Chapter 19

The walk to the village was a lot nicer than it had been the day before.

As far as positives went, that was about all Tamsyn had.

Well, that and last night’s truly amazing sex, but even that had lost a little of its luster once Tamsyn saw Lowri’s worried

face. Yesterday, the old woman had seemed so cheerful, so sure that everything would or at least could work out.

Now, she was hurrying down the path so quickly that Tamsyn had to run to catch up with her, and the basket at Lowri’s hip

bounced enough that Tamsyn worried poor Sir Bedivere might go tumbling into the road.

Of all of them, though, he seemed the least concerned, leisurely licking his paws as his owner practically sprinted down the

high street.

Now that she wasn’t facing freezing rain and stolen bikes, Tamsyn had time to admire the village as they passed. It had been decorated for the holidays, too, pine boughs and garlands strung on windowsills and streetlamps, candles burning in windows even though it was midmorning. The smell of baking bread lingered in the frigid air, and as Tamsyn looked around, she thought that maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to be stuck here after all. Ultimate cottagecore.

But then she thought about her little Airstream, about her brother and her family, and no, no matter how quaint and cozy this

place was, it wasn’t home.

The main road turned slightly, and there, nestled just at the edge of the forest, was a stone cottage, smoke puffing from

its chimney. Lowri opened the little gate in the wooden fence that surrounded the home, leading the two of them up a short

slate pathway and into her home.

The first thing Tamsyn noticed was the smell, herbal and sharp, and something smoky underneath. Like the village, Lowri’s

house had been decorated for Yule, and there were pine garlands and candles in her windows, too, which was lovely but also

seemed like a fire hazard if you asked Tamsyn.

Speaking of fire, there was one blazing away in the hearth, complete with an iron bar holding an honest-to-god cauldron.

As Lowri put her basket down, Sir Bedivere jumped out and made his way to a pillowy bed just near the fire, settling down

with a sigh before closing those bright eyes, and Tamsyn wondered if she should get a cat when she got back home.

If she got back home.

Lowri was at the kitchen table, pushing away herbs and stacks of parchment, fumbling with a heavy leather journal of some kind, and as she flipped through it, Bowen and Tamsyn stepped closer, peering over her shoulder.

“Is this about YSeren?” Bowen asked, and Lowri waved him off.

“I’m telling you, I’ve never heard of such a thing. No, this is about you and your predicament. Remember how I told you I’d

met that one fellow, how he’d eventually headed out for parts unknown when he got stuck here?”

“Pretty much burned into our brains since you mentioned it,” Tamsyn said wryly. “I mean, not exactly something we’d forget.”

But Lowri was already shaking her head, white tendrils sticking out of her bun. “I was wrong, though. Look.”

She pointed at the book, but all Tamsyn could make out was a lot of heavy calligraphy in a language she couldn’t read.

Bowen could, though.

And he was frowning.

“What is it?” Tamsyn asked, and Bowen tapped the page.

“It’s a warning against any sort of time magic. It’s been done before, and in the fifteenth—no, sixteenth, Rhiannon’s tits,

this is hard to read—some witches spent real time working on it. And yes, a handful of them managed it and came back, but

only once they’d completed whatever it was they went back to do.”

“Right,” Tamsyn said, resting her hand on the back of one of the cane chairs surrounding the table. “We knew that bit. And

the ones that didn’t got stuck in whatever time they’d gone back to.”

“No,” Lowri said, shaking her head. “That’s what I was wrong about. They didn’t get stuck, they just...”

She trailed off, making a sort of poofing motion with her hands, and Tamsyn looked to Bowen. “They just what?” she asked him. “Disappeared?”

“The book says ‘ceased to exist,’ which is the same thing, I s’ppose.”

Maybe so, but it sure as shit sounded a lot scarier to Tamsyn.

“So what?” she asked the pair of witches now, hand still gripping the chair so tight her knuckles were white. “If we don’t

get your grandparents back together in... two nights? We just vanish from the planet? Like we never even existed?”

“That appears to be the long and the short of it,” Lowri said, then shook her head, her blue eyes sad. “Oh, that poor lad.

All this time I thought he was having a grand old time in the city somewhere. But instead, he’d just... poofed.”

Something very close to panic started thudding in Tamsyn’s chest, cold sweat slicking down her back. “I really don’t want

to poof,” she said. “Firmly anti-poofing.”

“We won’t,” Bowen assured her, reaching out to take her free hand, but his fingers were just as icy as hers, and she hadn’t

missed the way Lowri kept looking at the both of them with pity, like they were already gone.

Closing her eyes, Tamsyn took a deep breath through her nose.

