“Penny?”
I looked up and there was Rhoda, the nice little Chem girl who was frowning in concern, or something else. I searched for a lollipop to give her, but I was all out.
“Hi. Am I blocking the stairs?”
She sat down next to me, so maybe that wasn’t the problem. “Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?”
I laughed because that was so sweet of her to ask. I patted her head and she flinched. Right. Because she wasn’t a serious wreck of a witch who needed head pats.
“Sorry. Your hair looks nice. All those little braids are probably good for chemistry. Did I miss class?”
“For a week.”
I nodded and thumped the contract. “Yeah. I’ve been busy. Do you want a hurter? I have some I didn’t end up sending.”
I pulled out the packages I hadn’t given to Signore and gave them to Rhoda instead.
She frowned down at the packages before she tucked them carefully away and rested her elbows on her knees while she studied me. “Why don’t you come to the dining room with me? You haven’t been eating a lot.”
No? It’s just that besides the Szechuan chicken, I kept seeing Signore eating his brother’s heart. Somehow unappetizing. I hadn’t seen Drake for a week while I’d been hammering out the contract, either. Or Zach. I’d been pretty much isolated. Not like that was weird for me, but I should be hungry by now. I didn’t have Señor to feed.
I sniffed once, twice, before tears started leaking down my face.
Rhoda gasped and leaned closer. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I looked up at her while my chin trembled. “Señor Mort might not be eating very well. What if no one is feeding him?”
She sighed and patted my back, kind of thump, thump, try to touch me without touching me, kind of thing. It was actually a little bit comforting. “I heard that you’re writing a marriage contract to offer Zach. Do you want my dad to look over it for you?”
I sniffed and three drops rolled from my chin onto the white top sheet of paper. “Thanks, but it’s okay. I can’t get involved with any more mages.”
She patted me two more times before she curled her hands back into her lap. “Do you think you should marry Zach when you love Drake?”
I shrugged and sniffed. “Probably better to marry a mage you don’t love, but I still feel sick about it. Poor Zach.”
She snorted. “He’s out partying every night, getting into fights with Ian, trashing things, living it up. Yeah, poor Zach.”
I turned to stare at her. “He’s getting into fights and breaking chairs over people’s heads?”
She shrugged. “He’s also killing it in tourneys. Drake’s been AWOL and Zach’s been fierce. He’s kind of…” She shifted and I had a sudden urge to go all Pitch on her and take my hurters back. Zach had already had Rhoda in his room. Maybe Rhoda liked him for real. Maybe she loved him.
Maybe Zach actually liked her and that’s why he’d taken her to his room to draw mustaches on Pitch.
I stood up. “I think I should go to the dining room. You can stay here,” I said, holding out my hand. She stayed, frowning at me like she was trying to figure out what was going on in my head. She did not want to know. Zach belonged to me and no one else could like him, love him, or anything else him. Stupid because I loved Drake and didn’t love Zach, not like that, but Pitch didn’t love anyone, particularly Drake who hadn’t married me so my psycho dad couldn’t drag me off to Darkside where Signore would hunt me down and kill me.
Signore. It was so convenient to think that he was my friend I could trust, even if it wasn’t true.
In the dining room, everyone went quiet as soon as I walked in. Why? Did I forget to put on my skirt or something? No, cute pink skirt and pale pink blouse like normal.
I swished my skirt and beamed brightly at everyone who met my gaze. Maybe my eyes were red and swollen from crying, but I hadn’t cried hard, just kind of weepy, nothing sobbing. I went to the end of the line, but it kind of parted as I walked forward until I got to the counter. Was that normal? Were they worried that I was going to blow everything up or something?
I got food, nice roasted duck and lots of other nice things then headed to the corner table. I stopped a few feet away when I saw Drake eating with Zach. They didn’t look up while I stood there, staring at them. Well, we should get used to this.
