“It hasn’t been very long.”
“No, and it doesn’t help that you’re ripping her clothes off when you get the chance.”
“She came to my room demanding that I tell her about the Deception Sorcerer. What does she remember?”
He blinked at me and frowned. “I don’t know. She said that she was scratched, a Scratcher and a Titch, but I don’t know what that means. Do you?”
I ran my hand through my hair again. “If she remembers, that means she’s liable to do something stupid.”
“Do you think she’ll go into Darkside even though she knows the danger?”
“I think that she doesn’t like a mage messing with her head or messing with her mage. I think she’s going to do something brilliant that we could never see coming. I’m sure of it. You’re her friend? Good. Be her best friend. I can’t be that. I can’t get close to her without wanting her skin in my teeth, under my nails. I’ve never hovered so close to the Darkside as when anger sizzles over her skin.”
He nodded. “Sure. I love Pitch, always will, but Penny’s too stupid to feel like that about. I’ll just forget about the Pitch and be her idiot friend genius who needs her for some reason I’ll try to come up with. We can marry for mutually beneficial purposes without all that emotional stuff that messed you up so good.”
“Well.”
He grinned sharply. “You’re still messed up. What big eyes you have. What sharp teeth you have.”
“All the better for biting Penny Lane. Maybe I should have told her about Sooth.”
“It’s not your place without permission from her legal guardian. Since he’s the sorcerer who wants to rip you apart, that makes it a tad tricky.”
“That’s her Darkside guardian, not Dayside. That would be her mother.”
“You think that she doesn’t want to rip you apart after what you did to her daughter? That’s optimistic.”
I slumped down on the couch next to him. I was so tired. Revere had built a time capsule around the house and I’d been practicing spellwork for days and days before he finally let me out. I had to put the time in somewhere. I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyebrows. “Zach, I need to kill something. Not kill, shred to pieces, something beautiful.”
“You have wars to fight in Darkside, don’t you? The green mage hasn’t been seen for ages.”
That’s not what I wanted. I moved and had his throat in my claws before I knew what I was doing. This wasn’t a good place for this battle. We rolled off the couch and into the Barren Wastes. He was going to die. Or at least burn and ache like I ached. He could touch Penny, I could not. He would feel pain for that, but not as much as me.
Zach was tough, angry, an excellent opponent who took hours and hours to break. Finally, I stepped Throughside, into my room and shook off the mostly disintegrated suit. What a waste of perfectly fine trousers. I went to the pile of dried blood and gems on my table and carried them to the sink to wash. I could magic them clean, but that would disrupt the sorcerer’s spell. Hale. One more mysterious sorcerer who I needed to defeat.
No. The sorcerer I needed to defeat was myself. I should not have let Penny into my room. I shouldn’t have hurt Zach. I shouldn’t have trusted Jasper to take my responsibility for me. I shouldn’t do that now, with my father. He was a mess, a broken mage. Revere was right. I couldn’t let my issues get in the way of what must be. If I could control a great dragon and keep my sanity, I could certainly control my reaction around a female, even if she was perfection in a mustache. And a short skirt. And a ripped blouse.
I sighed and stepped Throughside, coming back at Huntsman manor. I stood in the hall with the marble floors beneath my still muddy and bloody boots before I slowly walked up the stairs, leaving a mess behind me. As I climbed, I spelled myself tidy, bit by bit ending with the mess on the floor until I reached the top and looked moderately pulled together, other than my face. It was hard to effectively glamour open wounds.
I went to the table and sat down as though I’d never left. I didn’t say anything to my father, and his pen never stopped scratching, but it wasn’t quite as unbearable this time. Maybe because Penny had touched my chest with her delicious fingers. Maybe because I’d ripped apart Zachary. Maybe because I was too tired to be irritated by something as small as the way someone moved a pen over paper. Maybe because it didn’t matter. I could not have her. But she would have me. I would keep her safe. I would become what she needed. That’s what I needed.
I was immersed in a vast contract that a mage family was trying to cancel without paying the ordinary penalties when my cell phone buzzed. And rang. And buzzed again. It was like the wedding.
I pulled it out and saw a picture of a mouse in a top hat, eating a cookie. It was Pete. Did I mind if he taught Professor Cadaver some new tricks?
I stood and stepped Throughside, coming out in Pete’s room. I tucked the mouse carefully into his cage before I gripped Pete’s shoulder and dragged him Throughside then into the boy’s gym.
He attacked me first, apparently ready and waiting for the chance to be broken by me. He was going to make his mark, do his damage, and he did. It was ridiculously satisfying to see his improvement. He took some effort to break. He was worthy of the effort.
By the time his teeth were stained pink from blood instead of fireballs, I was a mess, a genuine wreck.
I laughed at Pete and choked off because it hurt so much. He staggered over and slapped me on the shoulder, almost sending me over sideways.
“You don’t look so good. Maybe you should take lessons sometime.”
I gripped his shoulder. “I have taken lessons from you. You’re a good mage. Resilient.”
His eyes widened before he shrugged and stepped away from me. “Don’t get all sentimental just because I bled on you. Anyway, this witch stuff, it’ll all work out. You own each other. You can’t walk away.”
