Ravenguard: A Ravenfall Novel

Chapter 1

Anna

Everything is still.

Snow dusts the ground like a thick layer of powdered sugar, reflecting the afternoon light. It’s bright enough that I have to squint over my makeshift ice wall to locate Aunt Elaine. She’s pressed up against the great oak tree we call Grandpa, a snowball in one tattooed hand. The tree would have been a good hiding place—­if the house wasn’t on my team.

“On one,” I tell the house and Colin, who clutches an armful of snowballs. He’s bunched up against the far side of the snow embankment the house built us for defense. Nora, Henry, and Uncle Roy watch from the side deck of the inn, their sweaters and thick-­knitted scarves dotted white from the snowballs that struck them out.

Only Aunt Elaine remains from their team, and she still has to get me and Colin out.

My breath fogs in the air as I count down. “Three . . . two . . . one!”

Using its magic, the house shakes Grandpa, sending the snow in its branches tumbling down onto Aunt Elaine. She yelps, reflexively darting out from beneath the tree into the exposed yard. The moment she’s visible, Colin sends a barrage of snowballs straight for her with superhuman speed.

Aunt Elaine tries to dodge, but the onslaught is too much, and soon she’s doing her best impression of a snowman. The house even floats down its black top hat, settling it on her head as if to say, Take that!

Groaning, Aunt Elaine wipes the snow from her face and adjusts the hat. “I yield.”

Uncle Roy blasts a two-­fingered whistle as Nora hides her laughter behind one mittened hand. Having gotten out first, Henry disappeared into a book a while ago and barely notices the battle concluding.

“Woot!” I leap to my feet with a shout. Turning, I high-­five Colin—­and gasp.

A shock ricochets through me at the contact and I jerk my hand away. Colin’s wide-­eyed surprise reflects my own.

“You felt that too?” he asks, his pale skin tinged pink from the cold. He wears only a long-sleeved green flannel and a pair of jeans with black boots, the benefit of being a Raven with heightened physical abilities that keep him warm.

I shake my hand out, my fingers tingling. “It was like a static shock. Or maybe you were still in Raven mode?”

With his enhanced strength, a high five could be as dangerous as a speeding car, but Colin’s never had trouble controlling his Raven powers. It’s the abilities that he inherited from his ancestor Fin Varra—­aka the Irish King of the Dead—­that still give him trouble. Something about how absorbing life magic makes him feel like he drank a thousand cups of coffee and stuck a fork in a light socket.

Colin shakes his head, but before he can respond, my sister Kara’s voice rings out. “Hot chocolate’s ready!”

I press my fingers to my ears and mutter, “She could literally start an avalanche.”

“I can hear you!” Kara calls even louder, which really means that she used her telepathy to read my mind.

I stick my tongue out at her in return, then survey the frosty battlefield. “Where’s Max?” He was supposed to be on our team, but he ditched us the moment his fur got wet.

Colin points to the house’s foremost chimney, where a small black shape carries a too-­big snowball in its mouth. Taking advantage of the house’s distraction, Max sets the snowball on the lip of the chimney and, with one tiny paw, bats it down the chute.

Instantly, the entire house rumbles with violent complaint, and the cat scurries back down to ground level with a spark of mischief in his green eyes, taking cover behind Colin.

Nora groans. “Max! The guests are going to think it’s another earthquake.”

“Guest,” I correct her as Colin and I climb the steps onto the deck behind a disgruntled Aunt Elaine. She’s still picking flakes of ice out of her messy black bun, and Colin gives her a sheepish smile in apology. “I checked the Garcias out this morning. Only Mrs. Andrews is left.”

With Christmas and the start of Hanukkah only a few days away, things have grown quieter at the inn as they always do in the winter, with the last of the guests who arrived for Samhain seeking warmer weather in places that aren’t rumored to be haunted. Most people come for the autumn atmosphere and promise of psychic readings, but even they get tired of the house’s groaning complaints of the cold and Max pouncing on them in the dark.

But this year, things will be different.

This year, we’re hosting a winter solstice ball, and we’re almost booked solid. Guests are set to start arriving this afternoon, and preparations are fast underway, the snowball fight our last reprieve. It’s almost as exciting as our Samhain masquerade, though I give it minus points for lack of costumes and the fact that Kara keeps telling me I need someone to go with. As if attending a ball alone in my own house is some kind of terrible fate.

