I looked at the clock and reasoned that it was already late afternoon anyway. By the time I got into Dublin, the church would be closed. Maybe I could use a computer here at the house after dinner. I sat down while Finn walked over to a cabinet and pulled out two more wineglasses. He poured the garnet liquid into both and handed me one.
“Finn,” his mother called to him softly but laced with warning. “I don’t think that’s entirely—”
“Cheers, Mum.” He raised his glass in her direction. “Here’s to being together.” Then he clinked his glass with mine.
“Already starting on the wine without me!” boomed a voice. Uncle Clancy burst in the room, and I actually exhaled in relief. I offered him my glass. “Thank you, child. It’ll be whiskey for me. Sure you don’t need that to warm up? Atmosphere is like cold, hard shite.”
I stifled a laugh.
Clancy hugged Fergus warmly. “Good to have you home,” he said. They gave each other big man-pats on their backs, the kind that sound like they’re trying to knock the teeth out of each other’s faces. I eased back in my chair.
By the time dinner rolled around, Clancy was so boisterous that he took up all the space in the room, leaving none for my unease. Still, Ina would scarcely make eye contact with me, and Finn’s father treated me like a rare breakable. How did someone so normal come from such odd parents?
“I’ve never had a meal so fancy in my life,” I whispered to Finn. “Not even at a restaurant.”
“It’s because of you,” he whispered back.
I’d perhaps indulged in too much wine—no surprise, since I’d never drunk before—because next thing I knew, I found myself saying to Ina, “I saw your books in the library and noticed you have an interest in auras. I share your interest.”
Fergus choked a bit and took a sip of wine.
Ina’s aura shrank back a few inches. “It’s merely something that fascinates me,” she answered coolly.
“Yeah, the way a banker is merely fascinated with money,” Finn retorted. Ina gave Finn a warning look, and suddenly both Fergus and Ina were passing dishes around the table.
Finn leaned in close to me. “You, too, huh? You never mentioned auras before.”
“Yes, I—”
“How long are you home for this time?” Clancy asked Fergus, who shot a look at Ina and murmured something about it being indeterminate.
The dinner talk soon eased into a rhythm that was obviously familiar to them, chat of the pub, and work, and neighbors. Eventually, Clancy burped and scooted his chair back loudly. “Welp, I’m off. I’m fluthered and flah’ed out. Night!” He squeezed my shoulder, and Ina and Fergus began clearing dishes, leaving Finn and me alone in the dining room.
“They’re insane. I’m going to be the one to say it. What is it about you that’s got them all acting like gits?”
“My sparkling personality?” I asked. Giovanni’s voice suddenly rose in my head. Scintilla. The spark.
Finn watched me closely. “Where did you go, just then?”
I smiled. “I’m here. With you.”
His fingers traced the line of my neck. “I want to kiss you.”
“Do.”
“There,” he said, tracing my collarbone. “And right here.” His finger ran along my jaw. “Definitely here.” He teased his fingertips over my cheek.
A warm blush flushed my face.
“How is it possible that every kiss is the most satisfying in the world, and still it’s never enough?” He leaned in, his breath heavy with wine that smelled of chocolate and blackberries. I wanted to know if his tongue tasted like that, too.
Before I knew what happened, we were in each other’s arms. Our mouths dancing, our hands clutching. I gasped when he tilted my head back and kissed the soft slope of my breast. Suddenly, he pulled away and stood. His voice strained to say, “I’m sorry, Cora. I have to get a bit of air.”
“What did I do?” I asked to his back.
“No. No. It’s me. Right now, I feel like I can’t control myself with you. It’s mad. I want you so completely. I’ve never been this way. It’s more intense than anything I’ve ever known. It’s not right. I’m…I’m sorry.”
He left me sitting in the dining room with my lips on fire, my body wide-awake and aching. He was worried about taking what I wanted to give?
I tiptoed past the kitchen in search of the doorway that would lead to my princess tower. I didn’t want another attack of the awkward, so I hoped no one would see or hear me creep by. I could hear Finn’s parents in the kitchen in the middle of a heated, whispered argument.
“I disagree,” Fergus whispered. “I think it’s amazing he’s found someone like her. A miracle.”
How could I walk away after hearing that?
Ina responded, “You and I both know the implications.”
“What’s the drawback? He’s found what the rest of us could only hope to find in our lifetimes.”
I suddenly liked Fergus Doyle very much.
“Dammit! You know the drawbacks!” A hand slapped loudly on wood. “And what are the odds that someone like her would fall for someone like Finn?”
I chewed my lip. I couldn’t even pretend to understand what she meant. Finn was amazing, and before this, Ina had acted like I was garbage.
Fergus’s voice remained calm. “If the legends about Scintilla are true, it could benefit him. It could benefit us all. It was all I could do not to…”
Silence. Every pulse point in my body slammed in alarm against my skin. Faye had told me there were people who wanted nothing more than to find someone like me.
These two knew what I was.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of it yourself,” he said, defensively. “What’s the matter?”
A great sea of silence. I slipped under its current. Waiting. My fingers dug into my palm.
“Look at me, Ina. Have you taken from her?”
Sniffle.
Footsteps moved. I lurched back into the shadows behind the door.
“Do you have no control? How could you? What happened? Tell me what happened!”
“I couldn’t help it!” Her voice lashed the air and cracked against my body. “I wish I hadn’t, Fergus. She gave me a power, my sortilege. It’s true what we’ve heard, the Scintilla’s energy gives us our sortilege. I always wondered what mine would be, fantasized about it, even. But now I know, and it’s bloody dreadful. Now…now I can see the blackest hole in every heart.”
Thirty-Four
I backed away. Their whisperings faded under the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Shallow breaths escaped in loud puffs no matter how I tried to reel them in. I yearned to find Finn, but how could I explain my trembling body, my cold, shaking hands, my complete terror from what I’d overheard?
Finding the doorway that led to the lighthouse tower, I took the winding stairs two at a time. My foot slipped on one of the smooth stone steps, and I tumbled forward. My hand scraped against the stone wall, pricking my palm with the sharp sting of a cut.
Blood made my hand slip on the doorknob. I shoved my shoulder into the wood and barreled through, then quickly locked it.
Did you take from her?
I thought it had been a dream. That she had heard me scream and came to check on me. But of course she couldn’t have heard me so far up in the lighthouse. Unless…unless she was already in my room.
Shakily, I rinsed my hand, wrapped it in a towel, and sat on my bed. I knew it was possible to take from someone’s aura because I had seen it with my own eyes, and I had felt the terrifying pull of it from my own skin. Finn’s parents were like that man? No, wait, their auras weren’t white like his. How could Ina do that to me? Was it because I’d been asleep, defenseless? If so, it was spineless thievery.