Chapter 4
Wells was careful to keep his expression neutral, his voice calm, but the second he said it, he knew that’s exactly what he wanted to do, where he wanted to be.
Finally a chance to be of use and get out of this dreary place.
Simon watched him from underneath heavy silver brows, his face giving nothing away, and Wells couldn’t help but rush in, leaning across the bar.
“I know the pub is a family tradition, but maybe it’s time for something new, eh? I could . . . I could set up some kind of shop there in town. Something for serious witches, not this silly touristy nonsense. I can make sure our name is remembered there even if our magic is gone.”
Simon took that in, turning the glass in his hands. “There’s been a Penhallow running The Raven and Crown for over a hundred years,” he said, gruff. “To see it closed . . . ”
“Da, look around. It’s closed in spirit if not in name. And all the spells in the world aren’t going to keep that last little bit of magic hanging on forever. Not with the place this empty.”
Wells reached forward, grabbing his father’s arm and giving it the slightest shake. “Let me do this. Let me help.”
“Glynn Bedd is the more important family legacy, true,” Simon admitted begrudgingly. “And I can’t trust your brother there.”
He looked up at Wells, and for the first time, there was actually a hint of softness in the old man’s face. “I’ve always been able to trust you to do what’s best for this family.”
“And I will,” Wells promised. That was the thing about their father that Rhys and Bowen had never understood. Yes, he was strict and emotionally distant, but he did love them in his way. They were his sons, and family mattered more to Simon than anything else. Why else would he care so much about this godforsaken pub or some little town in the mountains of Georgia?
Because they’d been built by family, and that meant Simon saw it as his duty to safeguard them.
Wells had watched over this pub for over a decade, and now he would do the same for Graves Glen.
Heaving another sigh, Simon pulled his arm from beneath Wells’s hand.
“You’re a good lad, Llewellyn,” he said, and then he reached down, tugging a heavy silver ring from his finger.
Wells had never seen his father without this particular ring, the stone in the center a deep purple that almost looked black, Penhallow dragons etched on either side of it.
He pressed the ring into Wells’s palm now, placing his other hand on Wells’s shoulder as he pulled him in.
“All right. Go to Glynn Bedd. Protect our legacy there.”
And then, shocking Wells even more, he gave him a brief hug. “I’ll miss you, son,” he said, and Wells was surprised to feel his throat tightening up a bit.
“I’ll miss you, too, Da.”
His father gave his back a rough pat, then straightened up with a huffed, “Well.”
“Well,” Wells echoed, and then, with a nod, his father was walking back out into the night. As the door opened, Wells noticed the rain had stopped.
The pub was still technically open for another hour, but he locked the door behind Simon, turning off the main lights.
He’d leave tomorrow, first thing, but for now, he spent a little extra time wiping down tables, stacking the chairs even as he thought, Good fucking riddance.
His mind was already churning with ideas, none of which involved ever pulling a pint again. In that brief glimpse he’d gotten of the town, he’d seen what appeared to be an empty storefront, and he was already imagining what he might do with such a space.
The opposite of whatever it was Rhys’s in-laws did, clearly. To each their own, of course, but surely there was a market for something a little more tasteful, something a little more real. A place where witches from the college could gather, discuss spells and techniques. A place that would ensure the Penhallow name was still associated with magic in the town, no matter whose power now flowed through it.
Opening a small door behind the bar, Wells was so caught up in this fantasy of his new life that he was halfway down the stairs to the cellar he’d converted into a flat before he realized he wasn’t alone.
The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he could feel magic heavy in the air. Whoever it was down here, they were a witch as well.
A powerful one.
“Who’s there?” he called, even as he began moving his fingers at his side. It had been a long time since he’d had to do any kind of spell like this, but luckily, the memory hadn’t left him. “What the hell are you doing in my pub?”
He was just about to lift his hand, let the stun spell he’d worked up fly, when suddenly, a light flared on, making him squint, the spell sputtering out as a familiar face grinned at him from the far side of the room.
“Not the warmest welcome, big brother.”
Bowen was stretched out on Wells’s bed, one hand still lifted from the light spell he’d conjured, and what appeared to be a metric ton of hair on his face. Wells felt, as he often did with both his brothers, that familiar surge of irritation and affection.
“I could’ve killed you,” he said to Bowen, flipping on the lights as Bowen’s spell winked out.
“Could have,” Bowen agreed with a shrug. “Didn’t.”
It had been over a year since Wells had seen his brother, and clearly Bowen had been using that time to get both hairier and more annoying. The hairier part Wells could at least understand—Bowen had spent the past few years doing some kind of magical research up in the mountains. Facial hair was probably a requirement for that kind of thing.
“How did you get down here without me or Da seeing you?” Wells asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
Bowen grunted. “Magic.”