I put my hand against my chest where it ached, where it would always ache whether I were bound to her or not. “I can’t, but I will anyway.”
Chapter 4
Witch
I carefully packed the three finus balls in really cute boxes. My hacker friend had sworn that these were Dayside witches. We’d see. I scheduled my pickup with Signore and went down to the Eastside driveway, four AM.
He came an hour later. I stood and stretched, almost dropping my packages and the tome about Marriage Contracts. There were too many different kinds. I had to know specifically which kind my mother had had with my father to understand how it applied to me.
Signore parked at the end of the drive and took his time getting out. He looked like rock, stone, impossible to move, even if he moved anyway.
“Signore, will you take me home this morning? I need to be back before eight tonight. I have an appointment.”
“Cara Mia, I can. Is that all you have for me to deliver?”
I held up the packages. “Three finus balls. Not much, and for you nothing but pain.”
His brow furrowed in the dim light of too early in the morning. “My pain or yours?”
“Yours. I’m taking it. We can do that while you drive. I’m not broken today so I don’t need to lay around on your couch. Pretty special, right?” I handed him the package and climbed up into the passenger seat. I didn’t even glance into the back, like I didn’t care what magic he had. It wasn’t any of my business.
After he’d put away the hurters, he sat down and started the engine. I ran my hands over his head, down his neck to his shoulder while I soaked up his pain. He didn’t have as much today.
“Have you been giving your pain to someone else?” Oh jealousy, how irrational you are.
“No, Cara Mia. I heard the Creagh attacked and you were poisoned.”
I flinched and pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them and pulling them tighter to my chest. “Bitten. Is that the same as poisoned? I don’t think so. Venom.”
“If Huntsman can’t protect you, it’s a good thing you won’t be marrying him. Who
will you marry? Stoneburrow?”
I stared at him. “If I’m not safe, you’ll kill me, right?”
He glanced at me and shrugged. “Not with pleasure.”
“Well that’s nice. I don’t want you to kill me. The poisoning was terrible. I could feel myself dying, so slowly, taking weeks at a time. Do you always make it so horrible?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to kill you outright but you proved more resilient than I’d thought. You should be dead.”
“Thanks.”
“You are vulnerable without magic, but you’re still a witch. You’re still fairly indestructible. If I had to kill you, how would you like me to do it?”
“Now you’re taking requests? Quickly, so I don’t know that you betrayed me. Without pain. I don’t want to feel the pain when I die. I feel the pain too much being alive. Death should be different. You say I’m a witch, does that mean I don’t have a soul? I want to go to heaven when I die so I’m with Lulu, my angel princess. She’s so sweet. And all the animals Poppy torched. Tea parties every day.”
“A drop of human blood would give you a soul, Cara Mia. You can have your heaven.”
I grabbed his wrist and squeezed, digging my fingers into the nearly solid flesh. “Thank you for not telling me that it’s a fantasy. I need hope.”
“Because you have a soul. Needing hope is proof of its existence. With hope anything is possible, isn’t that how it goes?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve only gone to church a few times. I’m going on Sunday with Missy.”
“Missy? A witch?”
“A human. She was a Darksider’s pet. Narcollo. Do you know him?”
He slid his tongue over his teeth like he was tasting blood. “I may. There are a great many Darksider mages.”
“Who keep human pets?”
He glanced at me. “Do you find it unethical? Some keep their pets very well.”
“But they’re still slaves and it’s against the law.”
He nodded and gave me a slight smile. “You would liberate them all. It’s a good thing you aren’t in Darkside, Cara Mia. Mages would want to keep you as a pet.”
“But I’m a witch, even without magic.”
He shrugged and turned back to the road. “Indeed. I can’t imagine a mage or a sorcerer who could enslave you without becoming more your slave in return.”
“What about my father?”
I watched him carefully for a reaction, but he didn’t so much as twitch. Of course not. Rocks don’t twitch.
“Particularly your father.”
I studied him, the assassin who might kill me if I got too close to my father. “Did I have a lot of magic?”
He nodded, still staring at the road.
“So whoever stole my magic must have more than he needs.”
“The need grows commensurate with the having.”
“I have a lot of energy, but I don’t need more.”
He glanced at me with a slight smile. “Because it was given, not taken.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head and refocused on the road. “You should go lie down. I’ve been spelling your curse, but it’s about to consume you.”
He was right. One second I’m riding in a car like a normal person, the next my intestines were being trawled by sharks. On motorcycles. In leather jackets. Which made no sense, but sense was a long ways away from the agonizing fear that spread through me, chewing all reason and spitting it out like used dental floss.
I stumbled into the back and crashed on the couch while my body ached and my stomach twined. The curse. What a twisted mage my father must have been to put a curse like that on me, a carsick curse. So random. Jetsick too. I was not meant to travel. Probably that was meant to keep me from running away, from living like we had before my mother called Revere, running from place to place, never staying longer than a few months, a few weeks, a few days. Yeah, my mother had taken the brunt of that curse. She couldn’t even leave her house. She’d taken part of the curse for me? Why would she do that? She didn’t love me, not really. She never had tea parties with me, just taught me how to fight, how to endure pain, how to make hurters, how to endure more pain.