“Okay,” she said. “So the stakes are a little bit higher than we realized. But I thrive under pressure, don’t I, Bowen?”

“Better than anyone I know,” he replied, and the quickness with which he said it, the absolute conviction shining out of his dark eyes... if Tamsyn weren’t already in love with him, that would’ve done it.

“We’ll fix this,” she said, and wondered how many times she would have to say it before she actually believed it.

“Course you will, dear heart, course you will,” Lowri said, but she was already rummaging in yet another basket for something.

“But never hurts to have a little extra protection.” She handed them both little bundles wrapped in muslin and attached to

leather thongs. “Made these myself. Why I wanted you both to come here. Something has always been off with magic around Tywyll

House, and I didn’t want to risk them getting tainted by the place before you’d had a chance to put them on. Go on, go on,”

she said, urging them both to put the little packages around their necks.

Tamsyn thought whatever was in hers smelled like mothballs and... gin? She took a deeper sniff. Juniper. Maybe some rosemary

thrown in. In any case, she’d been in this business long enough to know that when a kindly and ancient witch handed you an

amulet of protection, you put the fucking thing on.

So she did, slipping the little bundle underneath her sweater while Bowen did the same with his.

“The solstice is in two days,” Lowri said, as if either of them needed reminding. “That’ll be the deadline. I’ll keep searching

here, seeing if I can find anything else that might be of help.”

“You’ve been a tremendous help already, Lowri,” Bowen told her, laying one hand on the woman’s frail shoulder. “Honestly,

we can’t thank you enough.”

Lowri smiled at that, patting Bowen’s hand. “Never let it be said a Jones doesn’t do all she can for her fellow witches.”

“Jones?” Tamsyn echoed, glancing at Bowen, who met her eyes with a shrug.

“It’s a common enough Welsh name, but... you don’t have any relatives in America, do you, Lowri?”

Lowri beamed. “Indeed, indeed, my cousin Anwyn went years ago. Ended up someplace in the South, I believe. Georgia?”

“Graves Glen,” Bowen said, more to himself than to Lowri, but she nodded.

“Aye, that’s the place.”

It was probably silly that it made Tamsyn feel better, knowing this woman was an ancestor of Vivienne and Gwyn Jones, especially

given that she was pretty sure she was never going to be their favorite person, but it did. It felt like a sign, an omen that

this would all work out for them in the end.

Somehow.

“Well, if you’ll excuse us then,” Tamsyn said, letting go of the chair, “it seems like we have some grandparents to trap.”

“I have no idea what that means, but I wish you luck all the same!” Lowri replied, and Tamsyn stepped forward, kissing the

old woman’s cheeks, as wrinkled and soft as old parchment.

“Thank you,” she said, and Bowen echoed, gruffly.

“Yes, thank you, Lowri. And if you do see something about YSeren, let me know.”

With that, they took their leave, Tamsyn reluctant to step back out into the cold after the cozy warmth of Lowri’s cottage. Or maybe she just didn’t want to head back to the house now that she knew failure of their mission wouldn’t just result in living in the ’50s.

It would mean not living at all.

She didn’t say anything as they started the walk back through the village, and neither did Bowen. He did take her hand, though,

holding it tight as they passed the pub, the tiny village post office, and the massive Christmas tree put up in the main square.

It wasn’t until the village of Tywyll was behind them that Tamsyn finally said, “You’re still hung up on YSeren, huh?”

“Someone was willing to pay a lot of money for it. Carys was holding it when she sent us back here. I don’t care that it’s

nowhere in Lowri’s books. It’s involved in this somehow.”

“Well, maybe you tackle that while I work on getting Harri and Elspeth to get over themselves and on each other.”

“Please—”

“Don’t say that, I know,” Tamsyn replied, swinging their joined hands. “Just trying to distract myself from the fact that

I might only have forty-eight hours of existence left. You know how it is.”

Bowen’s grip on her hand tightened, and before Tamsyn knew quite what was happening, he was jerking her off the path and into

the woods that surrounded Tywyll House.

“What?” Tamsyn managed, laughing a little as she stumbled along behind him, leaves clinging to her wool stockings, her brogues

sliding on the uneven forest floor.

Finally, once they were deep in the trees, Bowen stopped, and suddenly Tamsyn was whirled around, her back against the trunk of a massive oak, and Bowen’s mouth was on hers, hungry and desperate.

He may have caught her by surprise, but it had never taken Tamsyn long to catch up, and she kissed him back just as fiercely,

her leg hitching up against his hip.

Bowen caught her underneath her knee, moving against her, and Tamsyn’s hips matched his rhythm easily, the cold afternoon

no match for the heat kindling between them,

“You’ve got a hell of a lot more time left than forty-eight hours, Tamsyn Bligh, I fucking swear it to you,” Bowen said when

he pulled away, his forehead pressed again hers. “I will get us out of this.”

