Page 104

The house has settled in appearance, though not in truth. There is a waiting in it now. An awareness beneath ordinary motion. As though every closed door might open to reveal more surprises.

James, for his part, has been consumed by a matter entirely his own.

He thinks himself subtle. He is not.

Why else would a grown man require the assistance of his two best friends once a week to gather primrose from every corner of the estate? He roams the grounds as if mapping them anew. Arms heavy with blooms meant for some purpose that he guards too poorly to remain hidden.

Surely he thinks us smarter men.

Whatever he has been shaping in secret since our return draws nearer its unveiling. I confess a selfish eagerness to witness it. There is something profoundly steadying in watching a man pursue a vow of his own choosing.

Ellen pretends ignorance, but her composure has thinned at the edges. She lingers longer in corridors when James passes. Her corrections to the staff have grown sharper, then softer. Her gaze finds him when she believes no one watches.

I see more than I let on. And for good reason. Reason I suspect no one else saw when those tethers were shown to us.

Róisín and Alex are scarcely apart these days. What exists between them is no longer tentative. It carries the reckless steadiness of something newly claimed. I find myself observing them as one might watch fledglings test their wings—astonished by their lack of armour, unsettled by their confidence, and yet unable to look away.

I look at the blossoming couplings as I have always looked upon them.

But watching them all poised at the brink of what might become everlasting happiness has stirred something in me I had not expected.

I find myself wanting it.

Not in grand, foolish terms. Not with poetry. Simply the steadiness of it. The choosing and being chosen in return.

It would be easier to pretend I am above such things.

I am not.

In truth, I have continued to seek distraction in familiar comforts. Charlotte remains discreet, as ever. Her loyalty in that regard is something I value greatly. Losing myself in the warmth she offers is, I confess, another mercy I have not declined. There are moments when the simplicity of warmth and willing company quiets the restless turn of thought better than solitude ever could.

But distraction is not the same as belonging.

And I am old enough to know the difference.

If Mannie’s visit has taught me anything, it is that vows echo farther than we imagine when we make them. Whether whispered to land, spoken across a hearth, or shouted at the stars.

So, I am, as I so often find myself, left wanting.

At odd hours, my mind returns to the tether Mannie revealed—those faint strands that split from the main thread and vanished beyond the walls of this house. One of them, unmistakably, from me.

I have never believed myself meant for prophecy.

I made a vow once before in this very book, foolishly perhaps, that I would bind my life to the Emerald Isle. That I would do enough in my time to see her people freed from what has weighed upon them. It was the kind of vow a man makes when the world feels unmoored and he seeks something solid to stand upon.

Now I wonder whether fate had already laid its hand upon that promise.

Oath.

I find I prefer that word.

It feels almost absurd to dwell on human tenderness in the wake of divine inevitability. Gods stirring. Relics fracturing. Ancient oaths awakening.

And though an eccentric god and an ancient relic may demand our attention soon enough, I suspect the next tremor in this house will come not from unseen boundaries⁠—

but from the lower hall end of the hall where a rather large man has been plotting into the wee hours of the night.

How very human of us, to stand on the edge of great legend and still concern ourselves with matters of the heart.