Page 31 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

31

Maggie

Since Sondre slept longer than she had, Maggie had been offered a chair by the doctor in the early hours. Maggie looked at her and asked, “Medical-magic class?”

“It was an awkward thing, but I had to tell him.” The doctor gave her a tight smile. “He was already in a snit because I got back at him by having sex with Prospero.”

“With… you? Her?”

The doctor shrugged. “Life is long. I get lonely.”

Maggie couldn’t fault the logic, other than the fact that her general impression of Lady Prospero was that the woman was a cold fish. Not my business, though. She held the doctor’s eye. “That really happened, though? You, me, Axell?”

“It did.” Dr. Jemison scowled. “Do you not remember?”

Maggie gave a single shake of her head.

“What has that woman done now? And he asked her. You know he did.” She shot a furious look at Sondre. “If he wasn’t sick, I’d give him an emetic. Make him spill his guts.”

Briefly, Maggie thought that the doctor was her sort of person. Clearly, Sondre has a type. Then the doctor walked away to check on Scylla, so Maggie continued to annotate what she could piece together of her missing memories from what Sondre told her, what Dan and Axell and Ellie and now Dr. Jemison had added.

A few hours later, she was sitting there with a notepad and pencil, making plans on her next steps and keeping an eye on him, when Sondre woke muttering, “Magic.”

But Sondre was half off the bed and fumbling for shoes before he was alert enough to say, “Who are you?”

“Your wife. You’re in the infirmary.” Maggie reached for his hand to try to lead him back to bed. His eyes were wide, and his pupils looked too large. It made her feel less angry with him, but that was more of a deferring it for later than dismissing it.

Sondre looked around, gaze darting too quickly. “I’m in Crenshaw. This is the castle, and you’re… who now?”

“Your wife.” Maggie pushed him onto the bed, realizing his skin was burning up. “Maggie. I’m Maggie.”

“Right genius, he is,” a hob muttered. “Better call the doctor.”

“Dr. Jemison!” Maggie put a hand on Sondre’s arm, as if she could restrain him. Luckily, he didn’t resist. “Doctor!”

When the doctor came bustling over, Sondre gave her a dopey smile. “I always had trouble deciding whether I liked your bottom or your boobs more. I’ll figure it out later. Got to go, though. Duty calls! Hob!”

“Dear lord,” Dr. Jemison said.

“He has a fever.” Maggie felt awkward, more at the fact that she was there to hear his proclamation to his ex-lover than anything else. “He woke up talking about magic and trying to get his shoes.”

“He’s the headmaster so he can feel a magic spill. There’s either a new witch over there, or one of the escapees has done something again.” Dr. Jemison tucked back a stray bit of hair that had come loose. “Either way, it’ll have to wait. He’s not going anywhere in this state.”

“Hob!” the doctor called out.

“You both bellowed?” The hob, one Maggie didn’t know, balanced on a water pitcher in a pose like a ballerina. Clad entirely in shades of yellow, the creature was memorable in multiple ways. Their gender was impossible to guess accurately from clothes or hair.

“Lemon.” The doctor looked relieved. “There’s awakened magic or—”

“Prospy has already gone to fix it. Probably want to have an empty bed for the bleeding that’ll come soon. Get this one fixed, Lady Mae.” The hob executed a perfect pirouette and then bowed. Then they were gone.

Maggie wasn’t entirely sure what bleeding was being discussed, or if she wanted to know. Her priority was Sondre. “What do you need from me?” she asked the doctor.

“Obviously, I want all my beds empty,” the doctor muttered. She rubbed her temple. “Let’s get him sorted, and maybe if Scylla is staying awake this time, I can get them both out of here.”

Sondre tugged on the doctor’s shirt and whispered loudly, “I don’t have a wife, Mae. Think I’m being held captive. She’s a looker, but… I’d remember being married.”

The doctor shot Maggie a look, and then she smiled widely. “Let me get you a drink, Sondre. Hmm? You can tell me all about it. I’ll fix things right up.”