I walked over, pulled out the chair next to Zach with my foot and sat down, thumping my tray on the table next to his. I cut up a slice of duck and stuck a bite in his face.
He opened his mouth, ate it and continued talking to Drake in an animated tone about some idea he had about tourney mechanics. Bromium? Salicytes? It would be way more impressive than turning a contract into confetti.
I stirred my fork around my plate. Duck was so awesome-amazing, but even though Zach hadn’t dropped dead, I wasn’t quite able to eat it.
Drake suddenly leaned across the table, his mesmerizing green eyes glimmering dangerously as he grinned at me. “Penny. Congratulations on your contract with Zach. He hasn’t been talking about anything else for ages.”
I opened my mouth and Drake stuck a spoonful of potatoes and duck in my face. I chewed that and then opened my mouth to say something about how we were not under contract, but again with the food. Which was really good. Really, really, really delicious and I felt like I hadn’t eaten for a week. I parried his spoon with my fork and fed myself, because I’m super capable like that.
Zach tried to steal more of my duck and Drake blocked his attempt. He was so beautiful. Would this contract break his heart? He didn’t seem remotely bothered by the idea of me marrying Zach. Maybe he didn’t. He’d kissed me like I wasn’t accidentally slitting open his throat. All that blood.
I stopped eating and instead had a hard time swallowing my last bite.
“Are you done eating, already?” Zach asked me.
His eyes were bright, his smile sharp. Did he think marrying me would be like marrying Pitch? What an idiot. I patted his head. He did not flinch away, instead leaning closer to brush my nose with his.
I jerked away and turned to see if Drake was watching. He was. He only winked at me and took an enormous bite. I wanted him to take a bite out of me. Something. He loved me, didn’t that mean he cared? Maybe it meant he cared more about me than himself.
My chest ached and I pushed away from the table. Maybe I couldn’t do it. I went into the garden. It was mostly bare, but here and there daffodils and crocuses were poking their heads out of the ground. Daffodils were poisonous. So pretty. Pretty poison like all the witches and mages at this school.
My phone buzzed. A message. I didn’t get a lot of those. I checked and it read Delivery at Northeast corner, 11 PM.
Signore had a package for me? Had I ordered something I couldn’t remember? Maybe he’d found Revere or Jasper to check the contract for me. That would be kind of nice of him, nicer than poisoning me and blaming Poppy.
Poppy. I still hadn’t found and skinned the mage who ruined her, Mitch. I couldn’t even think about that, not with the contract hanging over my head. I had to get this done. First thing in the morning, I was going to drop it on Zach’s head. He’d either accept it, reject it, or die on impact.
Eleven o’clock, I turned the corner to the Northeast alley and there was Signore at the base of a staircase that hadn’t been there earlier, no truck.
I hesitated before I walked faster. He moved away from the stairs and gestured up, giving me space to show that he didn’t intend to eat me. His eyes were so dark in the shadowy alley. Wind brushed my knees with fingers of doom. The wind seemed to whisper, ‘death and dismemberment’ but I only gave Signore a smile and climbed the stairs. It was extremely doubtful that Signore would try to kill me with stairs. At the top of the building, I stood there, clinging to the railing and staring at the tea party waiting for me along with its surprise guest.
A woman sat in her iron-backed chair with perfect posture, pouring tea. The feathers in her boa t
witched in the breeze, but she didn’t act like she noticed.
“Sit down, Penny. I understand you have a contract for me to examine.”
Grandmama. No one else sounded quite like that, somehow gentle yet as immovable as a mountain. I walked over the rooftop towards the tea table and the woman who looked a great deal like me.
She nodded and smiled encouragingly as I held back.
“Is that the contract?”
I glanced down at the sheaf I still had in my arms. I looked up at her and felt like bursting into tears or something else that would be a waste of time. “Grandmama, aren’t you a captive in Darkside?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes. I seem to have been momentarily kidnapped by a notorious Darksider, however. I have two hours before I must return in time for dinner. You can’t hug me or I’ll have your energy and scent. It will have to do for me to assist you in your marriage contract.”