“Hmm,” was Wells’s only reply, and then he glanced down and frowned.
“Get your bloody boots off my bed,” he said, smacking at Bowen’s feet, and his younger brother smirked, swinging his legs down and sitting on the edge of the bed.
He looked tired, Wells noticed now, and a little on the pale side. Wells had no idea what exactly it was Bowen did out there in the wilderness, but whatever it was, it was taking a toll, clearly.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked, and Bowen waved him off.
“Nah, I’m not sticking around long. I have to make my way up to the house eventually, I just . . . ” He paused and blew out a long breath. “Wasn’t quite up to it yet.”
Wells knew both his brothers had a very different relationship with Simon than he did, but it was, in his opinion, slightly ridiculous that they acted as though talking to their father were some sort of monumental feat. He did it nearly every day, after all, but then maybe it was one of those things where you had to build up a tolerance.
Like exercise. Or poison.
“How’ve you been?” he asked Bowen as he crossed the room to the small bar cart he’d set up and poured himself a finger of whisky. Not nearly as fine a brand as his father preferred, but the smoky warmth helped ease the tension in his shoulders, chased away some of the lingering chill.
“Fine,” was Bowen’s only reply. Wells sometimes wondered how it was that he was the only one of them who knew the appropriate amount of words to use in a sentence. Rhys talked entirely too much, Bowen too little.
Then Bowen jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. “Heard you’re going to Glynn Bedd.”
“Ah, so sneaking in and eavesdropping. Lovely,” Wells said, and then, when Bowen just kept watching him, relented with a nod.
“Yes. Someone from the family needs to be there now that we’ve been magically driven out, so to speak.”
“Rhys is there.”
“Rhys’s loyalties are . . . conflicted. Or so Da thinks.”
Bowen rubbed his chin, then nodded. “Makes sense. He’s arse over tit for her.”
“Seeing as how they’re married, one would hope so.”
Tilting his head, Bowen studied Wells for a beat, then asked, “Why didn’t you come? To the wedding?”
Guilt still tugged at Wells for that. He’d wanted to go, had planned to go, but in the end, he’d followed Simon’s lead. Rhys hadn’t taken it badly, so it had probably been for the best.
Still made him feel like a bit of a shit, though.
“Couldn’t get away,” was all he said now, and Bowen gave another one of those laconic shrugs.
“Well, now you’ll be living in the same town, so I guess you’ll get to see plenty of each other.”
Right.
Wells hadn’t really thought of that yet, how Rhys might take to him in Graves Glen. They got along well enough, but Rhys didn’t trust their father, and Wells doubted he’d believe Wells was coming to town of his own volition. He had a tendency to always think the worst of both of them.
Something Wells would deal with later. For now, he just smiled at Bowen, leaning back against the wall. “Exactly. Plenty of time for fraternal bonding.”
“And Da’s just letting you go?” Bowen asked, his brow wrinkled.
Wells snorted as he threw back the last of his whisky.
“You make it sound like he’s been keeping me prisoner here.”
Bowen didn’t say anything to that, but the expression on his face as he glanced around Wells’s small room—which, all right, he could admit was perhaps a bit cell-ish—was eloquent enough.
“I chose to stay here,” Wells reminded Bowen now, pointing at him with the hand holding his glass. “Just as you chose to do whatever it is he has you doing up there in the mountains, and Rhys chose to do . . . well, Rhys chose to fuck off, mostly, but point is, I stayed because I wanted to. And now I want to go to Graves Glen.”
Rhys would’ve pressed him on that, but Bowen, Goddess love him, accepted it, nodding as he rose from the bed, slapping his hands on his thighs.
“Fair enough. Waste of a good witch, keeping you here anyway.”
“Thank you,” Wells replied, because he knew that, coming from his brother, that was practically a fawning compliment.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Bowen said, moving toward the stairs.
“Thought you’d never leave,” Wells replied, wry, and he thought he saw the hint of a smile beneath all that beard.
Then Bowen paused, turning to study Wells before saying, “Watch yourself. In Glynn Bedd.”
Wells raised his eyebrows. “Why? Am I in danger from being smothered beneath a pile of Halloween candy and tacky masks?”
Bowen made a grumbling sound that might have been a laugh. “Always a possibility. But no, it’s just . . . whenever there’s a magical transference of power, like what happened there last year, shit can get weird.”
Wells waited, and when nothing more was forthcoming, asked, “Would you care to elaborate on that, or is this new cryptic thing something you’ve picked up from the sheep?”
Bowen grunted again, rolling his shoulders. “I’m just saying. Places like that, they’re vulnerable for a while. Start acting like magnets for some fucked-up magic. And with Samhain on the way, it’s something to think about.”
“I—” Wells started, but before he could even finish his sentence, Bowen had vanished.