“My god,” I whisper. “Is this where you let the fairies out?” I want the words back the second they escape. My cheeks flush, but he gives me a half smile.
“The fairies and sprites, my grandmother used to say. She said they lived here in the garden.”
He talks about his grandmother like she’s holy. Maeve McCarthy—known in our circles. Revered.
“What would they do out here?” I ask, then almost slap my own mouth shut.
Why would I say that out loud?
“I suppose… dance down to the graves of my ancestors,” he says with a dry smirk. “Because mischief gets you in trouble. Aren’t sprites trouble?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak again. But itdoesfeel like a place built for fairies and sprites, as if the edge of a rainbow will touch down and turn the very ground beneath our feet enchanted.
He’s looking at me differentlynow.
Not like the girl he tormented… but like something else. Something I don’t have a name for.
His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there. My breath stutters.
“You always were… different, Erin Kavanagh,” he says quietly. “But maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
He turns and we keep walking, his hands deep in his pockets, his too-big jacket sliding off my shoulders but still warm.
We reach a greenhouse, and the air shifts—humid, lush, alive with breath and green. Plants crawl up trellises. Flowers bloom like secrets.
“So you don’t live on your own now. This where they send you when you get out of prison?” I ask.
Why did I say that?
His jaw clenches. “Better than where they send the ones who don’t come out.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Yes, you did.” He steps closer. “You want to know if I’m the same bastard who made your life hell? If prison changed me?”
My heart hammers. “Did it?”
“No.” Another step. He’s close enough now that I can feel his breath. “I’m worse.”
I should back away.
I don’t.
“Good,” I hear myself say. “At least you’re honest.”
His eyes darken. “Honesty’s all I’ve got left, lass.”
He laughs but barely. Just a breath. A crack in the armor. Music drifts from somewhere inside the house—soft and classical.
It hits me with the brutality of a backhand: music class.
Fuckingmusicclass. They put the upperclassmen in with the younger ones, and Ihatedit so damn much.
I mutter something under my breath. He catches it and gives me a sharp look.
This time, I don’t bother to stop my words. “You shoved my notebook in the fountain after music class.”
He doesn’t respond.
