Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Nine Years Later

Of course it was bloody raining.

For one, it was Wales, so rain literally came with the territory, Rhys understood that, but he’d driven from London that morning through sunshine with the occasional cloud. Gorgeous blue skies, rolling green hills, the kind of day that made one want to take up painting or maybe develop some kind of poetry habit.

It was only once he drove into Dweniniaid, the tiny village where his family had lived for centuries, that it started pissing down.

He was fairly sure he knew why.

Grimacing, Rhys parked his rental car just off the High Street. He didn’t have to drive, of course. Could’ve used a Traveling Stone, been here in the blink of an eye, but his insistence on driving everywhere irritated his father, and Rhys liked that more than he liked the convenience of magical travel.

Although, he thought as he got out of the car and frowned up at the sky, today it felt a little like cutting off his nose to spite his own face.

But what was done was done, and Rhys tugged the collar of his coat up a little and set off into the village proper.

There wasn’t much on the High Street—a few shops, a church at one end and at the other, a pub. That was the direction he headed in now. There were only a handful of people out this afternoon, but all of them crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him.

Lovely to see the family reputation was still robust as ever.

At the end of the street, The Raven and Crown beckoned, its windows warm rectangles of light against the gray day, and as soon as Rhys pushed open the front door, he was assailed with some of his favorite smells—the malty richness of beer, the sharp tang of cider and the oaky warmth of aged wood.

God, he’d actually missed home.

Maybe it was just because he’d been away for so long this time. He usually tried to drop in every few months, more frequently if he thought his father was away. It put him right in between his two older brothers in terms of familial loyalty.

Llewellyn, the eldest, ran this pub and stayed in close contact with their father. Bowen, the middle brother, had fucked off to the mountains of Snowdonia two years ago, and they got occasional communications from him, mostly to alarm all of them with how intense his beard seemed to be getting.

So Rhys was, for once, not the most disappointing son, a title he was happy to hang on to until Bowen decided to stop doing whatever it was he was doing up there.

He was never going to be the favorite, though. Wells had won that role long ago, and Rhys was happy to let him have it. Besides, it was kind of fun being the black sheep. When he fucked up, that was taken as a given, and when he managed not to fuck up, everyone was pleasantly surprised.

Win-win.

Taking off his jacket, Rhys went to hang it on the coatrack by the door, the one just under an old advertisement for Strongbow cider, and as he did, he caught a glimpse of the man behind the bar watching him.

And when Rhys turned around, he realized the man behind the bar—his eldest brother, Llewellyn—was the only person in the pub.

Llewellyn was their father minus thirty years: same stern expression, same Roman nose—well, to be fair, they all had that nose—same thin lips. Only slightly less of a prick. But equally committed to staying in this tiny little village where everyone was terrified of him and running this pub that only the occasional tourist—and erstwhile brother—wandered into.

Typical.

Wells shot him a dark look over the polished mahogany, and Rhys grinned, tossing a peanut into his mouth.

Wells gave him a reluctant smile at that. “Father said you were in New Zealand.”

Nodding, Rhys took another handful of peanuts. “Until a couple of days ago. Stag do. Bunch of English guys wanting the full Lord of the Rings experience.”

Rhys’s travel company, Penhallow Tours, had grown from a small, one-man business run out of Rhys’s London flat to a ten-person operation, running multiple trips all over the world. His customers routinely called his trips the best of their lives, and his reviews were full of people gushing over how they never had a single day of bad weather, not one delayed flight, not a solitary case of food poisoning.

Amazing how much the smallest bits of magic could do.

He nodded at the windows, and Rhys turned, seeing the truly abysmal weather in a new light.

Fuck me.

He’d been right, then. No ordinary storm, but one of his father’s making, which, yes, meant Rhys had undoubtedly irritated him. His brothers had never provoked a storm from his father.

Rhys had caused . . . twenty? Two dozen? Too many to count, really.

Turning back to Wells, Rhys went to reach for the peanuts again only to have his hand swatted at with a damp towel.

Rhys snorted even as he got up from the barstool. “I appreciate that, Wells, but you’re full of shite, mate.”

An hour later, Rhys was wondering why he hadn’t at least stayed at the pub long enough to have a pint. Possibly three.

He’d decided to walk up to the house rather than antagonize his father with the car—a real show of growth and maturity on his part, he thought—but the closer he got, the worse the weather became, and even the protection spell he’d thrown up over himself was struggling.

For a moment, he considered dropping it, letting his father see him pathetic and bedraggled, but no, that kind of thing would only work on a father who had a heart, and Rhys was fairly certain Simon Penhallow had been born without one of those.

Or maybe he’d removed it himself at some point, some sort of experiment to see just how much of a bastard one man could be.

The wind howled down from the top of the hill, making the trees that lined the road creak and sway, and honestly, Rhys knew his father was an incredibly powerful witch, but he didn’t have to be such a cliché about it.

Also a cliché: the Penhallow family manse, Penhaven Manor.

Rhys sometimes wondered how his family had managed to avoid being murdered over the five hundred years that they’d called the hulking pile of stone and obvious witchcraft home. They might as well have put signs in the front yard, here there be witches, for fuck’s sake.

The house didn’t so much sit on the hill as it crouched on it, only two stories tall, but sprawling, a warren of dark hallways and low ceilings and shadowy corners. One of the first spells Rhys had taught himself had been a basic illumination spell just so he could sodding well see things when trying to get to the breakfast table every morning.

He also sometimes wondered if the place would’ve been a little different, a little . . . lighter, if his mother had lived. She’d hated the house just as much as Rhys did, according to Wells, and had almost talked their father into moving to something smaller, something more modern and homier.

But then she died just a few months after Rhys was born, and any talk of moving out of this monster of a house had been squashed. Penhaven was home.

A terrifying, uncomfortable, medieval wreck of a home.

It always looked slightly crooked on first approach, the heavy wooden doors slouching on their hinges, and as Rhys climbed the front steps, he sighed, smoothing a hand over the air in front of him.

The Henley, jeans and boots he’d been wearing shimmered and rippled, transforming into a black suit with his family crest embroidered on the pocket. His father preferred they all wear robes in the house, but Rhys was only willing to go so far in the name of tradition.

He didn’t bother knocking; his father would’ve known he was there the second he set foot on the hill, possibly even when he’d gone into the pub. There were guardian spells all over the place up here, a source of endless frustration to Rhys and his brothers whenever they’d been even a little bit late for curfew.

As Rhys placed his hand on the door, it swung open, groaning ominously on its hinges, and the wind and rain picked up, gusting strong enough that for just a second, Rhys’s spell slipped.

Icy water slapped him in the face, trickling down the collar of his shirt and plastering his hair back against his head.

And then he stepped inside.