Uncle Roy chuckles wholeheartedly as the house settles. “This ol’ place gets grumpier every day.” He pats the house fondly, and in response, it dumps a pile of snow on him from the roof.

Unlike Nora, I make no attempt to hide my laughter. The house has never gotten along with Uncle Roy, whose pyrokinesis, endless collection of ancient weapons, and generally loud behavior offend it to no end. It much prefers my father, who might as well be a statue. Henry hasn’t moved from his perch against the back railing or looked up from his book, which is the same one about Jewish witches the two of us were studying last night.

“Let’s head inside before our drinks get cold,” Nora suggests with the air of a deflated balloon. She’s not the only one. I suddenly feel like I went three rounds with the gnomes in the rooftop garden, who refuse to accept that they can’t establish a gnomish kingdom in the rhododendrons. I’ll have to relocate them before the ball, a task I’m not looking forward to.

I point at Uncle Roy and say, “Lift.”

In response, the snow levitates off him, and I drop it over the side of the deck, grinning at his stunned look. I’ve had my witch powers for nearly three months now, but Uncle Roy just recently returned from Ireland, so he’s only seen me use them a few times.

We all file into the warm kitchen, where the scent of freshly baked gingerbread cookies fills the air. Faerie lights bedeck the crown molding along the ceiling and dangle over the menorah in the window, flickering along to the house’s favorite Christmas songs, and an assortment of tiny pine trees sit along the windowsills or peek out from hidden corners.

They’re all the house would allow us to have. Even the enormous tree in the foyer is a fake now, since the house’s grudge against all things with roots is still fully in effect after the Hollow­thorn Woods nearly consumed it a year ago. I think the mini trees are cute, but it took fifty of them to get the house to smell half as much like pine as usual.

My sisters are curled up in chairs at the knife-­scarred table by the frosted windows, wrapped in quilts embroidered with mystical creatures courtesy of Rose. Both she and Kara just returned from their first semester of college studying computer science, where Rose apparently joined a sewing circle in order to make gifts for her girlfriend, Dilara. She already gave me one quilt, and I have a feeling there’s another under the Christmas tree.

Colin and I collapse into chairs alongside the twins as Aunt Elaine and Uncle Roy descend upon the stools at the island. Mugs of peppermint hot chocolate float through the air like snowflakes, settling down before us. I pluck one of the snowman marshmallows out of mine and thank the house with a wave, sinking down into my seat with the warmth of my drink seeping into my palms. It chases away the lingering buzz from the shock of Colin’s high five.

A steady hum of conversation fills the kitchen, Nora and Aunt Elaine discussing Gran’s ongoing trip to Ireland while Uncle Roy tries to sneak gingerbread cookies off the pan before they’ve cooled. An oven mitt leaps to life at the house’s behest, knocking his hand away, and Max bounds over in Uncle Roy’s defense, batting at the mitt with mock ferocity.

Colin recounts the snowball fight for Kara and Rose, who both refused to participate (well, Kara refused; Rose worried how the snowballs felt about being hurled through the air), and only then, in the buzz of activity, do I realize we forgot Henry outside.

As if reading my mind, the back door clicks open and ­Henry’s book comes levitating in with him a step behind. The house leads him over to the island and deposits him on a stool with a mug of hot chocolate, even turning the page for him. Which only leaves—­

“All of you are awake?” a voice moans from the kitchen ­doorway.

Clad in purple and white star-­print pajamas with her wild array of dark curls gathered over her shoulder in a tail and a pair of fluffy slippers on her feet, Leah has clearly just rolled out of bed. The only person I know who sleeps later than my cousin is Colin’s brother, Liam, but when you run a sentient inn in the midst of a magical tourist destination, sleeping in is rarely an ­option.

I point at the remaining cup of hot chocolate on the table, which the house clearly prepared after sensing Leah was awake. “Hot liquid sugar?”

Leah trudges over, and Colin immediately sits up straighter. At least his face doesn’t flush brighter than an ornament every time he sees her now. After everything we went through together saving witches and traveling to the Celestial World in Witchwood, not to mention the month that Leah and Aunt Miriam spent with us for Samhain this year, we’ve all gotten a lot more comfortable with each other.