Page 2 of Hex Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #7)

Tamsin

HOUSE OF DEATH AND DIAMOND HEADQUARTERS, SCOTLAND

F or Tamsin Redthorne, the future had never been particularly mysterious.

In fact, it had always been rather…predictable.

And, well, given the nature of her magic, she supposed it was to be expected.

As a witch who could control space and time, she could see the future—and the past—a little too well.

To the point where she had once been petitioned for fortunes on a regular basis.

That had stopped, however, when her prices soared exorbitantly; sometimes, being a descendant of a god helped add to your credentials.

Although, if you were to ask the gossip mill fed by the Houses all around the globe, she was only considered one of the world’s leading seers, despite her heritage.

But if you were to ask her—well, she’d say she was the world’s leading soothsayer.

Not that anyone bothered to ask her.

But…if Tamsin were being honest, her particularly clear foresight didn’t exactly always get things right. The future still held on to its surprises, like a magician clutching their last trick up their sleeve.

This was especially true when it came to her own future.

She couldn’t see it.

No matter what method she tried, or how she worked to coax it out, it skirted away, like fate was playing an eternal game of tag with her—one with a set of rules she didn’t understand.

And that fickle power very well might’ve been messing with her; fate wasn’t the kind of dinner date that liked to show up on time.

If at all.

But for everyone else…well, what surprised her was the way the future took shape.

One road, but with many different paths spreading out along the way: some windy and convoluted; some uphill inclines with little chance to stop and catch your breath; while others were mazes with blind corners and endless wrong turns.

Occasionally, there were so many potential outcomes that they fused together in her mind; what could be and what might have been blurring into a picture with far less definition but just as much chaos as a Rorschach inkblot.

And sometimes, just to make things even more difficult, she mistook what was yet to happen with what had happened, but was best left forgotten.

Like her broken engagement.

Without thinking, Tamsin clutched the gold charm that hung from a long chain around her neck, as she so often found herself doing.

If she’d been able to foresee that Nigel Bigby would abandon her one cold winter’s day, well, she would have kicked his ass to the curb the moment their paths had intertwined.

But, unfortunately for her, she hadn’t, and she’d instead had to endure the humiliation and hurt that had come with his rejection.

Best not to think about that.

No. She didn’t need to waste her brain power on that self-important prick.

She’d done enough of that already. I made sure I moved on , she thought, as she let go of the charm .

Plus, that was years ago; before she’d joined the House of Death and Diamond.

Well, technically it was because she’d planned to join the House of Death and Diamond, not that it mattered.

She’d known for quite some time that when she left the House of Earth and Emerald, it would be for a House with diamonds.

She’d seen—and may have helped—the rise of said House, but she had not foreseen all the finer details that would go along with it.

And the devil did enjoy lurking in the details, after all.

Back when she’d been reading tarot cards in a pub in the middle of London—five and a half years ago, now—she hadn’t fully known who Sabrina Fhearchair was, even though the woman had been bussing tables not far away from where she herself had sat.

But Tamsin had an inkling. She’d sensed that the red-haired, human-appearing waitress was going to be important to the world, and that she was a harbinger for a new supernatural race.

She’d just not seen the full nature of what all that entailed.

That leaving her former House would cost her more than just a broken engagement.

That she’d become one of the seconds-in-command of the new House.

And that she’d be stuck working with an annoyingly arrogant phantom on an unfortunately regular basis.

She’d since come to realize that the reason she hadn’t been able to see those details was because her fate was so intricately intertwined with Sabrina’s. As a result, the specifics stayed murky.

The fact she couldn’t see her own future didn’t really impinge on her day-to-day life.

No more than it should, anyway. The people around her didn’t know squat about what was going to happen tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow, and they were perfectly okay with it.

She envied them that. But it was frustrating when the people she spent time with developed shrouded futures, just because their tomorrows were tangled with hers.

There were quite a few of those individuals in the castle she now called home, deep in the highlands of Scotland.

Although , she thought, clenching her teeth, I’d prefer if some individuals were not affected by my proximity, so I could gauge the expiry date on our… forced interactions.

