It was . . . enormous. Crenellations and towers reached up to the gray sky, and the door—if it could even be called that—was two massive slabs of oak studded with iron bolts and rivets. Mist drifted over the ground, and honest-to-god torches flickered in iron cages affixed to the exterior walls.
It looked foreboding. Haunted. Terrifying.
And she was spending the next three nights in it.
A million dollars, she repeated in her head as she parked the car and stepped out into the damp, cold afternoon.
Think of it like a challenge. Like one of those reality shows where you do scary shit, but at the end of it, you win a Toyota Tercel or something.
Right.
She could do that.
Tamsyn grabbed her leather purse and the old-fashioned suitcase she’d thought someone like Anna Ripley would own and took a few slow steps toward the . . . okay, it called itself a house, but really “castle” was a better word. If a dragon were curled around one of those towers, it would look right at home.
There was a creaking noise so loud the trees seemed to shiver with it, and the massive doors slowly swung open to reveal a man in a dark green wool suit, the fine rain that had started glistening on his bald head as he stepped forward to greet her.
“Welcome!” he boomed out, a bright smile on his face as he held out a hand to her, and Tamsyn took it without thinking.
Immediately, her fingers were engulfed by his massive palm, and he pumped her arm hard enough to almost wrench it from the socket.
“Anna—” she began, but he was already nodding and pulling her inside with a hearty pat on her back.
“Yes, yes, wedding guest, last to arrive, my dear, but no matter, no matter. Beastly weather, I’m afraid, Wales in December and all that, never have understood why Carys wanted to get married at Yule, but there’s no arguing with a bride, is there?”
He laughed then, the sound echoing in the cavernous front hallway, bouncing off the stone floor and the dull row of suits of armor that marched down a long, wide hallway toward a roaring fire at the far end of the room.
A chill had settled into her bones from the second she’d stepped out of the car, and Tamsyn made to move toward the fire only to have her host steer her to the right instead, down another dark hallway and past a massive staircase that rose up into gloomy darkness.
“We’ll get you to the kitchen and get some tea in you, eh? Always the best thing, I find, on days like this. Tea and perhaps a bit of whisky?” The man grinned at Tamsyn, then placed a thick finger over his lips. “Our secret,” he whispered. Or at least Tamsyn thought he was trying to whisper. She wasn’t sure he was capable of anything quieter than a shout, honestly.
“That would be—” she said, but then he was moving her along again, his hand firm on her elbow.
“Yes, yes, tea and then perhaps a lie-down, and you’ll be right as rain. I’d recommend a hot bath as well, but with this many bloody people in the house, I can’t promise our ancient pipes are up to the task of anything more than a lukewarm bath, really, and that can be worse than no bath at all, can’t it? Yes, indeed, it can, as I always used to say to my father, but he’d say, ‘Madoc, my boy, our ancestors bathed in freezing rivers and streams, so cold water flows in Meredith veins, you ponce,’ which wasn’t a very kind thing for a father to say . . .”
He continued prattling on, but Tamsyn could barely hear him over the ringing of alarm bells starting up in her head.
This was Sir Madoc Meredith, head of the family, host of this entire wedding weekend, father of the bride, and a man who, according to what research she’d been able to do in the few weeks she’d had before showing up here, was one of the most powerful witches in the world.
And something had him scared to death.
She’d seen it in that brief moment when he’d looked over at her, joking about the whisky. He’d been smiling, but above those bright teeth, his blue eyes had been wide, blinking too fast, and the finger he’d lifted to his mouth had been trembling.
And there was the way he’d practically yanked her down this hall, glancing over his shoulder every few moments even as he’d kept up his steady stream of chatter. His hand, still holding her elbow, was so cold she could feel it through her sweater, and even in the dim light of the hallway, Tamsyn could see that his skin was vaguely gray.
Something was wrong here.
Badly wrong.
Fuck a duck, Tamsyn thought, even as she smiled at Madoc Meredith.
She was good at this part of the job: reading people, picking up on what they were feeling even if they were trying to hide it. It was a vital skill to have in this line of work, one that had saved her ass more than once over the years, and every cell in her body was currently screaming at her to leave, to say she’d left something in the car, then get in it and peel out of here as fast as she could. Forget the brooch, forget the job, because anything that had this powerful a witch this terrified was not something she wanted to tangle with.
From somewhere in the distance, Tamsyn heard a crash. It sounded like metal hitting stone, and she remembered that long line of suits of armor in the front hallway. But no, whatever it was, it was farther away than that, the sound muffled.
Sir Madoc jumped as though it had been a gunshot right next to his ear, then reached into his jacket to pull out a monogrammed handkerchief. He used it to mop his brow even though the hallway was so cold Tamsyn could see her breath.
“Is everything all righ—” she said, but then he looked past her, his expression brightening a little.
“Ah! Here’s another of our guests for you to meet!”
Tamsyn was way more interested in just what the hell was going on in this house than she was in meeting some fancy witch, but she plastered a smile on her face all the same as she turned around.
The hallway was dim, watery gray light from the windows set high above their heads casting strange shadows, the electric sconces on the wall barely penetrating the gloom.
But Tamsyn didn’t need a lot of light. She would have known that walk—that pose with the hands in his back pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched—anywhere.
Oh, no was the only clear thought in her head.
Well, not exactly true. There were other thoughts currently slam dancing around in there, including Fuck my liiiiiiife and Of all the gin joints or whatever that quote is—maybe I should watch more old movies? and Oh my god, he actually owns clothes that aren’t sweaters, boots, and jeans, but that’s actually a bad thing because I had gotten almost immune to those, and now I have to learn how to deal with him all dressed up without wanting to climb him like a tree, and am I that strong? Is ANY WOMAN THAT—
“Our last guest to arrive, meet our first guest to arrive,” Sir Madoc said, and keeping that fake smile plastered to her face, Tamsyn offered her hand to a glowering
Bowen Penhallow.
Chapter 5
Bowen had spent enough years studying magic to know that there were larger forces operating in the universe. He’d seen them up close, after all, and studied them, tried to learn their secrets. He might not understand them all, but there was no doubt that he believed.
And now, as he watched a blond Tamsyn turn around and give him her fakest smile, he also believed that those same forces clearly hated his fucking guts.
