Page 18 of Twisting Beauty

His hand squeezed even tighter and his features tightened. “The Master will be very displeased if you choose to disobey his orders.”

A chill slid down my spine. I could not afford to make a mistake with Alistair.

I straightened and tugged at my hand.

His grip remained around my wrist for one moment too long before he let go. The skin throbbed in protest, and I had the absurd urge to rub it while he watched, as though that would prove he had hurt me.

I did not give him that satisfaction. Instead, I smoothed my expression.

“Of course,” I said, forcing the words past a throat that had gone tight. “I would never knowingly defy Father.” The lie tasted sour the moment it left my mouth, but I let it sit there between us anyway, meek and false.

I would only stay alive in a place like this by learning when to lower my lashes and pretend to obey. “Good night, Mervyn.”

“Excellent choice, Miss Rua.”

I retreated back down the corridor. Only when I turned the corner did I pause and peer back.

Mervyn remained at the foot of the tower. There was no way he was letting me through. At least not tonight. Not without consequences.

There was a low murmur of a voice, another member of the staff, coming from one of the side rooms, saying something I almost didn’t catch.

“…ever since the tower incident…”

A door closed and the voice cut off.

I forced myself to walk away, back toward Rua’s room, despite the violin still tugging at me from that forbidden stairwell.

In Rua’s bed, I lay in the dark and listened.

Without meaning to, I realized I was humming it. My voice was soft and shapeless at first, just breath following the melody, and then it grew clearer as the phrase repeated and repeated and something in my chest pulled tight with recognition.

I knew this song.

Not just from the last few minutes. From before. From Magdalene where I’d hummed this exact melody under my breath without knowing why.

“The Parting Glass.”

Old and Irish and mourning. I hummed it to the dark ceiling, something intimate in how the violin met me note for note.

I was asleep before the music stopped.

I woke in the gray morning light, rested in a way I hadn’t expected to be in a house filled with monsters. I lay there for a moment before I understood why.

Then I remembered. The violin had sung me to sleep. Whoever was playing, whether or not it was real, I’d let it settle over me in the dark like something safe. My body had exhaled, and I’d gone under as easy as a child.

I stared at the ceiling and a cold wave of disgust moved through me. I could not afford to relax in this house. I could not afford to mistake anything here for comfort. In a place like this, one stupid moment of softness would be my last mistake.

That kind of lapse would get me killed.

6

LIATH

Isat up and had the rotten, disorienting jolt of remembering I now slept in a room that was basically a shrine to my enemy.

Damn Rua and her obsession with him.

Lorcan’s face was everywhere, staring back at me from every wall until the room felt smaller for it. I was trapped inside someone else’s fixation, and I could feel my thoughts snagging on him every time I tried to focus. I needed my head clear, and Rua’s obsession was making that impossible.