The doctor sashayed her way to the other side of the curtain, and Maggie wondered if the emetic the doctor threatened was on the way.

“Knew she’d forgive me. She always does.” Sondre had a smug look that Maggie wanted to knock off his face. On the other hand, he was oddly adorable in his fever state. He looked at Maggie. “Sorry… whatever your name is. I’m sure we had a great time, but I’m not the marrying sort. You can’t trick me that way.”

Maggie pointed at his ring, and then she held her hand up with the matching one. “We are married, you oaf.”

“Sure, we are.” He patted her butt. “I’ll see you around. Maybe when I’m not busy”—he darted a salacious look toward the curtain—“you can remind me all about our night, hmm? I don’t usually forget an ass like yours.”

Maggie bit back a laugh. She made a vague gesture toward the main space of the infirmary. “I’m going to go over… there since you’re obviously in need of treatment.”

When Maggie walked over to where the doctor was preparing a concoction that looked like liquid cotton candy, she paused. “That’s not going to make him puke, is it?”

A laugh burst out of Dr. Jemison before she said, “Sadly, no. Oath and all that. He’s actually sick. Give him a few minutes. Witches’ Fever can muddle things. He’ll be mortified afterward, you know. He really does care for you. Asked me to look after you and the boy if he, err, didn’t survive this last trip to stop Aggie.”

“ Really? ”

The doctor nodded. “Whatever he’s spouting right now is nothing. He’s all yours. Probably a lot more than you know, if he asked Prospero to erase your memory of our moment.” She grinned. “Not that he should’ve. You’re straight as a knife, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“He was wrong to do that,” Dr. Jemison said. “Don’t let him off too easy for that. But this silliness? He’s just feverish. He didn’t mean a thing commenting on me. We’ve just been on and off for a few years. It’s nothing real, not for him.”

Maggie heard what the doctor wasn’t saying: at least one of them had real feelings on the line. It just wasn’t him. She kept her words simple then. “He thinks I’m going to leave him, but I’m not.”

“Insecurities,” Dr. Jemison said simply. “We all have them. Just wait here. You’ll hear when the medicine works. Maybe you’ll hear what you need to know, too.”

Then she stepped past Maggie and carried the flowery-smelling pink goop toward Sondre.

“Aw, Mae. I hate that stuff.” Sondre’s words did nothing to make him seem more somber. He sounded drunk, in fact.

“Do it. You’ll get a prize after…” the doctor cajoled. “Here we are. Drink up, hot stuff.”

As Maggie peered around the curtain, Sondre chugged the goopy stuff and promptly flopped back, eyes closed as if he’d passed out.

Maggie waited, listening to him as the doctor ordered. She felt self-conscious eavesdropping, but at least Lord Scylla was asleep. Maggie sat on the chair next to her as the minutes ticked by and Sondre tried to flirt with the doctor.

After at least three minutes, Maggie’s discomfort switched to worry. What if he really does still have feelings for Dr. Jemison? She knew that they had history, and Maggie was really the new person in the equation.

Then she heard an “Oh hell!” from Sondre. “I need my shoes, Mae. Maggie’s probably halfway to the castle door by now. I said some stupid shit.”

“Sorry I didn’t catch the fever before it spiked.” The doctor sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “So you remember the nonsense you were spouting…?”

“Shoes. I need my shoes,” Sondre muttered. “Shit. Sorry for the things I said to you, too, Mae, but I need to catch Maggie. She must be hurt that I didn’t realize she was—”

“You love her.” Dr. Jemison sounded slightly surprised. “I didn’t know it had become a real marriage.”

“I didn’t expect to feel this, didn’t think I was capable of it,” Sondre rumbled. “She makes me feel like I want to stay at her side and watch over her, like I could be happy.… Being married is not at all what I expected.”

“Go get her. Tell her.”

