Aoife’s smile faltered. It was a distraction for a moment, but it was another death omen. Another reminder that they were all headed for the same fate this winter if nothing changed.
Her father hesitated.
“It means there’s going to be a storm.” Aoife said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Eoin objected. “If you hear a fairy hound bark three times, your heart stops.” He said, relishing the telling.
Halverton entered while he was speaking. He laughed when Eoin finished, a low, amused chuckle that made her skin prickle. “What tall tales you have been told.”
Eoin straightened. “They’re not tales. I heard it from an adult, so it must be true.”
Halverton crouched slightly to meet his eyes. “You should not believe everything an adult tells you.”
Eoin frowned. “Then why should I believe you?”
Halverton blinked, caught off guard. “Touché,” he murmured.
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Straightening, he crossed the room to the bookcase and pulled out a slim volume bound in green leather. “Superstitions of Inis Morra,” he read aloud, then held it out to the boy. “You can read?”
“Yes, sir,” Eoin said, taking it reverently.
“That will set you straight.”
Aoife’s stomach tightened. She glanced at her father, silently willing him to intervene, but he gave the smallest shake of his head.
“That’s kind of you, sir,” he said instead.
She forced herself to smile, her teeth aching with the effort. “Yes. Thank you.”
“It is nothing.” Halverton waved a hand, looking pleased with himself. He returned to the sofa, draping his arm across it, his fingers close enough to brush her shoulder. The gift meant nothing to him; it was a trinket, a spur-of-the-moment decision. But to Eoin, who cradled it in both hands, it looked like treasure.
Conversation resumed, her father steering it carefully to safe ground. There was talk of neighbours, of the weather, of a wedding that might never happen. Nothing that might upset Lord Halverton, no talk of the food or lack thereof, no talk of the hunger that occupied every waking hour. But it was there, beneath every smile, behind every story. Aoife could see it, even if Lord Halverton couldn’t.
It didn’t take long for the conversation to dry up, and with Lord Halverton present she couldn’t ask all the things she wanted to. She could only hope they’d be allowed to come again.
When they stood to leave, relief flickered across her father’s face. He hugged her tightly.
“You always were stronger than I am,” he whispered. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be all right.”
She clung to him a heartbeat longer, unwilling to let go.
She crouched to hug her siblings as Lord Halverton offered her father a polite smile.
“You see how well she is doing here?” he said lightly, as though complimenting a horse he’d broken. “When I found her, she was little better than a wild thing.”
Her father stiffened, the smallest tightening in his shoulders. He said nothing.
Halverton warmed to the topic.
“And you must be relieved to have one less mouth to feed,” he added. “If more of your people showed restraint, you would notbe in such a state.” He gave a soft, patronising laugh. “Breeding like rabbits has consequences.”
Eoin’s head snapped up, eyes wide.
Her father inhaled sharply, trying to swallow the insult. His fists didn’t clench yet, but his fingers curled as though testing how much he could bear.
Halverton stepped closer, studying him with idle curiosity.
