Chapter 2

It wasn’t easy sending a text with one hand while you held an Etruscan knife that some fifteenth-century witch had used to

castrate a demon in the other, but Tamsyn had always prided herself on her ability to multitask.

And besides, a rare Bowen Penhallow selfie deserved an immediate reply, even if a girl had just pulled into her driveway after a very long flight and several hours of hellish traffic.

Love it, she typed as she headed toward her front door, gravel crunching under her boots, but that better not be my Christmas bonus!

*Yule* bonus, came the immediate reply, followed by one word:

Knife?

Smirking, Tamsyn lifted the knife and the phone at the same time, snapping a quick selfie complete with duck lips and an awkward

peace sign around the hilt of the dagger.

She was about to slide her phone into her back pocket when it buzzed again with Bowen’s reply.

Good lass.

The evening air was chilly, but the heat that rushed through Tamsyn at those two little words made her feel like she was glowing,

a bright beacon of lust in the December twilight.

“Like a horny Christmas star,” she muttered to herself as she slid her phone into her back pocket before unlocking the front

door of the Airstream trailer she’d been calling home for the past year.

She’d lived in better places, but she’d also lived in worse, and as she made her way into the kitchen—which meant taking four

steps from the front door—Tamsyn bent down to plug in the little Christmas lights she’d strung up before leaving for Italy.

They sprang to tacky, multicolored life, and Tamsyn smiled before setting the dagger down on the counter and opening the cabinet

on her left.

Pushing past plastic cups and plates, she reached for the false back of the cabinet and traced her fingers over the rune Bowen

had taught her to make for just this purpose.

It was weird, using magic when you weren’t actually magic yourself, and Tamsyn still hadn’t gotten used to it, that little

zip of heat, the way her hand always tingled for a few seconds afterward.

The back of the cabinet popped open, revealing stacks of bills in various currencies, a leather folder that contained multiple

IDs and passports, and a handful of magical coins she’d picked up on a job four years ago and hadn’t worked out what to do

with yet.

Tamsyn gently set the knife down inside her safe, then pushed the hidden door back into place and traced the rune again, this time in reverse. Another tingle rushed up her arm, stronger this time, and she flexed her fingers absently as she looked around her.

The Christmas lights cheered the place up, and the velvet pillows, brightly colored throws, and various non-magical knickknacks

she’d picked up from her travels—a framed piece of folk art from Iceland, a teak candleholder from Bali, a mirror she’d bought

in a Paris thrift shop for three euros—made things homey, but it still had the same vaguely neglected air every house, apartment,

duplex, or camper van she’d ever lived in seemed to develop, something she decided she didn’t want to think about too hard

at the moment.

Right now, what Tamsyn needed was a hot shower, soft pants, and about three hours of mindless scrolling on her phone before

she slept for the next twelve hours.

“And food,” she said out loud, turning back to the kitchen cabinets.

Unfortunately, her cupboards had been fairly bare before she’d left on this last-minute trip to Italy, and while Bowen had

certainly worked some magic on this place for her remotely, he had not, it seemed, given her Magically Replenishing Groceries.

“Now that would be a Yule bonus,” Tamsyn said, pulling out a plastic container of microwavable noodles.

While those heated up, she grabbed a quick shower in the trailer’s minuscule bathroom before putting on a pair of sweat pants and an oversize T-shirt she’d gotten from Gwyn Jones’s store, Something Wicked. Tamsyn was pretty sure Bowen’s brother’s girlfriend would turn her into a newt on the spot if she ever stepped foot in the store these days, but when she’d done that job in Graves Glen a few years ago, she’d stopped in a few times.

Her favorite purchase was a heavy piece of amethyst that she always threw in her carry-on bag, but this shirt with its grinning

black cat and the words “Maybe You’re Bad Luck, Ever Think About That?” underneath was a close second.

Although she might need that Krampus sweatshirt Bowen had been modeling in his selfie just for the WTF? of it all.

Pulling out her phone, Tamsyn opened his text and looked at the picture he’d sent again.

His dark curly hair was overly long, brushing his shoulders now, and his beard was thick as ever, but she could see the hint

of a smile, and there was something in his expression, a warmth that Tamsyn felt even through the screen.

Groaning at herself, Tamsyn shook her head and closed the text app, connecting her phone to the Bluetooth speaker on the counter

and pulling up her holiday playlist. Christmas carols were exactly what she needed to jolt her out of this swooning teenager

thing, and while she grabbed her dinner from the microwave, the Ronettes sang their perky hearts out about sleigh rides and

ring-tingle-tingling.

Tamsyn sang along, fishing a clean fork out of the silverware caddy by her sink, and then she carried her dinner and her laptop to the kitchen table, settling in on the leather banquette seat before looking around her.

The lights twinkled, the little Christmas tree she’d picked up last week stood proudly in its corner, and the music was so

festive Tamsyn half expected Santa himself to come bursting through the front door. And with Bowen occupied with family stuff

for Yule, she was technically on Christmas vacation now.

