyes and suntanned skin like our father, mahogany hair like his mother. And he had magic, which was always a perk with human women.He was powerful—one of the most powerful beings on this island since my magic had been bound. And he could glamour himself to look like anyone—I meananyone.
All things I used to be able to do before I was cursed.
But he was also selfish, murderous, and deceitful. How someone like Rían had won over someone like Aveen still confounded me. It didn’t make any feckin’ sense.
The clear liquor numbed my throat when I took a drink. “It would’ve been longer, but someone came into the pub asking for an escort to Tearmann.”
Rían licked his finger before turning the page. “And I care because . . . ?”
What was it about his voice that made me want to pick him up and throw him from the castle roof? I’d done it once.