“—everything she owns is technically yours,” Rosemarie said heavily.
Beatrix stared at him, eyes wide.
“We weren’t married when I incurred the bill,” he said.
“I doubt very much that will matter,” Rosemarie said.
“The contract will protect it,” he said, fear rising like bile. Itwouldprotect the house—wouldn’t it?
Lydia was pacing now, always a bad sign. “You can restrict your right to do whatever you like with Beatrix’s property, but you can’t restrict the hospital’s right totakeit!”
“I—I’m sure …” he said, not sure of anything now. This was a day designed to underscore how little he knew.
Rosemarie gave him her most Miss Disdain of looks. “Did an attorney help you write it? Did you ask anyone with expertise what they thought of it?”
“No,” he said, anger beginning to overcome his other feelings, “because I was trying to keep the documentconfidential.”
“Oh, how well that worked out!” Rosemarie crossed her arms. “I grant you the contract wasextremelyeffective when it came to killing the legislation and ruining all our hopes, but in this case, I’d be shocked if it’s anything but absolutely and completely useless. Excellent work, Omnimancer. Truly A-plus.”
Beatrix hissed“Rosemarie,” obviously trying to contain the situation, but it was too late.
“The contract isn’t the problem here, it’s that we got married,” he barked at Rosemarie. “And did you warn us against it? No, youdemandedit!”
Beatrix put a warning hand on his arm. “I think?—”
He leapt for the door, knowing he was a hair’s breadth from exploding, and found he was blocked by the spell she’d put around the room. A spell he could no longer undo.“Let me out!”
Her voice shook as she said the negating spellwords. He slammed the door behind him, irrationally angry at her—and rationally, massively, incandescently furious at himself.
If he’d listened to the voice of reason in his head, they wouldn’t have married yet. This mess would have been his alone. But now, they would all pay the price.
He closed the front door behind him, without a slam this time, and leaned against the house with his eyes squeezed shut. If he had a job with a salary as good as his last one—even then, the bill would take years to pay off. As it was, he had no idea what he was qualified for now. He was a man rapidly approaching middle age with an education and work history wholly focused on a skill he no longer had.
He couldn’t pretend anymore: It wasn’t sadness or loss that bit at him whenever Beatrix cast spells. It was jealousy.
They were lucky she could spellcast and he knew it. Her magical abilities had nothing to do with his predicament and everything to do with the fact that he was still alive. But how much luck would he have trying to argue away irrational feelings with logic?
He needed to calm himself before he went back inside and apologized. The greenhouse—he still hadn’t been to the greenhouse to tend the plants.
The air was as warm and redolent as always, but it was woefully overmatched by his black mood. He was at the far end, watering the valerian, mind going in useless circles, when theclickof the door opening announced he was no longer alone.
He sighed.
“Beatrix,” he said, turning around, “I?—”
It wasn’t Beatrix.
“Blackwell!” A wizard with a bulbous red nose glared at him, arm outstretched with a fistful of leaves in his hand. “You’ll—you’llpay, you fucking traitor!”
Nowhere to run—the man, whoever he was, blocked the only way out. No way to turn it into a physical fight—they were a good fifteen feet apart, and the intruder could spit out a spellword faster than any mad dash in his direction.
“Wait! I’ve already lost,” he said, trying for reason, as long of a shot as it seemed. “It’s all over. The legislature?—”
“You need to be stopped,” the man said, slurring, “and I’m gon—gonna stop you.”
No reasoning with a drunk.
Could he run faster than a sloshed wizard could cast?
