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

Finally, when I pulled into the town limits of Salem, I had my plan. Well, the rough sketch of an idea, really, but when a plan involved someone else, you couldn’t really plan it entirely on your own.

“Winston, you’ll probably want to hang around until I unravel the curse, right?” I asked slowly.

He looked at me, sharp and intent. “I will be staying in Salem, yes.”

I nodded and cleared my throat. This was going to be so awkward. Like waking up with green and purple hair. In his arms. We hadn’t discussed that. He could have put me back on the bed, or dumped me on the floor, but instead, he’d held me all night. “What do you think about the fake dating trope?”

He furrowed his brow, clearly confused. “I don’t think I could use it on the show.”

I laughed and sounded as out of control as I felt. “Yeah. No. Probably a bad idea, but I thought there might be some advantage in pretending that we were dating during this curse-breaking debacle.”

He choked on air and then coughed until I pounded on his back. Not that I thought it would help, I just wanted to hit him.

“Never mind,” I mumbled, cheeks hot, all of me feeling more humiliated than usual.

“No, it’s a great idea,” he rasped then coughed a few more times before saying in his usual velvety voice, “I’m just surprised that the idea didn’t occur to me. Probably because I didn’t think you’d agree to date me again in any capacity in a million years.”

I winced. “Not real dating. Acting, like you do on your show with that…” Nope. I wasn’t going to talk about his co-star, who he’d been kissing for at least a decade.

He paused for a moment. “Of course. I mean, I am a professional. What role do you want me to play? Do you have a specific outcome in mind? Who is the audience we’re playing for? Are you going to do costume? You were always magnificent at costume.”

I shrunk smaller and smaller with every word that poured out of his vile mouth. “You know, love-besotted fool, under my magical control, body, soul, will.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Ah. You want to revel in the power of trampling my heart beneath your feet without actually exercising the power that you already have.” He gave me a peculiar look.

“Clary, you absorbed your mother’s magic.

There isn’t a creature on earth that you couldn’t entrance.

But you want to make me your fake slave, not your real one. Does this make sense?”

“No. Nothing makes sense about any of this. But that’s my life now. Are you willing to be humiliated in front of the entire Salem coven?”

“I’m an actor. Humiliation is a given. But Clary, you could just take my will and make me your slave without asking me. Instead, you want me to willingly accept enslavement?”

He made it sound almost worse than taking his will.

“Just until we unravel the curse. That way you can stay in the house with me. And my familiar. And the dust. There’s going to be so much dust.” I shuddered.

There was a ridiculous amount of dust when I went back for the clothing.

That was five years without dusting. It had been ten more. “So much dust,” I whispered.

“Ah. You’d like me to help you with dusting. In fake thrall. Do you want me to sleep on the floor beneath your bed as well?”

Was he mocking me? I couldn’t tell. When I searched his face, he looked slightly interested, but in a professional way, like I really was offering him an acting job.

“Probably,” I said before I could reconsider.

He looked truly shocked, big eyes, round mouth, the whole thing.

“Okay. You’re going to have to tell me what your real motive is for this ridiculous thing.

Have you gone completely insane? Seeing me makes you miserable.

You hurt every time I open my mouth. You woke up happy until you saw me.

You hate me. I could taste your hate on your lips when I kissed you.

I wasn’t ever going to see you again, because I don’t actually like making people miserable, but then my grandmother…

” He furrowed his brow. “Why do you want to fake date me, Clary?”

“Closure,” I said stiffly. “I hate you so much. I should be over you entirely, but I’m still nauseous every time I look at you or think about you, and that’s nothing compared to your tv show.”

“You watch my show?”

I gave him a sharp look. “Part of one episode and I almost destroyed an entire city. I need to be who I want to be, not some ball of angst and negativity because some idiot who I trusted testified against me. You did what you thought was right. I should be able to respect that, but I can’t.

I thought you were the perfect prince. I want to see the real you, unvarnished, flawed, disgusting, selfish, conniving, everything like that until I can feel contempt for you instead of anger. ”

He stared at me for a long moment before he nodded and looked out the side window. He whistled and nodded down the street we were passing. “They’ve recreated the entire old town for the show.”

I followed his gaze to a cobblestone street from hundreds of years ago, only more designed than a real village would have been.

“Your show is filming in Salem?”

“Not my show. I suppose you’ve missed the news.

For the past two years, Jessica has been the star of the show, Salem’s Sage, which is a loose retelling of your familial history.

She’s starring as you, Clary Sage, the powerful seductress whose father is Rasputin.

It’s nonsense, but it draws an audience. ”

My blood ran cold and I reached out and grabbed his throat. “Jessica is doing what?” My voice was sharp, like my fingers pressing into his flesh.

He pulled my hand down and frowned at me.

“You shouldn’t flirt with me while you’re driving.

There might be an accident. I’d hate for you to get a sprained ankle.

The coverage of your mother’s death was sensationalized by every media outlet.

Jessica used that fame to launch her show.

She uses your property for her outdoor shoots, particularly the cemetery, although the actual house hasn’t let her enter. ”

“And you didn’t think you should mention that before now?” I snapped.

He smiled slightly. “It’s your house. I assumed you knew.”

“You did not. You knew that I haven’t been back for ten years.

You knew that I liked my quiet life in Singsong City.

You knew that I enjoyed absorbing the sanity of a quirky coven whose biggest drama is whether the home brew is too strong.

It is. It always is.” I groaned and wanted to thump my head against the steering wheel. “I’m going to kill her.”

He put a strong hand on my shoulder, sending a shaft of cruel comfort through me before he pulled away. “Nonsense. You’ll have your willing slave kill her. It would be my pleasure to kill someone for my fake girlfriend, particularly Jessica.”