There are three men on the grounds, two near the south gate and another farther off by the garages, their postures hunched, their faces tipped upward in that peculiar way people have when they are expecting something heavy to fall.
I watchthem for a minute, until the cold from the window presses against my collarbone and reminds me to move.
I shower and dress in a long skirt and soft wool, and then I leave my room, taking the stairs.
Ruairí's office door is unlocked.
The room is quiet and low-lit, warmed only by two shaded lamps whose gold light settles in the corners and across the worn rug that muffles my footsteps.
The desk is heavy and old, carved from something dark and local, the wood smoothed at the edges by generations of use.
The shelves that line the walls are crowded but not careless, filled with books on legal history and trade records, the brittle politics of old Europe, and several slim volumes of poetry in Irish, the margins filled with faint pencil marks.
Near the far edge, where the spines lean slightly as if left undisturbed too long, sits a small row of storybooks, their covers faded but lovingly preserved, the kind of bindings you would not notice unless you were searching for comfort, the kind passed down quietly from a mother's lap or kept beside a child's bed through winters long enough to imagine magic.
I linger on them longer than I mean to.
Above the desk is a framed photograph.
His father stands beside a bishop, both men unsmiling, their hands clasped in a formality that suggests no affection.
The only signature belongs to the bishop, inked in slanted cursive across the bottom with the wordsMay your strength always serve your people.
I move behind the desk.
On the left, a stack of ledgers sits beneath a web of colored tabs and ribbons, each page annotated in Ruairí's tight, slanted hand.
A closed laptop blinks faintly at the hinge.
The mug of pens beside it is worn and cluttered, several of the handles chewed to soft grooves.
The drawers are familiar in the way a man reveals himself without knowing.
Coins, old receipts, tangled cords.
Afolder labeledRECEPTIONholds a single guest list from that night.
My name is marked by a short note—Watches the staff, counts exits.
I smile, but only slightly.
In the bottom drawer I find an envelope, unmarked but thick.
I pull it free, close the drawer, and open the flap, fanning the contents across the desk with careful hands.
There are three groups of photographs.
The first shows my father at a café near Malahide, speaking with a man whose face is turned from the camera in every frame, though his hands are visible—broad and pale, the nails bitten down.
In the second group, clearer and taken closer, the same man is seen with an Italian broker I recognize, a man my father once refused in anger after a proposal that still makes me sick to remember.
The final photographs are more recent, taken from above at my engagement party.
The lens is not on me but on the doorway behind, where two men in council colors pass something between them.
In the margin, in Ruairí's writing, a single note reads,Twelve hours before the call.
At the bottom of the stack is a printed sheet, plain, marked only with a tracking number at the top and a paragraph of summary beneath.
