She raised her brows. “You’re nosy.”

I raised my hands apologetically. “Incurably.”

Her gaze wandered past me and landed on a round portrait. I turned to face it. Maggie was even younger there, maybe Anna’s age, her cheeks cherub round, her eyes holding dreams. “You were beautiful.” I looked up quickly. “I mean—that’s not to say—”

She permitted a small smile to cross her lips, and waved away my blunder. “I still see her when I look in the mirror.” Her expression softened. “I was the most beautiful girl in Kilkarten in those days. We had such grand plans then.”

“Not anymore?”

“Can’t build castles on cobwebs.” She appraised me. “Patrick was a hard man to like, especially in the later years, and I’ll take my share of the blame. But it was a good thing he did, agreeing to let you excavate Kilkarten. I think it’s wrong of Mike to not let you do so.”

“Why didn’t your husband leave the land to you?”

She let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to absolve the anger between the brothers. And I would have just left it to Mike, so. No children of my own.”

“What about Paul?”

She looked surprised, like she’d never thought of leaving the land to her other nephew. “Wouldn’t have been right. That land always belonged to the O’Connors. I’m sure Patrick didn’t want it out of the family, no matter what.” She shook her head. “We should rejoin the others.”

Back in the kitchen, I piled my plate high while watching everyone mingle. Nearby, Anna stood with crossed arms in a group of other teenagers. Lauren argued with Paul over by the bookshelves. Kate laughed out loud at something an older gentleman said.

People kept approaching me to discuss the dig. Everyone knew it wouldn’t take place, but they seemed to think that I was the person who could change that fact, and I had too much pride to blame Mike.

Well, they also liked to discuss my plate of food. One commended me on my “lively appetite.” One looked alarmed at the amount of cheese I’d taken. The third, Caitlin Riordan, whose family owned the pub, explained how excited she was for the dig and introduced her younger brother as Finn, the sullen bartender Anna kept sneaking glances at. Another, Mrs. Barry from the farm nearest Kilkarten, noted that the she’d made the scone in my mouth, and that it would be no problem for her to make up an equally delicious lunch each day for the workers—and for a small fee, of course.

Across the room, Mike smiled and nodded as strangers who’d known his father and uncle told stories about their childhoods. But while his lips stayed turned up, the muscles around his eyes stopped moving, and his hands started to shift.

When he excused himself, I followed him outside. He headed down the road for a long minute, until the laughter faded and the tiny harbor came into view.

Before him, the sea stretched flat and gray, save the metallic ripple of sun. Above, textured gunmetal blue sky and orange tinged clouds rippled out. Muddied pink and shadowy purple lined the horizon and curved coast. Mike’s hands worked at his neck, yanking the tie off. It dangled in his clenched hand, a vibrant streak of color in the softened world.

I walked closer. “Are you okay?”

He jerked and turned. An unfamiliar expression drew his brows down in stark lines, and with the sun setting his eyes were shadowed. “Didn’t I look okay?”

I hesitated, unnerved by his tone. “Not really.”

He knotted the tie around his fists as he hung his head back let out a groan and dropped it, reaching for me. The tie fluttered to the ground.

I took one of his hands and moved close, lifting my eyes to his. They were bright and unblinking. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and pulled me closer. He kissed me with such desperation that it scared me. I pulled back, but remained within his embrace. My hands rested on his chest. “Mike. Tell me.”

He dropped his arms and walked away. “My uncle died, that’s what. I never met him. He’s dead, and my father’s dead, and my grandparents are dead, and what the fuck am I doing?” The wind whipped his hair into a mad tangle. “This isn’t me. This hasn’t been me for ten years. I’m so fucking angry with my father, and Patrick, and all these people who know so goddamn much about ‘the O’Connors.’”

He drove his fingers through his hair. “And I don’t know who I am here. I’ve never had to be my father’s son. And I haven’t spent this much time isolated with my mom and sisters for years.”

I had no experience with death, but I had plenty with anger and regret and family. “Then be angry. Don’t just keep it trapped.”

“What do you know about it?”

I leaned my head back. “I’m mad at my mother for not understanding me. I’m mad at my father for not understanding her. At—at myself for my general incompetence.”

“What do you mean?”

That I had let myself get swept away in Mike’s life, and Mike’s family, instead of sticking to the goal and researching Kilkarten. And I was mad at him, too, for not being able to see it my way, and then the anger turned back on myself for being so selfish. “I don’t know. I’m just not always the person I want to be.”

He tilted his chin toward the earth and cracked a small smile of self-recrimination and frustration. “I want to be the person everyone thinks I am. The charming one.” He looked up, eyes striking right into mine. “You don’t think that’s me.”

“Do you want me to?”

“No.” He folded his hands over his nose. “I want to get out of here.”

I couldn’t help with everything, but at least I knew where we could go.

We caught the bus back to the inn, and from there took the car Mike’s family had rented. I drove. Mike didn’t ask where we were going; he didn’t even speak, just stared out the window at the gathering dark. So I didn’t say anything either, until the road dwindled into little more than two tracks on a flat path lined by hedgerows. I pulled over to the side of the road and led him up a tiny path between two tall, full trees.

The stones came into view almost immediately, jutting out between the straw colored grasses. “There are around two hundred dolmens in Ireland, and most of them are up north. But Cork—Cork is filled with them too. Standing stones and portal tombs. Whole megalithic complexes.”

Before us, the landscape sprawled out, a majestic patchwork of rolling greens, of dark bushes and pale grasses and startlingly bright mosses. It looked endless, almost, except you could see the blaze of fire far out over the water.

Staggered stones rose out of the ground, massive boulders roughly shaped into points. We climbed a small hill and stopped before the portal tomb. A heavy, ancient capstone lay tilted across a handful of backstones, looking like it might slide off any minute and cause a small earthquake.

Mike traced a ridge in the stone. “When was it built?”

“Maybe five-thousand years ago. Older than the pyramids.” We slowly started around the monument. “I get why they believed in fairies here.” I glanced over at him. In the darkness, only his hair glinted. His strong jaw and broad shoulders made him look like he’d stepped out of the tales himself. “You’re perfect, actually.” He met my eyes, startled. “Put you in a tunic and give you a torc instead of a tie, and you could have been here for thousands of years.

“We did a unit on fairytales in seventh grade, and my project was about fairy portals. Rings of stones or mushrooms. I used to daydream about going through one. Ending up in Fairyland. Where everything was beautiful and perfect and magical.”

He reached out and planted a hand against one of the supporting boulders. And then, before I realized what he was planning, he planted his arms on the stone and swung himself onto the capstone.

I gasped and grabbed for his leg, but he evaded me easily. “Are you crazy?” My heart beat frantically as he sprawled across the stone. “You have to get off!”