“We’ll get us out of this,” she corrected him, tugging at his hair, and he nodded, kissing her again, not as passionately

this time, more like he was sealing a promise.

“We,” he agreed, and this time when he kissed her, it was softer, gentler.

It was still enough to have her sighing and reaching for his hand, guiding it underneath her skirt.

When his fingers found her bare, he jerked back, surprised, and Tamsyn smiled at him even as she tilted her hips deeper into

his touch, encouraging. “I always thought garter belts must’ve been a huge pain in the ass, and I’m not going to lie, they

kind of are, but then there are some advantages they have over tights. Like easy access.”

Bowen’s lips quirked in a quick smile. “Unless you’re wearing knickers,” he reminded her, and she brushed her mouth against his.

“Now why would I do something silly like that?”

Their hands met and fought over his belt briefly, and then he was unbuckled, unbuttoned, shoving his trousers down just enough

to free his cock and slide it inside of her.

She was already wet from his touch and the thrill of this, being taken against a tree in the middle of a forest, better than

any fantasy she’d ever dreamed up, the sky blue and cold overhead, the bark rough against her back, wreaking hell on her sweater

and her hair, probably, but she didn’t care. Not when Bowen’s lips were on her neck, his breath hot against her ear as he

said things in Welsh, things she suspected were filthy as hell and sweet all at the same time.

At least that’s how his voice sounded to her, and she hitched her leg higher up against his side, clutching his back, murmuring

encouragements—“More,” “Harder,” “God, right there”—until he grabbed her hip, angled her just right, and her orgasm rushed

up from her core, the sounds coming from her mouth primal, wild.

Bowen went to pull out of her, but she held him tight, shaking her head. “IUD,” she told him. “I meant to tell you last night,

but—”

He cut off her words with another kiss, and then she could feel him coming inside of her, triggering another, smaller orgasm

that left her knees trembling, and her entire body feeling limp and sticky and sore and perfect.

They stayed there a long while, Bowen’s face buried in her neck, Tamsyn still holding on to him, one leg wrapped around his waist.

“I meant what I said,” he told her, his breath still hot on her skin. “We’re getting out of this and back to where we belong.”

Lifting his head, he looked in her eyes and held her face with both hands. “But if somehow we don’t... if these are the

last forty-eight hours of our lives—”

“Don’t,” Tamsyn said, but Bowen shook his head, stubborn as ever.

“If they are,” he repeated, “then I’m disappearing from this earthly plane as happy as I’ve ever been, calon bach .”

Tamsyn’s throat was suddenly tight, her eyes stinging. “Me, too,” she said, and then asked, “What does that one mean, by the

way? Calon bach ?”

“Little heart,” Bowen replied, a slight flush staining his cheeks. “You know. On account of you being... wee.”

“Short,” she corrected, even as her heart squeezed tight in her chest. All these beautiful things he had been calling her,

all these beautiful things he’d been thinking about her, and she’d never known.

But now that she did, she’d be damned if one little spell gone wrong was going to keep her from hearing and knowing everything

he had to say to her for the rest of their lives.

“We need to get back,” she told him as they gently disentangled themselves. “Time is running out, and while your grandparents aren’t quite as hopeless as I’d originally thought, I’m not sure they can get their shit together in two days.”

“Oh, they can,” Bowen said. “And they will.”

They’d managed to mostly clean themselves up by the time Tywyll House came back into view, although Tamsyn knew she had a

hole in the back of one stocking, and while Bowen said he didn’t see anything, she was pretty sure there was still a leaf

or maybe a piece of bark stuck somewhere in her hair.

As they approached the front steps, the heavy front door creaked open, and Emerald dashed out to meet them, wearing a pair

of dungarees and an old sweater, another velvet ribbon—blue now—holding back her hair.

“There you two are!” she said, running up to them only to pull up short. “Were you two shagging in the woods?”

Tamsyn shot Bowen a look, but he was blinking owlishly at Emerald, who rolled her eyes and walked forward, snagging that elusive

piece of bark out of Tamsyn’s hair.

“Told you so,” Tamsyn muttered to Bowen, who only grunted in reply, his face practically scarlet.

“I can’t wait to grow up and get married,” Emerald said happily as she handed the bark to Tamsyn, who, unsure what exactly

she was meant to do with it, shoved it in the pocket of her skirt. “And speaking of,” Emerald went on, both hands clasped

behind her back as she rocked forward on the balls of her feet, smiling smugly, “I have something to show the pair of you.

Come on.”