Grim Haven (Devilborn Book 1) by Jen Rasmussen Page A

have spent decades or even centuries giving welcome to strangers.
    The Mount Phearson was converted to a hotel in 1912. Which meant it had long since become predisposed toward magic that protected its guests from harm.
    But an enemy might also know how to tap into that same power. Using magic to keep anyone—including the Wicks—out might be difficult.
    And the Phearson was further complicated by the years Miss Underwood had been in charge, working her considerable power, twisting it into her own place. I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who’d failed to find a safe haven under that roof. There was an iron vault in the basement, big enough for a prison cell. I’d never seen her take anyone down there, but the idea of it had terrified me as a child.
    I thought some of Madeline’s energy must be lingering there still. Marjory had been able to work a harmful spell on me just a short time ago.
    But I’d also been able to turn it aside. Had I done that with my personal power alone? Or had I reflexively tapped into a familiar, but nearly forgotten, vein of magic?
    Most witches never bother with place-magic. Many never even learn that it exists. It’s unpredictable, imprecise, difficult to control. But it’s also powerful, if you know how to use it.
    I thought I knew how to use it. But calling on the hotel’s power would mean working with it, not against it. I couldn’t try to secure its borders, only to protect all those who crossed them.
    The Mount Phearson Hotel granted its protection to everyone under its roof.
    Neither Verity nor Cooper, nor anybody else inside the Mount Phearson’s boundaries, came to any harm.
    All were safe at the Mount Phearson Hotel.
    I wrote dozens of them. When I ran out of ink, I made more. When I ran out of supplies for more—I’d been going through ink fast, since I came back to Bristol—I went back to pure blood. It wasn’t until I started feeling weak and exhausted, and saw that it was past midnight, that I went to bed.
    No spiders disturbed my sleep.
    The next day, I went straight down to the front desk and told Jamie (whose name I had learned for certain, my second day at the hotel) that I needed to reserve a room for a friend.
    “What kind of friend?” he asked with a slight leer. “Male or female?”
    “Male,” I said. “But he’s not that kind of friend.”
    “Well, what kind of friend is he?” asked Jamie. “Because your suite does have the pull-out sofa in the living room. He could just stay with you instead of taking up an extra room, if you guys are buddies.”
    “He’s not actually a friend so much as an old colleague,” I said, failing to think things through in my impatience with Jamie’s questions (and my panic over the thought of sharing a room with Cooper). “He’s a chef, and since he’s passing through the area, I asked him to stop and meet with me. I want to get his thoughts about the fine dining restaurant.”
    I realized how stupid it was as soon as I said it. Lance would be sure to hear about this chef I was meeting with, and pester Cooper and I half into our graves, if the Wicks didn’t get us first. But it was too late to change the lie.
    I spent the rest of the day tucking my spells away everywhere: in potted plants, behind heating vents, inside spaces under construction, where no drywall had been hung yet. Nor did I neglect the outside, scattering them around the outdoor patio, the future site of the spa, inside knots in trees and hollowed-out stumps at the edge of the woods. Cordelia got her own, under a gnarled root.
    If Lance or Agatha had caught me, they’d have thought I was crazy. A native, like Ellis or Rosalie, would have just assumed I was working some sort of magic, and not bothered asking questions. Even the ones who didn’t believe in such things were resigned to the fact that half the townsfolk did.
    All the while, I watched the parking lot and, when I could manage to get a view of it, the driveway. I had no visitors,