Bran’s shoulders inched toward his ears. “I still have my key to the Shoppe.”
“The Shoppe was locked up tight with no signs of forced entry, according to the police.”
“Then we’ll stay there.”
Better a place with no memories of whatever had occurred that put such a haunted look in his little sister’s eyes than anywhere else. Aisling had always been a quiet child growing up, bused to the same schools Bran had gone to in Amherst and forced to deal with the social stigma of where they’d grown up. She had friends, he knew, but none in Pelham. The handful of kids in town who were her age knew of their family and the Shoppe, and that was enough, sometimes, to make locals steer clear.
“Was anyone with you out in the forest?” Bran asked.
Aisling shook her head, still not talking. He was relieved to know hewouldn’t have to search for anyone else. It’d been years since he had walked the forest at night, and he wasn’t in the right mindset to do so right now.
Just get through this.
“No one else has been reported missing,” Cillian said.
Bran didn’t care about anyone else. “I’m taking Aisling home.”
Mac cleared his throat. “CPS won’t come until later. I’ll have the police chief talk to them.”
Bran worked his jaw but kept his grip on Aisling’s hands gentle. “She’s mysister. What are they going to do? Leave her with someone else when I’m right here?”
“I think if you hadn’t come, the chief was going to let her stay with me and my wife. I’ll go talk to him.”
Mac slipped out of the office, and Bran wished Cillian would follow him. But he stayed, and Bran could feel the weight of Cillian’s gaze like an itch between his shoulder blades.
“I would’ve taken Aisling home so she had somewhere to stay if Mac didn’t,” Cillian said quietly.
Bran eased up out of his crouch and stood, letting go of one of Aisling’s hands so he could turn and look at Cillian. “Thank you for finding Aisling, but she’s not your responsibility.”
Cillian’s lips firmed into a flat line, gaze unreadable. Bran used to be able to read the other man’s moods, but that was back when they’d been best friends, before he’d been stupid enough to kiss Cillian on the night before the rest of their lives started.
Coming back here, seeing Cillian for the first time face-to-face in years, dredged up so many memories and emotions that left Bran wishing Cillian hadn’t stayed. That he’d moved out of Pelham like Bran had so Bran wouldn’t have to deal with the person who’d once unknowingly owned his heart and shattered it while he mourned his mother.
The stupid, fucked-up thing was that Cillian still owned his heart. Would always own it.
Seven years wasn’t going to change that.
“Bran,” Cillian began, but Bran cut him off.
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Which was a lie, but Bran pretended otherwise because that was theonly way to protect his heart. He wasn’t going to risk it again, even if some part of him wanted to.
Cillian closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face before he opened them again and nodded. “The police are handling the investigation. The rangers won’t be involved.”
Cillian gave Aisling a nod goodbye before leaving the office. The door clicked shut quietly behind him, and Bran let out a heavy breath. He forced all thoughts of Cillian out of his mind and turned his attention to his little sister. Aisling looked back at him with wide eyes, waved her hand at him, then pointed at her throat.
Bran frowned. “So it’s not that you won’t talk, it’s that you can’t?”
Aisling nodded rapidly. He held her other hand higher, eyeing her bracelet. Bran remembered watching his mother create the bracelets in her stillroom, hunched over a table with delicate tools and a pair of jeweler’s magnifying glasses on her head. She’d whispered magic into every line she carved to create a witchmark, a spell of protection meant to keep the wearer safe. It should have protected Aisling from whatever had killed their mother and Ray. But she couldn’t speak, and that meantsomethinghad gotten through their mother’s legacy.
Something to do with magic.
Bran glanced over his shoulder at the door, calculating the risk of casting magic with so many people outside the office. His mother had always been adamant about making sure their family’s secret didn’t get out. It had been ingrained in him ever since he was old enough to understand that magic should never be spoken of outside their coven, which had consisted of himself and his mother for years until Aisling came along, even though she wasn’t born a witch and had no magic.
He let go of Aisling long enough to lock the office door. The window there was made of frosted glass, but Bran didn’t take its opaqueness for granted. Then, he knelt in front of Aisling and raised his right hand between them, fingers slightly curled.
A witch earned the right to carry their coven’s witchmark only after they completed their training. Most witches these days made do with pendants or rings, something unobtrusive and easily overlooked. Few carried it on their skin anymore, but the Gallagher coven still adhered tothe old tradition. It hadn’t broken, even during the terror of the Salem Witch Trials.