I leaned over her to put down the contract, and smelled lilacs and that indefinable grandmother scent. I inhaled for a long time before I sat across from her.
She sighed and shook her head. “So much self-control. You’ve become a very charming and adept young lady. When you were younger, you’d be in my lap, bursting into tears.”
“I cried yesterday.”
She laughed and I felt like I was going to cry. How cool was I? Not very.
She focused on the contract, murmuring and making notes in the margins. She cocked her head a few times and then hesitated, frowning. It was page twenty-seven, sixth paragraph. She made a few more notes then continued on. By the time she’d finished, her time was nearly over.
I’d just stared at her and remembered all the times I’d watched her frowning over a contract. She was exactly the same, even if she’d aged weirdly in Darkside. What if Poppy was alive in Darkside too? That would be difficult since she was buried in my backyard. Maybe I should dig her up to make sure. Again.
She leaned over the table and gripped my fingers. “Excellent contract. You’ve clearly put a great deal of effort into it. You need to watch your tone. Your willingness for additional clauses makes you look desperate. I suppose you are. Your birthday is coming.”
I sighed and held onto her fingers. “I miss you.”
She smiled slightly and brushed my curls away from my face. “I miss you. I’m so glad that you found a mage, or two.” Her eyes twinkled and I sniffed a little bit but didn’t cry. “I must go. Stay safe, smart, and most of all, true to yourself. Heavens, stay away from that Darksider, all of them really. I really must…”
One minute she was sitting there, gripping my fingers, the next poof, nothing but the scent of lilac. I inhaled deeply, wrapping that scent around me like a psychological cloak before I stood and went to the stairs, carrying the contract. I walked down and there was Signore, waiting in the shadows. I walked over to him and handed him the contract to hold while I put my hands on his head to take his pain.
He pulled away and shook his head, smiling slightly. “No, Cara Mia. You won’t take my pain. I took too much from you. I owe you a great debt that I will try to repay.”
I walked into his chest and he gave me a hug, the nice kind of hug only a Darksider can give you, a rock vampire Darksider. Still, I felt better when I pulled away from him, sniffing.
“Thank you for bringing me my grandmama. That was a good gift.”
“She examined your contract? Then I am satisfied you will not sell yourself for nothing.”
I gave him a bright smile even though I felt like weeping. No, not for nothing.
I went to my room and worked on my contract again with my grandmama’s additional notes until it was hopefully watertight and utterly unbreechable.
The next part would hurt. I was Pitch. I could do pain.
Chapter 15
Mage
I came back from Darkside and found Penny in my bed. Not just Penny, an enormous contract that she was cuddling instead of my suits, or me. She was sleeping but stirred when I leaned over to smell her. I pulled back right as she opened her eyes.
Her eyes went big before she narrowed them at me. “You took forever to come to bed. Where were you?”
For a second I let her words mean that we were together and I owed her some explanation before I grinned at her wickedly. “Are you looking for seduction? I’m afraid I’m fresh out, but if you cornered Ian…”
She wrinkled her nose and shoved the contract at me. “Read it.”
I carried it down the steps and to the couch. My heart wasn’t pounding or my nails trying to change into claws so I could shred the papers to ribbons. No, not at all. This would be pleasant, the kind of pleasure I’d been waiting for my whole life.
I sat down with my pen and began to go through it. First of all, it wasn’t nearly creative enough. She’d obviously put a great deal of effort into being sensible. No wonder she looked exhausted. Secondly, this was not your generic marriage contract. The form was something new while the content was as dry and repetitive as possible. So creative, but not fun.
Hm. I looked over at Penny where she sat curled up as far away from me as she could be on the couch.
“You want to marry both of us?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I want to marry Zach while you act as second in case of emergencies.”
“So I’d be the backup husband.”
