Page 16 of Warlocks Don’t Win (Singsong City #9)

Chapter

Nine

I woke up feeling like I could sleep for another hundred years.

Someone was pounding on the door. What door? Where was I? Had I sold a cursed coat to someone who had survived the wearing and come back to complain about it?

“Are you going to get that?” Winston murmured, his chest beneath my cheek.

I wasn’t stretched out over his body anymore. No, now I was curled up against him, around him, like he was my precious heart I had to protect.

Curses!

I sat up and blinked in the darkness.

What could I possibly say to the man I’d married while he was unconscious? Nothing. Better to focus on the person outside the door. Hopefully it was a psychotic golem that could put me out of my misery, without Winston’s interference.

“Come in,” I croaked.

The door opened, spilling light into the room. The butler, Parsley entered, carrying a tray with a large pot of tea and breakfast food like I hadn’t seen since my mother had been alive to direct him, and threaten him with her smile if he made a wrong move.

“Congratulations to the happy couple,” he droned, putting the tray down on the side table, then going around the bed and throwing open all the curtains in a puff of dust, like I wanted to be able to see Winston. It was bad enough being in the darkness with him.

Parsley continued cheerfully, “Your phone has been buzzing nonstop. Apparently your Singsong Coven felt the drain of energy and demand to know what’s going on.

Then there’s the Winstons. They want to know what Young Winston has gotten up to, binding himself to the Sage house after all this time.

There’s quite a gathering outside the gates of his coven members who want him back in one piece, and the Salem coven members who want to know how you shut them out of the property.

They haven’t killed each other yet, but I imagine it’s just a matter of time.

Jessica and Jordan are at the front of their groups in a wordless standoff.

Would you like me to put out your clothing for the day? ”

I squinted at him. In the light, wasn’t he supposed to be the one squinting?

I felt so bad. Like I’d been run over like a skunk.

Where was Tolly? She jumped on my lap at the thought, curling against me, providing some comfort in the disaster of this day.

Week. Life. I’d married Winston? What had I been thinking?

I should have killed myself instead. Yes, that would be much more logical than this marital breakfast tray.

My words came out of my tight throat somehow. “Thank you, butler. That will be all.”

He bowed and then left me with the drapes open so I could look out and see the crowd past the gates if I tried. The house had shut them out? I guess that was one good thing.

I just sat there, aware of Winston’s heat against me while I tried not to panic. I’d married him against his will. Death was better than marrying him! Maybe he wouldn’t notice. Particularly after the butler called us the happy couple. Parsley clearly hadn’t noticed either.

Winston stretched out his long arm and pulled the tray onto the bed then started pouring tea.

“Do you think it’s hemlock?” he murmured as he passed me a cup. I took it, still not looking at him. He was behind me. Where he would hopefully stay.

“No. The butler’s poisoning with sunshine today. If only I could fire him. There must be some way to untangle his soul from Sage.”

“He seems happily tangled.”

I glanced over my shoulder at him. He looked…

I wasn’t sure. He was holding a teacup made out of ebony, sipping it like he wasn’t worried about hemlock.

His eyelids were heavy, sleepy, and that lustrous hair falling around him like silk satin.

He definitely didn’t give off shocked and appalled, then again, he was an actor.

I licked my lips. “Yes. Untangling souls should definitely be the priority. Your soul would come first, naturally.” I gave him a polite smile.

He blinked at me. “Drink your tea. It’s hibiscus. Very nice.”

I took a cautious sip. He was right. It was hibiscus, my favorite. I took a deeper drink.

He waited until I was almost relaxed to say, “You aren’t untangling my soul from Sage.”

I choked on my tea, spraying him all over while I hacked and coughed. “What?” I gasped.

He gave me his own polite smile as he took another delicate sip of tea, ignoring the pink droplets on his forehead.

“My soul is thoroughly fused to Sage House. Untangling wouldn’t happen.

Cut. Sheared. Guillotined. But not untangled.

It would kill one of us. Possibly both. Why did you do it, Clary? ”

I winced and grabbed a forkful of hashbrowns. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” I crammed it into my face and chewed. Mm. I was so hungry. And angry. Being soul bound to your worst enemy took it out of you.

