“That is because it is yer piano and nae mine.”
“He has taste,” Ciaran said. “Questionable skill, but he does have the chops for this.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Thechops. Really?”
Ciaran shrugged. “Aye. Considerable nerve, too.”
Bruce barked again, while Ava tried to glare at Ciaran and failed because the whole thing was too ridiculous. “Can ye do something, please?”
Ciaran came forward at last, but Bruce turned on the piano with speed and planted himself more squarely over the keys, ready to defend his claim. Ciaran merely bent, slid his hands under the little beast, and lifted him clean off the instrument.
Bruce wriggled at once and let out a series of sharp, offended barks. It was to no avail.
“Aye, ye monstrous creature,” Ciaran rumbled. “The performance is over.”
Ava folded her arms and watched as Ciaran carried him to the door. Bruce twisted around in his hold to glare at both of them, then barked once more when he was set outside.
“Stay there,” Ciaran ordered.
Bruce scratched once at the wood in protest. Then his furious footfalls retreated down the passage, and the room went quiet.
The silence after his chaos felt close and particular. Ava was suddenly aware of where she stood, of the piano between them, of the fact that she was once again alone with Ciaran in the tower. Her amusement shrank to something much more careful.
“I should go,” she muttered.
It was the sensible thing to say. The room held too much history for anything else to come out easily.
She had barely formed the thought of turning toward the door when her eyes caught on the telescope by the window.
She stopped.
The instrument stood where it always had, plain and steady and far more dangerous to her peace than Bruce’s paws had just been. Last time she had stood in this room, it was only meant to be a symbol of breaking down Ciaran’s walls. She had never truly looked through it. The knowledge returned now with a flush that rose warm into her face.
Ciaran had followed her gaze. She felt that, too.
She kept her eyes on the telescope and coughed, feeling the flush spread to her ears.
“Ye all right, lass?” Ciaran asked.
Ava nodded. “Aye. ’Tis just that I never properly got the chance to look at it before.”
The words carried more than the telescope, and she knew it. Perhaps he did too, she couldn’t tell. She could feel the memory in the room, though. The piano, his hands. The floor beside it. Everything rang in her head over and over.
Ciaran said nothing for a moment. Then, very quietly, he swallowed and stepped forward. “Aye.”
Ava felt the permission in his words and moved toward the window before she could lose her nerve. The telescope was cold beneath her fingers as she grabbed it, and she felt a chill skitter down her spine.
“’Tis a bit cold,” she whispered.
Ciaran shrugged his shoulders. “The wind blows at it all day. I suppose it was bound to get cold.”
She could feel him watching as she bent to it, squinted her eye, and looked out into the dark. At first, she saw only pieces of the sky, then nothing, then a line of black trees, then stars scattered wide above the loch. Her breathing slowed, and the tower changed with the shift in her attention.
The room behind her remained present, and so did Ciaran, but the pull of the sky reached further than the charged air within these four walls. She felt like she was floating, and her attention was only on the bright stars and the bright stars only.
At least, that was all she thought until something sharp and bright flashed before her. She froze. It had been so fast that she didn’t have the time to see what it was. And yet she knew.
“Wait—” she sputtered.
