Loch beats me down to the foyer, racing in, tugging on another Aran sweater as I round the corner.
Malachy is standing under the blazing chandelier, red-faced andscreamingat Finn.
“—told me about your littlemeeting.Eamon’s asking questions now, questions he’s never asked before. What thefuckwas that meeting about? What the fuck do you think you’ve been—”
The moment Loch appears, his uncle rounds on him, and I’m sucked back to every argument Coal had with our dad. Every time I watched the two of them yell at each other and all I could do wasstand there and hope to god Coal wrestled even a minor victory out of the situation. I wanted to intervene,every fucking time,but anything I could have said got stunned in terror so I was helpless to watch my brother take it all for us.
“You.” Malachy is all poison and fury. He’s uncapped now, his hair mussed, eyes sunken, suit jacket unbuttoned and shirt wrinkled—what decorum he’d had last I saw him is fraying at the seams. “You owe me answers, you little shit.”
Loch stops. His hands fist, and I hang back behind him.
Siobhán and Finn move off to the side together, both of them as wound as I am, watching Loch with tense jaws and wide eyes.
Finn’s gaze slides to mine. She nods, once.
When I turn back, Malachy is glaring.
At me.
Loch steps between us. “It’s over, Uncle,” he says. He’s talking fast. “I’m taking St. Patrick’s Day back. This Holiday ismine.”
“The fuck you will. You think you cantakeit from me? Our court will—”
“Finally know that the position was never fully yours,” Loch finishes. “I did meet with them. I didn’t talk about you at all. All I did was tell them whatI’vedone for our Holiday, and if that made them start questioning what was left foryouto do, well.” He shrugs. “And now, if you cry to them about how Itookthis Holiday from you, what do you think will be their first question, eh? They’ll ask how I managed it, when the only way a Holiday can be transferred is through joyful willingness. When it isn’t joyful,thishappens.” He points between them. “It’s a fucked-up tangle of power that was so easy to undo, I canna believe it’s taken me all these years to snatch it back. So go on, then. Tell our court the original transfer to you never fully went and I was able to pull it back. You wanna explain to themwhyitdidn’ttake for you? That you manipulated me into giving up the throne?”
Malachy’s face grows redder. He runs his hands through his hair in an aggravated, cornered lurch. “You’ve screwed up, Lochlann. You—”
“You’ll tell the court you returned the throne to me,” Loch says, calmer now, but I can see tiny vibrations in his clenched fists. “You’ll tell them you finally decided it was time to pass it back.”
Malachy’s frantic rage pauses.
“Are you sure about this?” His tone is distorted. Like he has one last move to make.
All those little scraps of uncertainty swirl up, dust caught in a funnel cloud. The sense of something being off with Loch, something he wasn’t saying, something lurking in the sadness of his eyes and the way he kissed me.
Unconsciously, I take a step back from him, to the side, so I can see Malachy better.
Malachy’s eyes snap to me.
Loch dives between us again. “Malachy.Get out of my castle!”
One lip curls, a toying sneer that strengthens when Malachy asks Loch, “Did you get the Christmas Prince into bed like I told you to?”
I’ve never been punched before.
But his words are a physical fist socking me in the gut.
I realize too late that that question was bait. Bait I’ve taken by the horror and invasion I can’t school off my face.
Malachy tugs his suitcoat over his stomach, a pathetic attempt at regaining composure. “Good play, Lochlann. I told you it’d be beneficial to have him here for the week. Now he won’t seek repercussions for the joy. You can bend him over literallyandfiguratively.”
“Don’t youtalk about him,” Loch barks.
I barely hear him. Barely see Loch turn to face me, he must look pleading because his voice drops.
“Kris—”
Repercussions for the joy.
