Page 16 of Twisting Beauty

My face burned.

Don’t be stupid, Liath. Deargán’s voice chastised me as if he were here.

Lorcan was his father’s son. Still a Lasair. Still playing whatever twisted game they’d started long before I’d ever set foot in this house.

I tucked my hand into my lap. “You’d sell me, wouldn’t you? If it earned his praise.”

He tilted his head. “Funny. I might have said the same about you.”

Alistair came back into the room with an air of satisfaction, though his eyes gave nothing away about what.

“You look pleased,” I said as casually as I could. “Good news?”

He settled back into his chair and reached for his wine. “This business expansion is going to be a tremendous success. I can feel it.”

Expansion. Buyer. Business. The words clicked together fast enough to turn my stomach.

Whatever Alistair was building extended beyond Magdalene, something darker and more organized than we suspected. And the asylum wasn’t the whole horror. It was just the beginning of it.

“Expansion for what?” I kept my voice featherlight, my expression open and idle.

“Business matters.” He waved a hand in my direction without looking at me. “Nothing for your pretty little ears.”

Lorcan’s fingers stayed loose on the stem of his glass, but something passed over his face so quickly that I couldn’t catch it.

Christ, he was supposed to be simple.

Heir. Enemy. Monster.

Whatever was on his face right now didn’t fit any of those, and I hated him a little for it.

I hated that part of me wanted to believe he wasn’t unredeemable yet. I’d seen too much damage in him already, too many cracks in his mask. Something treacherous in me kept trying to turn those scraps into mercy.

In this house, that kind of wanting felt less like hope and more like the first mistake by letting something with teeth too close to my throat.

I shut Rua’s bedroom door behind me, the sound echoing through the space like a coffin lid closing. It brought only partial relief after that disturbing dinner, Alistair’s predatory gaze still crawling across my skin like insects.

This room, the bedroom of the girl I was pretending to be, was the only place I felt even remotely safe. And even that safety was a lie, tucked inside a house full of predators.

I tumbled into bed, trying to calm my mind. But when I flicked off the lamp, blackness swallowed me whole.

I lay there, wide awake despite my exhaustion, nerves rattling as rain hissed against the windows while the air hung thick with the scent of damp wood and ancient stone.

Lasair Manor seemed to breathe like a slumbering beast, the building settling heavy around me in the dark, the tick and groan of old timber, the draught that moved beneath doors like something looking for a way in.

I lay in Rua’s bed and stared at the ceiling, telling myself that I’d sleep eventually.

Then the violin started.

Low at first, barely there. A single melody, simple and haunting, muffled and echoing.

It was familiar in the way of something half dreamed. My fingers moved against the blanket, tracing the shape of the phrase in the air.

Was it even real?

My synesthesia didn’t always announce itself cleanly. Sometimes it slipped in sideways, and I couldn’t tell the difference between hearing something and simply imagining it.

But this felt real. It felt like it was coming from somewhere.