Chapter 185

Liam

Tiernan came back the next afternoon, a little after three, and parked his truck in the lane outside my house where anyone could see it.

He had left the witch on her way at first light, somewhere down the valley, and driven back alone. He looked as if he hadn’t slept. He stood on my step with snow on his shoulders and knocked, the way he always did, as if there were any chance of us not knowing who it was.

Kaia opened the door. She didn’t say anything. She stepped back to let him in, and he came in, and bent and kissed the top of her head, and went past her into the kitchen and sat down at my table as if it were his own.

“Well,” he said. “It’s the day.”

I had known it was. I had known it for a week, the way you know the date of an exam you haven’t studied for. Ninety days since she had come to Moonhaven in the autumn with one bag and a face like a locked door. Ninety days, and the arrangement he and Kade had made over her head. Three mont