Page 28 of Warlocks Don’t Win (Singsong City #9)

“He wrote to you every month for five years for clues? To what?”

“His parent’s murder.”

She snorted. “You weren’t even alive when his parents were killed.”

I frowned at her. “What do you know about his personal life?”

She smiled slightly. “Everyone knows about the details of Winston’s personal life. He’s a celebrity, or didn’t you know? Wait.” She sat up. “Clary Sage is old. How old are you? You seem so young.”

I rolled my eyes and sat up. “Just immature. It’s the stripes. Do you have Libby’s sushi or not?”

She sniffed the air. “Just a few minutes longer. Does he think your mother had something to do with his parents’s deaths?” She sounded invested, like a cop or something, seeking justice.

I smiled at her. “I don’t know. I do know that several covens had issues with death in the upper ranks in the past twenty-five to thirty years.”

“Issues with death?” She gave me an incredulous look. “What about Singsong’s coven? Who was the voice before Portalia?”

“Pickup!” Rynne’s dad said, putting the sushi box on the counter through the window.

“That’s Libby’s order,” Rynne said, turning to grab it. She hesitated before handing it over. “So, you’re working with The Librarian to find a serial killer whose targets spanned three decades?”

“No, I’m working on a curse. Sage House cursed Dame Winston with Moridia Fleur.”

She blanched, went completely pale for a moment before her cheeks colored a very nice pink. “Sage House? You’re the heir. Why would you curse her?”

“I didn’t,” I said through gritted teeth before I could force myself to relax. “I haven’t seen Sage House for a decade.”

“Impossible. Houses don’t curse people. They can be cursed, but they can’t curse, particularly someone so far away.

Unless it happened when you got married.

Maybe the curse was already set up and the marriage triggered it.

” Her brow was furrowed as she puzzled. It sounded like nonsense to her.

No kidding. The whole thing was ridiculousness piled on ridiculousness.

I took the sushi box. “She was already cursed by then. It’s been months.

Maybe.” I frowned as I turned to the door, barely glancing at the row of seasonal decorations that had nothing to do with the current weather.

Maybe I should do a seasonal display in the shop.

Change it out every month connected to whatever was growing in the garden.

How long had she been cursed? It was possible to set up a curse to go off if someone triggered it.

For instance, the boundary of the woods had small curses embedded into them that would attack intruders in subtle ways, itchiness, fear, clumsiness, that kind of thing.

Could you set up an organic growing curse like Moridia Fleur that was triggered by an attack?

Did Dame Winston try to attack Sage House? Maybe the Salem coven.

Tabitha might be part of this dark coven.

Using the house to place a curse on their opposition made much more sense than the house throwing curses at people.

Only an idiot who didn’t care who ended up dead would set up an automated Moridia Fleur curse.

But could Tabitha use the house like that?

Someone had been draining it. That was fact.

Unless the house had drained itself by cursing people.

I sighed as I climbed the steps, my thoughts going around and around and around. I needed to kill the curse, wherever it came from.

The clerk directed me upstairs with my sushi, even though there was a sign posted, ‘no food or drink’ directly on my way to the room on the top floor where Libby was arranging books, some of which looked and felt darker than my father’s bones.

“Impressive. That book is a curse.”

She beamed at me. “Poor thing’s had a difficult childhood. Why don’t you start on this book and I’ll take care of the cursed books? I have special gloves.” She showed me her hands, covered in heavy duty gloves loaded with spells.

“Cool.” I took the book with fancy gold curlicues on the cover and sat down, opening it up to the beginning.

‘Elaborate Spellings for the Determined Magician’ was written by one Davies F. Flighty.

“Davies supposedly invented the Moridia Fleur, but I think it was his wife,” Libby said conversationally. “She was the poisoner and plantswoman between them.”

I blinked at her. “It’s good when husbands and wives can collaborate. Perhaps they made it together.”

She glanced at my left hand and then grinned at me. “Maybe so.”

Ugh. I had to undo the binding with Winston yesterday.

We spent the next few hours in companionable silence. She was a quick reader so I didn’t have to feel self-conscious for burning through my books, using the magic I’d taken from my mother to feed my brain and eyes.

I was starting to actually understand the basics of those organic curses like Moridia Fleur when I heard words that sent a bolt of panic through me.

“There you are. I brought your familiar.”

I looked up to find Winston the Warlock in his patched coat holding Tolly in his arms, both of them looking like they’d stepped off the cover of Witches and Warlocks International. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. I was definitely going to kill him.

“What are you doing here?”

He cocked his head and looked down at my books. “You’re researching the curse?” He looked up with a curious look in his eyes. “But she tried to kill you.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to the Librarian. “Thank you for these books. I should go.”

“I’ll let you know if I find anything else,” she said with a slight smile at me before she gave Winston a curious look.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him and his skunk away from the Librarian before things got awkward. “What are you doing here?” I hissed once we were out of the room and headed for the narrow stairs.