“No. I have no intention of telling her. I’ve got a plan to present to Congress. She could go back, take her son, go home to the Barbarian Lands with him instead of staying here with my sorry ass. They are keeping her here as leverage, so I was trying to keep her away from Brandeau and not let her know I… love her.” Sondre let out a loud sigh. “I’m going to talk to Walt again, and if I need to, I’ll… I’ll make deals with Prospero, Scylla, you, anyone I have to. If that’s what she wants, she ought to be able to go. It ought to be her choice.”

“You need to tell her how you feel before you go trying to send her back. She deserves to know how you feel, and I’m not going to deal with you being brokenhearted.” The doctor’s footsteps sounded as she approached Maggie’s hidden spot on the other side of the sleeping Lord Scylla. The doctor paused, gave Maggie a pointed look, and carried on.

For a moment, Maggie felt worse for eavesdropping, hearing all of that, but then her temper started to simmer. He had no intention of telling her that he was still fighting for her to go back to a life without him. Simply hearing the words made her realize that she didn’t want that. She was where she wanted to be, and Craig could go live with Hestia in the regular world until he was older. Afterward, he could decide if a life in Crenshaw where he was the only nonmagical person was worth it, and honestly, she suspected he’d decide to do just that.

If not, well, he could visit. The Congress had already approved Craig knowing about Crenshaw. There was no need to go to Congress, no reason to end her marriage, no reason to be anywhere but at Sondre’s side. The finish-school-over-there plan would work, and she would stay right here.

With a man who loves me.

Maggie stepped around the curtain and ran into Sondre as he was rushing toward the door. He caught her instinctively before she could fall, and Maggie wound her arms around his neck. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. I had a fever. And didn’t think I could ever get married—”

“Because you didn’t expect to fall in love?” she asked.

Sondre looked like she’d accused him of a crime. His expression was somewhere between guilt and denial: eyes wide, lips parted. No words escaped, though. No denial. No admission.

After a long awkward moment, he said, “Love isn’t everything.”

“Do you love me?” she asked, staring up at him.

“Maggie…”

“ Do you?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize we were married, and that I said those things about Mae, and—”

Maggie cut him off. “You’re avoiding my question, Sondre.” She pulled his head down, so they were almost lip to lip. “Do you love me?”

“Yes, but I won’t trap you here. I know how important it is to you that Craig has a safe life.” Sondre lifted her into a bridal carry and headed toward the door of the infirmary. “I’m a grown man, and I won’t fall apart because you put him first. I lived without a wife before and—”

“Shut up,” Maggie said softly. “Craig will go to school, and he’ll be in a good house, in a safe place, then when he’s an adult he’ll decide if he wants to stay here or move to college over there. Because he was given permission to live here and permission to go over there, I don’t have to leave.”

“True.” The door opened at his approach, and he carried her into the hallway of the castle.

Maggie leaned closer and said, “I will make sure I can see my son when he’s finished high school, but I plan to stay with the man I love.”

Sondre came to a full stop and looked at her, as if he was oblivious to the students in the hallway currently staring at them. “Repeat that.”

“I love you, Sondre.” Maggie had barely finished saying the words when he teleported them to their suite.

“Say it again,” he said as he lowered her feet to the floor, so they were standing chest to chest.

“I… love… you.” Maggie put her hands on his chest. “This is the part where you say it back.”

He let out the most undignified “ whoop ” she’d heard from him, repeated the words, and pronounced, “Then, you’re not interested in me finding a way you can leave. I thought that’s why you were talking to Brandeau and—”

“I just don’t like them thinking I’m a pawn. You’d have known why I was doing that, too, if you’d asked.…”

“I panicked.”

“Yes. How about we talk instead of playing guessing games and erasing memories and plotting on our own. Be a team?” She stared up at him. “Can we do that? Talk?”

“Yes, but later? Right now, I’m about to seduce the woman I love.”

“Fine. Give it your best shot.” Maggie devolved into giggles at his exaggerated frown, and then she took his hand and led him toward the bed.