“It’s not a stupid question. The only reason to do what you did, was to save my life. You hate me. You’d happily kill me.”

I gave him a scowl. “Like I said, stupid question. Obviously, I did what I did to save your life. I’m not letting you die saving me. No way am I owing you any kind of debt.”

He leaned back on his elbows and smiled slightly. “So you want me to be in your debt? You want me to be your slave? Not only willing, but bound by guilt and duty? You are a hard mistress.” His eyes flickered with heat that made my skin prickle.

I pressed the tines of my fork against his throat.

“Stop it. You know that we’re bound together, not one above the other, except that I was on top of you, but that’s not relevant.

The point is…” What was the point? Oh, right.

“We’re going to ignore this binding and continue on as usual.

We’ll find who’s trying to kill me, turn them over to the police, and then go on our merry way. Oh, and your grandmother’s curse.”

“If there is a curse,” he added, drily.

“Right. If there is a curse.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to pretend that we aren’t married when I woke up with your lips fused to mine?”

I blinked at him then nodded briskly, feeling my cheeks heat from embarrassment. “Exactly that.”

“But you married me against my will.”

“Then it should be extra easy for you to pretend it didn’t happen, since you were unconscious through the entire thing.”

He smiled slightly. “You wouldn’t let me die.”

“Not for me. Obviously. I’m not living with that kind of burden, letting you die looking like a hero.”

He pursed his lips and nodded then broke into a large, incredibly sexy grin. “You married me to save my life. I’m starting to think that you don’t hate me nearly enough.”

I rolled my eyes and buried my face in my tea cup. I hated him just fine. We ate until the plates were clean, and then he got out of bed and took the tray.

“I’ll take this down to the kitchen and then talk to my friends about this situation.”

“The temporary binding.”

“The permanent marriage that can only be dissolved in one of our deaths, but yes, that.” He flashed me another smile, with dimples, and then left me in my mother’s bed with Tolly for company. At least my mother’s spirit wasn’t still hanging around.

“Well,” I said, looking into Tolly’s eyes. “What a mess, huh?”

She chirped and then leapt off the bed, slipping into the fireplace, up the chimney and out of sight, leaving me alone to question my life choices.

I groaned and threw myself back on the bed. One thing I could do right that moment, was go back to sleep. Maybe I’d never wake up.

I woke up the next morning.

I did feel better though, not like my cells had all been flattened and then blown up like an overfilled bike tube.

I rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

Oh look. There was one working bulb. The dim light from the filthy window barely showed my reflection, not that much was visible in the equally filthy mirror.

I scrubbed it with the back of my hand and then got to see my face.

I looked confused. The most shocking thing of all was my hair.

It was the same green and purple it had been when releasing the death spell. Green and purple stripes.

A filmy green blob appeared behind my shoulder along with a whiff of humid greenhouse. My mother.

“Yes. My curse is well set.” She sounded as self-satisfied as she possibly could, which was very.

I shook my head, staring at my hair. “That was the last curse you spelled at me? Striped hair?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It has tormented you these many years.”

“You’re a lunatic. Verifiably insane. You spelled me with striped hair instead of killing me?”

“I couldn’t kill you. Your father’s legacy was too powerful.”

I snorted. “And who’s to blame for that? Who hauled Rasputin’s bones around the world and then animated him just so you could…” I shuddered. “Verifiably insane. And now you’re haunting me. Parsley is going to put you to rest, now.”

I headed out of the bathroom, The thing that kept rolling around in my head as I went through my luggage wasn’t my mother’s curse, but the fact that the striped hair hadn’t changed color.

For ten years, it had been a different color every morning.

I didn’t have any other purple and green outfits.

I’d have to go with black and white. That’s what I always wore when my color combinations were beyond me.

But why green and purple? I’d been joking about it symbolizing our magic, a sign of our love, but then we’d been married.

That is, I married him against his will.

What if it really was a symbol of us being together?

Those colors had started the morning I woke up on top of him in the motel.

I shook my head. Nonsense. It would be a different color tomorrow. No sense freaking out about it now.