I smiled slightly as I stared at the ceiling of Signore’s van. The nausea was already wearing off. I hadn’t even thrown up. That was my mother showing love. My safety, my ability to fight and struggle in spite of difficulty, that was her gift to me, plus taking the brunt of the curse. Was there a curse mage at school I could get to help me with it? I could pay him in lollipops or something. It seemed like witches cursed much more often than mages. No, if there was some way to undo it, Revere already would have. He could do anything.
I fell asleep for the rest of the drive and when the truck stopped, I rolled off the couch, ducked through the front, patted Signore on the head and jumped out.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” he asked, this fancy assassin who probably had better things to do.
“I’ll text when I need you to pick me up. I’ll probably have important things with me that shouldn’t travel in a limo.”
He raised an eyebrow but only nodded and drove away. I didn’t watch him go. I climbed the back steps and went into the old enclosed porch. A strange little man sat there knitting. I didn’t bother him and he didn’t look up at me. None of my business. I walked into the kitchen, saw how tidy it was, which meant there wasn’t any food, and headed down into the dungeon. The dungeon was at the bottom of a very long flight of very well-lit stairs. The long hall was lit with bare bulbs, but the space was immaculate. One didn’t want errant dust floating through a spell or getting meshed with a hurter. I went to the hurter room and pushed open the door. My mother was in the middle of a mess of hurters, elastine turning brittle from laying out too long.
I grabbed the rubber gloves interlined with lead and a pair of goggles then went to work. She’d made a few interesting adjustments to her system. We worked in silence until the last hurter was curing on its shelf before she took off her goggles and gloves then stared at me like she’d just noticed me in spite of the hours we’d been working together. Was I like that with Zach and my Chem girls? Probably. I’d have to work on it.
“Hey, mom. I got some memories back of dad cursing me and stealing my magic. Can I see your marriage contract?”
Her eyes widened and went a little haunted before she turned and left the lab, climbing the stairs like she was tired. That had been a lot of hurters. Maybe she was. She didn’t have my nearly limitless amounts of energy. And she had my curse.
I snarled at her because if there was one thing I hated, it was owing someone something. If there was one thing I hated worse than that, it was owing my mother.
She led me to the green and gold parlor. For a second I couldn’t breathe because Drake was so much in that room, his aura, his strength, his incredible aftershave.
She pushed open the rolltop desk and started sorting through certificates and sheafs of papers clipped together.
“Are those all grandmama’s contracts?” I asked.
“Yes. These aren’t all of them, just her favorites. The ones she was most pleased with.” She searched the desk, checking each drawer before she found the folder and opened it to pull out one paper. She handed it to me then grabbed my face, twisting my neck so I had to stare into her eyes.
“Your memories came back? How?”
I forced myself to breathe evenly and not yank my head out of her claw-like grasp. “I was bitten by a Titch and a Scratcher decided I deserved two memories because my feet were so pretty. What is a Scratcher?”
She studied me, her onyx eyes going even darker before she dropped my face and turned. “A getter. A betweener. Space, time, dimensionality don’t apply to Scratchers. They aren’t Darksiders. They’re from somewhere else. Rare to have one of those involved. Extremely expensive. He must be getting desperate.” She smiled.
There wasn’t anything more terrifying than my mother’s smile. I smiled back
.
“I like that.”
She shrugged slightly. “He’ll make a mistake. You must be married before you turn eighteen.”
“Because of the curse?”
She shrugged. “I can’t give you my protection, blunting the curse’s strength when you turn eighteen, but it’s more. Legality. A mother’s protection lasts until the child is eighteen, but a father’s protection lasts until she is married.”
“All those Creagh are still under their father’s protection?”
She shrugged. “Creagh give up such ties, at least temporarily.”
“That’s incredibly obnoxious. So Darkside is just another patriarchy?”
She laughed and patted my head. “You sound like Poppy. Funny girl, hating mages so much but finding one so soon. Are you finished? I need to respell the desk.”
I shook my head and sat down. I stared at the paper, the contract. It was incredibly short, and written in Darksider.
“I can’t read this.”
She hissed and tapped the paper sending strands of silver light over the page. The words shifted and flowed from the jagged symbols I couldn’t understand to neat type.
I Serene swear to live with Benjamin in Darkside and know no other. I will give him children he will raise as well as can be expected.
I Benjamin Sooth swear to adore Serene Night for the rest of my life, to love and protect as well as my children, as far as it is in my power.
There were a couple of incredibly messy signatures and that was it. It was the worst contract I’d ever seen. There were no clauses, no details, nothing other than a vague commitment from one witch to one mage to share one life forever.
I squinted at it. There had to be more.
My mom spoke in a soft voice. “It’s my mother. She was so talented at contracts that I created this to make her angry. She was angry. Furious. Insisted my father write another contract to include some details. I don’t know what happened to that one.”
I stared at that sheet of paper for a long time while my eyes got misty before I blinked back tears and turned to smile brightly at my mother. “Wow. So I really did get the idiotic tendencies from you. Good to know.”
Deadly Morsel: Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 5) Page 3