Chapter 4

Tamsyn was no stranger to creepy places.

Occupational hazard, really, and one she’d encountered more and more frequently since she started working for Bowen. She’d

been in old dungeons and more gloomy basements than she could count, and on one memorable occasion, she’d ended up stuck in

something called an “oubliette” for a couple of hours, so yeah, when it came to The Spooky, she was a seasoned pro.

But as she stared up at the iron gates of Tywyll House, Tamsyn had to admit this was a new level of creepy.

“Advanced Creepy,” she muttered to herself, ducking down to peer at the top of the gates through her fogged-up windshield.

“Graduate Level Eerie.”

It had taken her ages just to find the place, the map of the area she’d acquired being a good sixty years out of date. But

then from her research, it was no surprise that the Merediths had made their ancestral manse this hard to find.

If Tamsyn had thought Bowen’s family history was complicated, it was nothing compared with these witches’, and she’d had a long flight to London plus a train ride to North Wales to do her homework.

She knew that the Merediths had been in Wales since there was a Wales, basically, and that they had a tendency to get killed in a variety of horrifying ways. She knew that the current

head of the family, Madoc Meredith, had one child, a daughter named Carys, and that his wife, Amelia, had fucked off to Italy

a few years ago.

She knew that Tywyll House had started its life as a kind of fortress in the fourteenth century before gradually being added

on to over the next five hundred years, so it was less a house, more a hodgepodge of styles with at least twenty-five bedrooms

and who knew how many other rooms.

She even knew that there were, according to legend, at least three ghosts haunting the castle, one of whom was apparently

missing a head.

What she didn’t know was where the brooch she’d been sent to acquire was.

Or what it did.

Or why someone would pay over a million dollars to get it.

“Details,” Tamsyn said out loud to herself now, as she tugged on the ends of the blond wig she was wearing.

Did the job technically require a disguise?

Probably not.

Had she missed this part of things, playing a role, getting a costume, committing to the bit?

She really, really had.

“You’re stalling, Bligh,” she said, still looking up at the gates. They were open, the word “Tywyll” curling through the iron, rusted in parts, and a strong gust of wind sent one listing drunkenly to the right.

Taking a deep breath, Tamsyn gently pressed on the gas and steered her rental car through the opening.

In the spring, the long winding drive up to the house was probably charming. The trees would be bursting with leaves, their

branches creating a fragrant green tunnel that would reveal the occasional glimpse of bright blue sky. There would be birds

singing and... and bees buzzing, probably, and maybe the gentle babble of a brook nearby.

That was the image Tamsyn kept firmly in mind as she drove, because otherwise, she would have to acknowledge that she appeared

to be driving directly into an old horror movie.

No blue sky today, just a turbulent gray that suggested rain later this evening. No leaves, either, just row after row of

wet black branches reaching skeletal fingers up to the clouds, and as another gust of wind buffeted the car, Tamsyn clutched

the wheel more tightly and gritted her teeth.

“A million dollars,” she reminded herself, once again checking her reflection in the rearview mirror.

She’d pulled out an old identity for this gig, one she hadn’t used in at least five years, but Anna Ripley felt right for this particular crowd. Asymmetrical platinum bob, oversize glasses with red acrylic frames, statement jewelry. A little eccentric, but artsy. Anna Ripley was a gallery owner, after all, an acquaintance of Carys’s mother—they’d met at that charming little studio in Venice, just off the Campo Sant’Angelo, remember?

Her mysterious employer had gotten her the invitation, but this—the story, the disguise, the persuasive power of her charm— this was Tamsyn’s gift.

It was honestly kind of shocking how quickly people went along with something as long as you were casual and confident and

had done your homework.

Tamsyn had initially thought of pretending to be a college friend of Carys’s, but then she homed in on Amelia instead. Flighty,

always seeking out new people, new experiences. Tons of pictures of her in various society columns flitting all around the

world, always surrounded by a sea of faces, always a glass of champagne near at hand. She wouldn’t remember meeting “Anna

Ripley,” but she wouldn’t be able to say for sure that she hadn’t, and her upper-crust manners would prevent her from doing

anything as awkward as demanding proof, especially when Tamsyn would be coming with invitation in hand.

“Because I’m the fucking best,” Tamsyn reminded herself, smiling a little even as the road got a little darker, the trees

closer together.

It was fun, getting to stretch this particular muscle again, and if she felt just the tiniest bit guilty about it...

Her eyes briefly flicked from the road to her bag.

Bowen had texted the other day. Not with a job, just a terse message about not being able to meet on Christmas Eve after all

and that he’d talk to her in the new year.

Stupid to feel disappointed about it, especially since she’d been about to cancel on him thanks to this job, but when it came to Bowen Penhallow, Tamsyn was beginning to think she’d always be a little stupid.

Maybe that’s why she’d wanted to do this job: a reminder of who she was, of what she could do, that had nothing to do with

Bowen. That she’d be fine once he inevitably didn’t need her anymore and moved on to some new magical fixation up there in

his weird little hut.

The road twisted and turned along with Tamsyn’s thoughts, and she winced as she drove over a root big enough to scrape the

rental’s undercarriage. She’d driven long enough that she was beginning to wonder if the house was even there when she took

another turn, and it was suddenly rising up before her.

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.