Practically a whole month to herself to...

Sit alone and eat Cup O’ Noodles.

Except it wasn’t even Cup O’ Noodles. It was the off-brand one she’d grabbed the last time she’d remembered to go to the store.

Lifting the steaming bowl, Tamsyn inspected the looping yellow font spelling out “Noodz 4 U” and shook her head with a sigh.

“This is a new low, kid,” she muttered, before blowing over the steaming contents and shrugging. “Still gonna eat it, but

just need to acknowledge this moment.”

Not for the first time, it occurred to Tamsyn that maybe she needed a pet. Or at least a houseplant, something she could say

she was talking to instead of just talking to herself like that.

But she traveled so much, and that wasn’t fair to a pet. Or to a plant, to be honest.

“Nope, just me and the Noodz,” she said out loud now, and even the Ronettes sounded a little sorry for her as they launched

into “Winter Wonderland.”

It was stupid, though, this little spike of self-pity. She didn’t have to sit here with microwave dinners and cheap Christmas decorations. Her parents had a condo in Florida they’d bought last year, and her brother and his husband always did a huge dinner on Christmas Eve. Tamsyn knew she’d be welcomed at either—both!—with open arms if that’s what she wanted to do. Her family may have never really understood her, never gotten her restlessness and itchy feet, but they loved her in their way, and she definitely owed everyone a visit.

So yeah.

That’s what she’d do first thing tomorrow. Call Mom, call Michael, spend the holidays like a normal person sipping eggnog,

and watching bad movies, and eating her weight in sausage balls and fruitcake.

She was absolutely going to do that. One hundred percent.

Tamsyn was still telling herself that as she opened her laptop and, with a few clicks, found herself back in her old hunting

grounds.

For something that existed on a server so hard to access it made the dark web seem positively fluorescent, the site looked

surprisingly innocuous, the listings similar to what you’d see on a normal auction house website. Pictures, descriptions,

soothingly bland language.

The difference was, where those other auction houses were selling paintings, pieces of furniture, or jewelry, this nameless

site was selling... well, paintings, pieces of furniture, and jewelry, but a lot of it could kill you.

Tonight, however, there wasn’t much on offer, or at least nothing Tamsyn thought Bowen might be interested in. Mostly crystals,

one creepy-looking journal, and a pair of cuff links that were allegedly made from—

“Oh, ew, ” Tamsyn said, pushing her noodles away.

She kept scrolling, but nothing else caught her eye, and she was about to close her laptop when she found her cursor hovering

over one of the tabs at the top of the site.

The one that said Requested .

She hadn’t clicked on that in nearly a year, not since she started working for Bowen. That was the deal they’d made, after

all, that she was acquiring for him exclusively, and she’d stuck to that even if Bowen didn’t pay as much as some of her other

clients had.

But then Bowen had never asked her to get anything truly dangerous, and some of the requests that came in weren’t so much

“acquisitions” as they were “suicide missions.”

Tamsyn pulled her lower lip between her teeth, one foot tapping underneath the table.

“It’s just looking,” she reminded herself. “You’re not going to take anything. You’re just gonna see if there’s anything interesting.

Or something Bowen might need to know about. You’re being... dedicated. Proactive. Working well with others.”

That was the thing about talking to yourself—nobody around to call you on your bullshit.

So she clicked.

The first few listings were nothing special. As always, there was some dork offering to pay millions for the Philosopher’s

Stone, and someone else was asking for something from Salem, even though there hadn’t even been real witches there, according

to Bowen.

Still, Tamsyn kept clicking, drawing one foot up onto the bench, her arm wrapped around her knee as she scrolled with the other hand, and her playlist switched to Dolly Parton mourning her “Hard Candy Christmas.” She was just about to call it a night when she saw the brooch.

It caught her eye because, unlike most of the illustrations accompanying the listings, there was a color photograph, not a

sketch from some ancient tome, and the jewels sparkled, a spiky cluster of gold and emeralds and rubies that wouldn’t have

looked amiss on top of a Christmas tree.

The description was brief.

YSeren: Brooch consisting of emeralds, rubies, Welsh gold. Currently in possession of Carys Meredith, Tywyll House, Wales.

Piece MUST BE ACQUIRED by 12/24 of the current year. Due to high-risk nature of retrieving brooch from home and accelerated

timeline for delivery, compensatory pay offered beginning at US$1M.

“Holy Noodz,” Tamsyn muttered.

She’d had well-paying gigs before, but a job that started at a million? That was a first. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a listing with so few details. Nothing about what the

thing even did . Which, in Tamsyn’s experience, meant that either it was a complete dud—just a piece of jewelry someone had decided must have magical powers—or it was something genuinely powerful.