“Tolly was upset, feeling abandoned and lonely. You shut yourself in your house for days while she worried.”

I shot him a look. “She was with me until I went through the way door.”

His soft lips pursed. “That’s another thing. You asked me to make a way door for you, but then you took over like you don’t need me.”

I gave him a good hard stare. “I don’t need you. That’s the point. I don’t need you, I don’t want you, and I don’t like you interrupting my study session. I was trying to solve the problem that you dragged me into. The least you could do is not interrupt.”

He smiled slightly as he moved closer, leaning in to whisper, “I’ve been studying this curse for months. We could solve the problem together.”

My skin prickled at his warmth, his presence, the energy that spread from him to me, awake, alive, and so terribly aware.

I inhaled a gasp and pulled away, drawing back my shoulders and raising my chin. “I’m not interested in working with you.”

His smile was a thing of melted cheese and tabasco sauce. “If my wife doesn’t want to work me, I imagine she’d rather…”

I slapped my hand over his mouth, pressing him back against the wall as I glowered at him. I whispered in case anyone was around. The stairs seemed lonely. “I’m not your wife!”

He kissed my palm and I pulled back, hating how good he felt. “Clary, you married me against my will to save my life. You killed your mother to save my life. You would do anything to save me.” He dropped to his knees on the back stairs of the library. “I’m yours. Body, soul, will.”

“Fine, then give me all your money.” I held out my hand, brow raised.

He smiled and put his hand in mine, strong, warm, irresistible. “I already put your name on all of my bank accounts, house deeds, car deeds, boat deeds…”

“You have boats as in plural?” I shook my head and tried to tug him to his feet. “This is ridiculous. I’m trying to break a curse.”

“She’s old. She was going to die soon anyway.”

I gasped and stared in shock at him. “You wouldn’t fight for another day of her life?”

He gave me a soft smile. “She’s not soft, kind, compassionate, or any of the other things I tried to pretend to be when I wrote to you in her name. She’s not loyal to you. She never gave her consent to our marriage, and she never would have. She’s hard, immovable, chiseled out of stone.”

“But you came to me to make me break the curse.”

“You tried. She tried to kill you. Obligation over.” His voice was light, but there was an undercurrent of rage that made me shiver.

“I can’t just let Sage House try to kill whoever it wants. And you should be researching breaking bindings.”

“I don’t want to break our bindings.”

I scowled hard as I jabbed him in the chest. “Stop trying to make me kill you! It’s not nice! I have a lovely life that I enjoy outside of prison!”

He covered my hand, pressing it to his pectorals. “No, Clary. The proper thing is to not get caught killing me. Kill me if you like, I deserve it. Just don’t get caught. I can help you with that.”

I stared at him, mouth flopped open while the outrageous notion that he didn’t care if I was a murderer flipped the world the wrong way for a second. He’d turned me in because he thought I was working with the people who killed his parents, but didn’t he also care about justice?

He moved closer, taking my paralysis as an invitation. “For example, don’t argue with your target in public places before the murder. Give every appearance of congeniality, like so.” He bent down and kissed me.

For a second I was unmoving, but then the connection brought the bindings to life and I fisted his shirt, shoving him against the wall while I kissed him hard.

His hands came around me, strong, possessive, and we may have stayed like that forever, except Tolly said Weren’t you going to sell some headdresses?

I broke away, my whole body awake and aching with sweetness. He felt so good.

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep that in mind for later.”

I spun around and took the steps two at a time, Tolly on my heels, Winston following lazily, watching me like he was a hunter and I was his prey. He could be more subtle about whatever game he was playing this time. I couldn’t think through the rapid beating of my heart. Like that first kiss…

I stopped and turned to look up at him. “When did your grandmother’s curse begin, as close as you can estimate?”

He raised a brow as he continued to come closer, eyes falling to my burning, shameless lips. “Four months, give or take a few weeks.”

“Interesting.” I spun around and continued away from him.

Was it possible that the first kiss was tied to my house cursing his grandmother?

Impossible. And yet, I was bound to the house like he was bound to the Winston name.

She was Dame Winston, the seat of their familial power.

I was Clary Sage, inheritor of my mother’s magic and Sage House.

Another lead that probably wouldn’t go anywhere.

Like the bindings that made kissing Winston irresistible.

If I did kill him, it would break the bindings.

I could drain him of his magic and bury his bones in the yard.

That would break the ties to the Winston name, maybe even cut off the curse along with strengthening the house and me. Win, win.

Win. Winston. Nettle Winston. What would he do if I used his name? He never used it. It wasn’t public knowledge. Was that who he really was behind the bold and the bluster? Nettle stung. But it was as good for hair tinctures as clary sage. I could use a good hair tincture…