“Annie,” she mused. “Do you know, no one’s ever called me that before, and I should probably rap your knuckles for the informality, my girl, but I rather like it. Annie. Yes.”
Half standing out of her chair, Lady Meredith leaned on the table and called down: “Do you hear that? You’re all to call me ‘Annie’ from now on. Well, not you, Lora, but the rest of you who are my friends. Annie.” Then she sat back in her seat and reached over, taking Tamsyn’s hand. “I don’t know why I like you so much, but I do, Tamsyn Penhallow.”
Tamsyn almost corrected her without thinking, but then, as the words sank into her bones, warming her as well as any bath she’d ever had—well, maybe not any bath—she was glad she hadn’t.
If nothing else, if this all went tits up and there was no saving them, at least for the next and maybe last day she’d spend on earth, she’d be Tamsyn Penhallow.
It was past ten o’clock that night when they all gathered in the front hallway of Tywyll House, the whole party dressed in evening finery, but covered in long velvet cloaks of the deepest green, each of them wearing a holly crown and holding a lit taper in their hands.
Tamsyn wore an evening gown in a deep, deep scarlet, and sitting heavy over her heart, hidden by her cape, Y Seren glittered.
She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Bowen yet. After all the wreath making, she’d been hustled up to her room by one of the maids, who’d actually helped her dress and assured her that Bowen had a valet in a separate room doing the same for him.
So when he joined her in the crowd by the front door, she moved in close, opening her cape just the barest bit so that he could see the brooch.
His eyes went wide, then flew back to hers. “How—” he started, but then Lady Meredith was coming down the stairs, resplendent in gold, holding a thicker candle than the rest of them, and calling, “Beloved guests. Shall we brighten this dark night?”
A cry went up from the group as a footman circulated with a silver tray of tiny crystal glasses filled with a clear liquid, and each guest took one.
Tamsyn threw hers back like she saw everyone else doing and quickly regretted that decision, because whatever was in the glass tasted like someone had managed to distill a Yule log—evergreen and fire and smoke.
Eyes watering, she put her empty glass back on the tray just as Madoc made a jump for his own glass.
The footman skillfully lifted the tray over the little lordling’s head, and Madoc’s frown was fearsome. “Traditions are traditions!” he insisted. “You cannot wassail without Fire’s Draught, and I am lord of this manor! Every tradition has to involve me, because if it doesn’t, that’s how houses end up cursed. In the thirteenth century, a Lord Meredith was denied his Fire’s Draught, and that same year, a dragon descended on the house and ate them all up!”
“Absolutely none of that happened, Madoc, and you know the rules about Fire’s Draught. Not until you’re fifteen. Speaking of . . .”
With another one of those graceful gestures, Lady Meredith indicated Emerald should step forward. For once, she was without her velvet ribbon, her hair in a sophisticated updo tonight, her dress black and spangled with silver sparkles.
Eagerly, she took a glass from the tray and sucked it back with the same enthusiasm the adults had, only to immediately turn bright red, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, that’s vile!” she cried, but that only made the other witches laugh, and Caradoc thumped her heartily on the back.
“You’ll be glad for it once you’re out there for hours, sosej,” he said, then turned to the assembled crowd. “A happy Yule to all. It has long been Meredith family tradition to greet the dawn of this holiday with a visit to the village, bearing candle, holly, and song. Are we all ready?”
“Are we?” Tamsyn asked Bowen in a low voice, and he nodded at the spot on her dress where Y Seren was hidden by her cloak.
“Here’s hoping,” he said, and with that, he took her arm, and the party headed out into the winter night.
Chapter 22
Bowen’s heart pounded as they made their way down the steps, the group ahead of them already launching into “In the Bleak Midwinter” sung in Welsh.
But he kept hold of Tamsyn’s arm, holding her back until they were at the very rear of the group, the others a series of bobbing lights headed for the road through the forest.
“They won’t notice us missing for a while,” he told her in a low voice, trying to lean in close and keep the bloody stupid holly crown on his head at the same time—quite a feat, really.
“So you have a plan?” she whispered.
He did, in a manner of speaking. Basically, it was take Y Seren back into the maze, say some words over it, and hope for the fucking best, but he wasn’t sure that’s what Tamsyn wanted to hear right now, so he just kissed her temple and murmured, “Of course I do.”
They followed the group at a distance, Bowen singing along, Tamsyn humming, until they reached the part of the drive where the road began.
As the others marched on, full of Fire’s Draught and caught up in their own merriment, Bowen took hold of Tamsyn’s elbow and tugged her onto the lawn and then into the maze.
It was different from how it was in their time, not nearly as tall, and there was no statue of Hecate, but he still knew the way, and Tamsyn followed, the light of her candle flickering, casting the whole scene in a ghostly light.
It had stopped snowing earlier, but now, a few flakes began to drift down again, and as they paused at the part of the maze Bowen remembered from the night they’d come to this time, he took a moment to look at Tamsyn, so lovely in her velvet cape, the snow settling on the hood that covered her dark hair, the candlelight sparkling in her eyes.
“I don’t know that this will work,” he told her. “I don’t even really know what to do, if I’m honest. But we have to try. And . . . and no matter what happens . . . even if we never make it back to 2024, and we blink out of existence . . .”
He didn’t know how to finish that statement. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so many things she needed to know, things he should’ve told her when they had had the time.
But then she leaned forward suddenly, pressing her mouth hard to his, before pulling back and saying, “I trust you, Bowen. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone. And if this doesn’t work, it’s not your fault. Just like Declan wasn’t your fault. You’re the best man I know, Bowen Penhallow, and I’m so glad I broke my rule for you. You were worth it. All of this was worth it.”
It felt like a spell, the way those words worked on him.
It felt like magic.
Because it was.
Bowen kissed her back, gently, then reached down and unpinned Y Seren from her dress. The brooch was heavy and cold in his hands, but he couldn’t feel any magic in it, and his heart sank even as he kneeled in the frozen grass, holding Y Seren in his cupped hands.
His magic may not be working the way it should while he was here, but wasn’t hope its own kind of magic? Wasn’t love?
Because both of those things flowed through him as he knelt there on the snowy lawn with Tamsyn in front of him, both their eyes fixed on the brooch.
“Whatever can be undone, so be it,” Bowen murmured, repeating Carys’s words and hoping—Christ, hoping more desperately than he’d ever hoped for anything before.