“If Zach went nuts and tried to eat our children or something, you’d have to kill him and take care of me.”
I leered at her. “That does sound intriguing. If he doesn’t go mad, we’d still be bound together, Stoneburrow and Huntsman with you in the middle. Penny glue.”
“I can be quite sticky.”
“From the lollipops, no doubt.” I refocused on the contract. It was actually quite brilliant. It would require an alliance with Stoneburrow, but Zach had already offered me one. It’s almost as though he’d known that Penny would come up with something like this. Not something like this. Something, though. I’d thought she’d wanted me to go over it for another set of eyes, but she was after my signature. No wonder she was so concerned, staring at me like that. Would I sign this when I’d refused to marry her outright? I should draw it out, build the suspense, but instead, I skimmed through the rest of it, pausing to read the details of the intimacy clause before reading the closing remarks. I signed on the line, a nice, clear signature that showed my complete confidence in this debacle.
It was slightly gratifying, knowing that I’d always be looking over Zach’s shoulder, making quite sure he didn’t take advantage of her in any way, having the right to do that, the responsibility to make certain of her happiness.
“It’s an excellent contract. I’m sure Stoneburrow will sign as well.”
She burst into tears. I stared at the sobbing pile of red-gold curls. Didn’t she want Zach to sign? I slid over the couch and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled her into my lap. The contract made it clear that I was to be concerned with her happiness.
I skimmed her hair, her back while she got my t-shirt all wet. After a long time like that, she lifted her head. “You don’t have to let me cry on you. It’s not in the contract.”
“That depends how you read it.” I brushed my fingers over her cheeks then licked off the tears. “I’m a little surprised that you didn’t put in a clause that you’d never see Zach again.”
She shrugged. “I already have a working contract where I have to see him once a month to review projects or something.”
I nodded. “I suppose it can’t be helped then. You don’t have anything in here on living arrangements, although I do like the part about not having more than ten children. Do you think a year is long enough? Don’t you need to be married as long as you’re threatened?”
She sighed and gripped my fingers. “A year is long enough to know whether or not you want to change arrangements or leave them how they are. Also, on a year-by-year basis, you can get married to another witch, after transferring the contract to another mage.”
&n
bsp; I nodded. “That’s right. I’m supposed to be marrying for money or something. But apparently not until next year. Excellent. I was looking for a reason to put it off. Rich girls are as irritating as poor ones. It’s a good contract, Penny. Smart. You shouldn’t ever trust a mage, particularly one as powerful as Stoneburrow.”
She nodded and looked so lovely and sad I had to either take her off my lap or pull her closer. Since I wasn’t going to be her husband, it had better be the first. I stood, grabbing her arm so she didn’t fall to the ground.
“Let’s visit Zach.”
“You want to come?”
“Oh, yes. I’m party to this nonsense. I have to be present when anyone signs anything. I’m making a clause about it.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “You already signed.”
I held out my hand for the contract and she gave it to me. I wrote in a clause which she initialed even though she shook her head.
“You signed too quickly.”
“Probably. You made up for it in how painstakingly you poured over it. Come on.”
I grabbed her hand and dragged her through the halls of Rosewood in the early predawn until we got to Zach’s room. I blew open his door and yanked the blankets off him. Penny dropped the contract on his head.
Such a cruel witch. So lovely.
Zach sat up with a growl, surrounded by a swirl of paper as he blinked, clearly hung over. He’d been drinking too much, smashing too much, having too much energy and excitement to contain at the approaching contract. He adored her.
Agony spiked through my chest but I only laughed and handed him the bottle of sludge that should sober him quickly. He blinked at the papers then drank a lot of the stuff, more than I could have, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and began sorting through the mess. He found my signature at the end fairly quickly and nodded. He read the contract backwards then forwards, making notes in the margin, initialed my addendum and added a few more addendums for Penny to look over and initial.
Deadly Morsel: Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 5) Page 12
