The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(17)

Mimicking her whisper, Rhys replied, “Wasn’t going to.”

She frowned a little, a wrinkle appearing between her brows, and Rhys’s fingers itched to reach out and touch it, smooth it away with his fingers.

As that was a terrible idea, he kept his hands firmly in his pockets.

“You good out here?” Vivienne asked Gwyn, who gave her a thumbs-up.

“Now that I have more noisy skulls to sell to noisy kids, I am set.”

Folding her arms over her chest, Vivienne looked at him, and after a moment, jerked her head at the curtain in the corner. “Come on.”

Rhys followed, and when she pulled back the curtain, he expected to step into a storeroom of some kind, some dusty shelving, a bunch of cardboard boxes, much like the back room at Llewellyn’s pub.

Instead, he immediately found himself in a circular chamber, the walls a warm, honey-colored wood. Heavy iron chandeliers held fat candles that cast the entire place in a sort of cozy glow, as did a series of stained-glass globes affixed to the walls, spilling colored light onto the comfortably shabby rugs on the floor.

All around the room were a series of beautifully carved wardrobes, and Vivienne walked to the nearest one now, opening it and muttering to herself.

“This is . . . quite something,” Rhys said, looking around, and when Vivienne looked back over her shoulder at him, her expression was a little softer, a little more familiar.

“Aunt Elaine likes things to feel homey,” she said. “Why have a boring, depressing stockroom when you could have this?”

Then she looked around. “I mean, it does sometimes make me feel like I’m in a video game of The Hobbit, but still.”

Rhys huffed out a laugh, and she smiled at him.

Just for a second.

One of her front teeth had the tiniest chip in it. He’d forgotten that. He’d loved that. That little imperfection in that sunny smile.

Then she turned back to the wardrobe and Rhys cleared his throat, moving back slightly.

“And if customers come back here?”

Vivienne reached farther into the wardrobe, digging in its contents. “They don’t,” she said. “Slight repelling spell on this part of the store. Elaine tweaked it so that they don’t feel uncomfortable or scared, they just . . . don’t want to walk in.”

“That’s rather genius, actually,” Rhys said, impressed. It was one thing to cast a spell, but tailoring it to your specific needs took a fair amount of skill.

Turning back to him, mirror in hand, Vivienne raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, well, we don’t all have to be fancy Welsh witches to know some kick-ass magic.”

“Well, as this particular fancy Welsh witch is currently getting his ass kicked by magic, I cannot disagree with you there.”

He reached for the mirror, but Vivienne didn’t offer it, watching him with another one of those little frowns. “What do you mean?”

Sighing, Rhys dropped his hand and rocked back on his heels. “Just that when a man nearly meets his death twice in less than two days, he begins to think something may be afoot.”

She was still frowning and had gone very still, and Rhys watched her carefully, looking for some sign . . . of what, guilt? Did he really believe that Vivienne was out to get revenge after all this time? Over a relationship that hadn’t even survived an entire summer?

He didn’t. Not really.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to.

“In any case, as soon as I have that,” he went on, nodding at the mirror, “I can talk to my father, and make sure my charging the ley lines is a good idea given the fact that Gryffud Penhallow attempted to kill me.”

When Vivienne just kept staring, Rhys filled her in quickly about the entire statue incident, finishing up with, “So see? If you’d stayed to watch my speech, you would’ve gotten quite the show.”

“Are you all right?” she asked, looking him up and down, her lower lip caught between her teeth. The gas lamp nearest her cast red and blue patterns over her hair, picking up the little sparkles in her purple sweater, and Rhys stepped forward, holding out one hand.

“I’m fine. Or I will be once I use that.”

He nodded at the mirror and Vivienne handed it over, the metal still warm from her hand.

“Why are you using this to talk to your father anyway?” she asked, her shoulders a little looser now, some of the tension leaving her face. “It’s for telling the future, not communicating.”

Rhys didn’t even know exactly how to explain his father or this particular eccentricity of his, so he just shrugged and said, “More fancy Welsh witch stuff.”

“Got it. So I’ll just . . . you’ll probably want some privacy,” she said, reaching up to tuck one of those loose strands of hair behind her ear.

“I mean, if you’d like to stay and meet my father . . .”

Vivienne wrinkled her nose. “From what you’ve told me about him, I think it’s best I pass on that. I’ll be out front.”

With a swish of the starry curtain, she was gone, leaving Rhys standing in the middle of the room, holding the mirror and dreading every bit of what came next.

Sighing, Rhys held up the scrying mirror and looked into it. He was scowling, an unfamiliar expression on his own face and one that, he realized with a bit of shock, made him look an awful lot like both Wells and their father.