For a second, she thought about calling Bowen. Or at least texting him since talking to him on the phone was usually a nightmare. Not only did his service suck up there on that mountain of his, but the man was truly terrible at calls in general. Tamsyn felt like she asked “Are you still there?” at least fifteen times per call, and sometimes he wasn’t—that shitty service—but more often than not, he had just gone completely silent because Such Was Bowen Penhallow.

So yeah, if she was going to get in touch and ask him about this, definitely going the “written communication” route.

Reaching across the table, Tamsyn grabbed her phone, but once it was in her hand, she hesitated.

That’s right, Bowen wasn’t in Wales right now. He was in Graves Glen.

Where he would be until Christmas Eve.

Her eyes went back to the brooch.

“This is bad,” she said out loud because it was clearly something she needed to hear. “What you’re thinking? It’s bad.”

Or was it?

No, it was, definitely.

“One last job” was such a cliché, and Tamsyn was pretty sure it was also the kind of thing that inevitably got you killed.

“Because of the irony,” she said around a mouthful of noodles. One benefit to living alone and talking to yourself was that

you didn’t have to worry about table manners.

Still, her free hand kept drumming on the keyboard, her eyes fixed on that brooch.

Even in this old, low-quality picture, the emeralds and rubies sparkled, and while Tamsyn understood the monetary value of

the piece, she was having trouble working out what was magical about it. The buyer wasn’t saying, that was for sure.

Everything about this was fishy as hell, she knew that. And she also knew she’d made a deal with Bowen to tell him about any artifacts that might be dangerous, to give him a chance to buy them first.

But...

This was a million dollars.

Bowen wasn’t going to pay her that. Bowen almost certainly didn’t have that, no matter how fancy his dad had been.

And it was a real test of her skills, the kind of job she’d once run straight toward until tangling with that ghost in Graves

Glen a couple of years ago. Wouldn’t it be fun to see if she still had what it took to pull this kind of thing off?

A challenging magical heist.

A million bucks.

And then... maybe an end to this line of work?

The thought sprang into her head like it had always been there, and Tamsyn sat very still, surprised at herself.

Is that why this acquisition appealed to her? Not only was a million dollars a pretty solid freaking foundation for a new

life, but if she could lift something like this from a private house, she could say she’d gone out at the top of her field.

She’d have something to show for the last decade of lying and stealing and sneaking and occasional arson. Something more than

an Airstream in a field and an expired jar of minced garlic in her fridge.

And then she could...

Tamsyn wrinkled her nose.

What would she even do if she wasn’t doing this?

For just a second, Tamsyn’s brain conjured up an image: Bowen’s cabin, his unruly dark hair falling over his eyes as he leaned over his work on that big, scarred table she’d seen in video calls. He was wearing one of those thick sweaters she liked so much, and in this vision, she was wearing one, too. One of his, the hem brushing her bare thighs as she stood at the stove and cooked...

Okay, so her brain conjured up yet another package of Noodz 4 U, but if— when —she had time to cook, she’d definitely learn some recipes. Fancy ones, Ina Garten style.

“And you will not be cooking them for Bowen Penhallow,” she told herself firmly as she mentally put some pants on the version of her in his

cabin.

She let herself do this too often, slip into some daydream where she and Bowen were a lot more friendly and a lot more naked,

and every time she did, Tamsyn swore she’d stop, swore she’d keep Bowen in that box she’d labeled “Just a (Weird and Also

Very Hot) Friend, NO SEXY THOUGHTS ALLOWED.”

And yet here he was, out of that box, and her thoughts were very sexy indeed.

Until she pictured what he’d say if she took this job.

Now the version of Bowen in her head wasn’t looking at her with that warm fondness she sometimes caught in his gaze, and he

definitely wasn’t watching her with the hungry heat she’d just been imagining.

He was scowling and worried and pissed off. He’d hate every thing about her taking this job. Too many unknowns, too many risks.

But Bowen was in Graves Glen.

Making bad decisions during the holidays was nothing new for Tamsyn. She had three tragic haircuts, two ex-boyfriends, and

one holiday photo from her teenage years where she was wearing a sweater that read “Fa La La La Fuck It” while standing next to her grandmother— all offering proof that Tamsyn + December + Too Much Free Time = Disaster.

“This is so stupid,” she muttered, her finger hovering over the discreet button reading Accept Request . “It’s dangerous,” she added, raising her voice. “And complicated! This is going to take prep . It’s going to take resources . You can’t go racing off to someone’s house to lift a brooch by Christmas Eve. You are an adult who knows better. You...”

Trailing off, Tamsyn gave her better angels one more chance to save her, but maybe they were taking a holiday break, too,

because her hand was moving, her finger was clicking, and now the screen simply read, Request Engaged, TLB Acquisitions .

Tamsyn sat there, mouth dry, heart pounding, and head so light she was almost giddy.

She was going to Wales. She was getting into this house and making off with a very expensive-looking piece of jewelry, and

she was going to do it all by Christmas Eve.

Fa la la la fuck it.