To be fair, it was only one person.

But that was one person too many, in her humble opinion.

Tamsin came to a stop in one of the castle’s many halls and glared at the solid wooden door in front of her, as if it had personally committed a sin against her. Mentally, though, she was picturing the subject of her irritation: Max Fhearchair.

With a sigh, she pushed open the heavy door, her skin tingling from the presence of anti-listening spells as she crossed the threshold into the ‘war room’, as Sabrina insisted on calling it.

There was nothing particularly military about the room—if you ignored the spyware enchantments, anyway—as it looked like an over-sized dining room that had been converted for meetings. Which is exactly what it was.

A huge, twenty-seater walnut table took up the bulk of the space in the middle of the room, with the walls covered in red and gold wallpaper that had discolored rectangular patches, indicating the places where paintings used to hang.

She figured the empty spaces were from family portraits that hadn’t aged well…

in that the subjects hadn’t aged. Navy blue carpet hid the cold stone floor; an attempt to hold warmth, she suspected; although in reality, it didn’t do much.

The castle was damned chilly, even in summer, not that it mattered to the phantoms who lived there.

Ghosts didn’t feel the cold, after all.

Still, she wasn’t about to complain to Sabrina about the room’s name. Not a second time, at any rate. She wasn’t sure she could endure the long list of ‘alternative’ naming options that would follow.

Tamsin’s eyes narrowed as she spotted the castle’s noticeboard, which had been moved into the war room—for reasons beyond her.

It normally lived in the kitchens. A few items were circled on it in black marker, which wasn’t out of the ordinary, even if its new location was.

She wandered over, the beads in her hair brushing together as she moved.

She read over the varied messages, some banal, some ridiculous, some serious.

Who used all the shampoo in my bathroom?!

Since it wasn’t signed, she had no idea whose shampoo had been used.

Most of the castle’s inhabitants could shift into a ghost form that meant doors were…

optional. A phantom could have easily used the shampoo and left without anyone the wiser.

Plus, Tamsin wasn’t about to waste magic finding a potential haircare product thief—not unless her shampoo also became a target. No one would be safe then.

She focused on one of the circled items:

ENTER YOUR SHIP NAME FOR SAbrINA AND KIERAN.

That was new. A series of emojis were drawn under the heading, but Tamsin decided they were better left untranslated. Surprisingly, people had already added a few suggested names: SabRan; Kierina; Kiebrina; Kierabrin; Sabki.

She scoffed at the suggestions and picked up a marker and added ‘Sabrien’ and ‘Sabrie’.

How had they missed the most obvious ones?

Tamsin’s hand lowered as she read the next circled entry.

“There’s another body on the lawn?” she asked herself, wondering who the hell it could be this time.

A deep sigh came from the other end of the room. “Aye. Another one.”

Tamsin hadn’t even heard the door open.

She turned to take in the tall, irritatingly handsome man standing a few feet away.

How had he gotten in? Could there be a secret passage into the war room?

There were hidden routes all over the castle, she’d learned, and she had yet to map all of them.

Her corporeal body also meant that some were simply inaccessible to someone like her.

Later, she’d irritate Max about it, until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Hopefully, he’d tell her then. Having planned her future onslaught, she eyed Max Fhearchair, her gaze raking over his body, doing it just to annoy him.

His gray eyes were partially hidden by the pair of glasses he’d recently taken to wearing, though she wasn’t entirely sure why; he didn’t need them as far as she could tell.

He wore a crimson sweater vest that should’ve looked ridiculous on him—but somehow only served to accentuate his narrow waist and broad shoulders.

The phantom’s annoyingly thick hair was swept back from a face that hadn’t aged a day in the five and a bit years she’d known him.

By all accounts, he’d been a professor back when universities were still a thing, which meant that he was at least a hundred years old, yet he didn’t look a day over thirty.

She shook her head slightly, knowing it would irritate him to no end, and turned back to the noticeboard.

“Done with yer inspection?” he asked, his deep, accented voice surprisingly mild.