Chapter 20
It was, Wells reflected the following Monday, somewhat distressing to have finally taken the crown of Family Jackass from Rhys.
His youngest brother had had such a good run, after all, but by telling Gwyn about the not-actually-a-spell love spell, Wells now had no doubt he was firmly in the lead. Bowen was going to have to accidentally blow up Snowdonia to have a chance.
Wells still couldn’t say exactly why he’d done it except that there had been something about how dismissive she kept being about the whole thing that had rankled. He knew she’d been just as affected by those kisses as he had, had felt it in the way her body had molded against his, the boldness of her tongue, her lips. So maybe he’d wanted her to acknowledge that or, at the very least, deal with the same confusion and vague sense of alarm he’d felt ever since Rhys had handed him that blasted bag and laughed himself senseless.
In the cold light of day, however, Wells wasn’t sure that had been the best idea. Surely it would have been better to let it lie, to let her believe that it was nothing more than a stupid bit of magic and move on. Gwyn might be attracted to him, but it seemed pretty clear to Wells she had no interest in actually pursuing that attraction, and besides, things were complicated enough. Her cousin—who might as well have been a sister—was married to his brother, they were all living in the same town, and they were all involved in the town’s witchcraft in one way or another. None of those ties were easily broken.
What if they went on a few dates, and this . . . whatever it was between them fizzled out almost immediately? He’d be stuck seeing her every day, it would put Rhys and his Vivienne in an awkward position, and this rather nice new life Wells had built for himself would go up in smoke.
And if it didn’t fizzle out . . .
Wells had no idea how his father would react to two of his sons being involved with the women he now considered the Penhallows’ mortal enemies, and frankly shuddered to think of it.
Simon had called just the night before. Well, “called” meaning he’d shown up in the scrying mirror Wells had brought with him specifically for that purpose. It hadn’t been the longest conversation, but Simon had managed to ask about “the Jones women” at least three times. Wells had reminded his father there was currently only one Jones woman in town, and then he’d lied and said he didn’t see much of her.
To his surprise, his father hadn’t liked that. “It makes sense to keep your enemies close, Llewellyn,” he’d said, and Wells had barely refrained from rolling his eyes.
“She’s not my enemy, Da,” he’d said, and Simon had grumbled again about legacy and magic and “all the Penhallows have done for that town,” which had given Wells a good opening to ask if his father had ever heard of any witches being kicked out of Penhaven College.
But Simon had waved that off. “The college is named after our home, but I’ve stayed out of its business ever since they introduced those ridiculous classes. Tea Leaves and the like.” He’d snorted. “Rubbish.”
Wells hadn’t actually expected his father to be helpful, so he’d ended the call with a promise to “keep an eye on things,” and didn’t bother mentioning Morgan or his suspicions.
Next he’d tried the internet, and while he found some hints of Morgan’s past—a review left on the website of a magical shop in Rome, her name on a list of donors to a secondary school in London—there wasn’t much else. That didn’t surprise him as most witches tried to stay under the radar.
He’d then spent some time flipping through various spellbooks in the house, wondering if there was any kind of clarity spell that might give him the answer even as he knew that would be tricky. Pulling out information someone didn’t want you to know was definitely on the darker side of magic, so, as he’d suspected, a spell like that involved complicated ingredients that weren’t easily on hand. The finger bone of a man hanged for treason, a bowl of water from a spring that had dried up one hundred and one days before, and, maybe most disturbingly, an eyeball.
Didn’t specify whether it had to come from man or beast, but in either case, Wells decided magic wasn’t going to be the way on this one.
Still, since things were slow at Penhallow’s this afternoon, he was flipping through some other books he kept there in the shop, hoping he might come across another spell that would work and involve far less body parts.
He’d just landed on one that looked promising—although “piece of lace from a drowned bride’s veil” was definitely going to present a challenge—when the bell over the door rang.
He hadn’t seen Gwyn since Friday night, and it seemed pretty certain to him that she’d somehow spent the past two days getting even lovelier. Her hair fell around her face in long red waves, that pink streak faded a bit but still very much in evidence, and she was wearing some sort of long black sweater over leggings, another item of clothing that he knew would be unbearably soft underneath his hands.
Not that he was going to get to find out, of course.
But it was more than that. Her face was glowing, her smile bright, and that, that was what had him feeling a little light-headed, if he was honest.
“Baby Witches to the rescue!” she announced, and only now did Wells realize there were three people crowding in behind her, all of them looking equally excited.
“Come on,” Gwyn told them, waving them toward the counter. “Tell him what you told me.”
Sam, the girl with turquoise hair, spoke up first. “So Glinda was telling us how you’re trying to find out about someone getting kicked out of Penhaven, and I was telling her that I dated this girl who works in the records department. Her name was Sara, and she was really nice, but she was also a Pisces, and I’m a Leo, so—”
“You can skip that bit,” Gwyn told her, laying a hand on her arm, “much as it did enhance the original story.”
“Right.” Sam nodded. “Anyway, she told me that every student who ever went to Penhaven has a file. Like, a literal file. No computers, honest-to-god paper on every single student.”
Wells straightened up, closing his book. “Interesting,” he said slowly. It did seem like it might be easier to get their hands—or at least their eyes—on a piece of paper rather than hack into a computer.
“The files are in this cabinet in Dr. Arbuthnot’s office,” Sam went on. “Not just any cabinet, obviously, a magical one given that it’s holding over a hundred years of students, but it looks normal.”
Gwyn nodded, crossing her arms. “I saw it, like, a million times when I was at Penhaven. I basically lived in Dr. Arbuthnot’s office.”
Wells knew Dr. Arbuthnot was the current head of the witchery department at Penhaven, and he’d had her as a teacher for one class when he was there, but there was something else about that name ringing a very faint bell. Something that had him looking at Gwyn because . . . it felt like it might involve her somehow?
But then Sam was hurrying on. “Anyway, all of this is not the crazy part! Well, the cabinet is a little crazy, but—”
“Sam!” Cait said, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her a little. “Get to it!”
“There’s no magic on the cabinet,” Sam said in a rush. “Seriously. Zero protection spells at all. Sara said it had never been an issue because who wants to go through those files? It’s only past students, not current ones. And no one has the balls to just waltz into Dr. Arbuthnot’s office and try to take anything.”
“And!” Parker added, holding up a finger. “Dr. Arbuthnot’s office is protected with spells. You couldn’t break in there if you wanted to.”
“But,” Gwyn said now, throwing a look to Wells, “if someone were already in her office, someone could, conceivably, get in that cabinet and find Morgan’s file. Especially if that someone was a respectable and valued member of the witch community who would be completely trusted alone in that office.”
“Hmm,” Wells said, because he’d learned over the years that was a good reaction when you had no fucking clue what to do or say.
Gwyn’s grin widened. “We’re both closing up early today, Esquire.”