“Stop it.”
“No, they are, though,” Tamsyn insisted as Harri and Elspeth continued to bicker in a way that made Bowen think of Wells and Gwyn. “Look at them. They’re fighting, but they’re also . . .”
She made a gesture with her hands that Bowen didn’t quite understand, pressing her fingers together and wiggling them.
“They’re also . . . worm people?” Bowen guessed, and Tamsyn swatted at his arm.
“They’re vibing,” she corrected him. “They’re into each other even though . . . Yeah, she just threw a drink at him, and yikes, that stuff was hot—hope that one had cooled down a little?”
Bowen looked back to his grandparents, where Harri was now furiously wiping at his dinner jacket, and Elspeth was pointing one long red fingernail at him as she said, “You never learn not to call my bluff, not once, and we’ve known each other since we were five.”
“Yes, and one of us has matured past that point,” Harri sniped back, and Lady Meredith clapped her hands.
“All right, all right, enough of that,” she said. “Wedding or no wedding, it’s a new moon, Yule approaches, and we’re cutting the log tonight. It’s Madoc’s first time being allowed to join us, so I want nothing to spoil that. And, Emerald, put down that silly book. You’ll trip again, and you don’t want to spend yet another Yule limping about and being tragic, do you?”
“Being here is tragedy enough,” Emerald muttered, but she shoved the book into the pocket of her coat anyway. In the lights from the house, she looked younger than fifteen, her dark blond hair held back from her face with a green velvet band, and Bowen studied her, thinking there was something familiar about her, but nothing he could place.
“Pair up,” Lady Meredith announced. “Madoc, go with Cousin Emerald.”
Both children groaned but dutifully joined hands as the other adults began to pair off, too. A tall, older man with a head full of white hair offered his arm to Lady Meredith, and Bowen assumed this was her husband, Sir Caradoc.
Elspeth flounced away from Harri and, as Bowen watched with dawning horror, began making her way straight for him.
“And who are you?” she asked, a smile curling her full lips before her eyes slid to Tamsyn, who was still clutching Bowen’s arm, thank St. Bugi’s balls.
“He’s my husband,” Tamsyn said, drawing herself up as tall as she could, and Bowen knew it was part of their cover, knew it was the easiest way to keep the two of them together in this place, but that didn’t mean his idiot heart didn’t start pounding away in his chest at hearing Tamsyn call him that.
Elspeth gave a brief pout, but then shrugged, flipping the hood of her coat up over her hair. “Oh, well. Never really fancied a man with a beard anyway.”
Harri was glaring absolute daggers at them even as Elspeth moved on to find some unattached man in the group, and Bowen tried to give his grandfather what he hoped was a reassuring, Hey, mate, no interest in your girl on account of my heart being very taken by this woman at my side, and also because your girl is my grandmother, hope you understand! sort of look.
He was fairly certain absolutely none of that translated, but at least Harri threw that baleful look in another direction, and Bowen sighed with relief even as Tamsyn tugged at his sleeve.
“What was it Carys said before all this happened?”
Bowen thought back to those last mad moments in the maze: the rain, the brooch, the sudden knowledge that he was in love with Tamsyn. There had been a lot going on. Was it any wonder he was struggling to remember what exactly Carys had shouted?
“‘Take it back,’” he said, remembering. “She definitely shouted that. And something . . . ‘whatever can be undone, undo it.’”
That had been it. So why had that sent them back here? Why this night, this year?
And if they were back here, then where the bloody hell was Carys?
Chapter 11
Back to the Future.
Doctor Who.
The Time Machine.
Somewhere in Time.
No, dammit, that one was sad, and the entire point of listing all the time travel movies and TV shows Tamsyn had seen where things went right and ended happily was to keep her from absolutely losing it as she found herself walking through a dark, freezing forest in the year 1957 with absolutely no idea how she’d gotten to that year or—and this was the real kicker—exactly how she was going to get back to 2024.
This was the thing about hanging out with witches.
Sure, it was fun, and sometimes it was very lucrative, and some of those witches were . . .
Tamsyn allowed herself a sneaky peek at Bowen as they trudged along. She could just make out his profile, the beam of their flashlight—or torch, as everyone else was calling it—concentrated on the ground. But even just his silhouette was enough to have her sighing.
So yeah. Exciting job, made good money, occasionally got to spend time with the hottest dude alive.
Flip side was apparently the chance of getting stuck several decades before you were even supposed to be born.
The night was cold and clear, and while there was no moon, the stars sparkled through the trees, brighter than Tamsyn had ever seen them, and that made her feel a little better. Those were the same stars she’d be seeing if she were back in her own time right now, and she lifted her hand just enough to give them the tiniest wave.
She didn’t think Bowen had seen her, but then he pulled her in a little tighter against his side, his voice gruffer than normal when he said, “We’ll fix this, I promise.”
Tamsyn wasn’t sure she believed him, but she believed he believed that, and that was comforting in its way.
“So do you think it’s your grandparents?” she asked in a low voice, and even though she couldn’t see his expression when he glanced down at her, she knew he was doing the Confusion Frown (not the Advanced One, though this was the one he used when she said something was “sus” or “that slaps”).
“Why we’re here,” she explained. “Like, maybe we were sent back in time to be sure your grandparents get married and you get to be born. That seems like the kind of thing time travel would be useful for.”
Bowen grunted, and Tamsyn assumed that was all the answer she was going to get until he said, “But it was Carys’s wish. Carys’s spell. That’s what sent us back here. That and Y Seren.”
Shit, that was right. It’s not like Tamsyn and Bowen had been trying to send themselves into the past. That had been all Carys, and she was nowhere to be seen.
