Page 38 of Warlocks Don't Win
“Is it about the curse?”
He hesitated then nodded. “It’s possible they’re connected.”
Mm hm. Not about the curse then. “You can just talk to me here.”
He pulled up at the curb outside the restaurant. Immediately my door opened and a hard-eyed black-suited man held out his hand to me.
I gave him a look. “Who are you?”
“The valet,” Winston said, getting out and leaving me with the door open and the strange man offering to touch me. He moved and there was Winston. He nodded to the restaurant while the scent of hot noodles and melting cheese wafted, curling around me and pulling me out of the deep buttery seat against my will.
Once I was standing on the sidewalk, Winston’s hand came to the base of my spine again like it belonged there. I swatted his hand away and headed for the door with a sigh. He was too annoying, but that’s what I asked for. Closure. Sure. That’s what this was, not indulging in my obsession as long as possible. So stupid.
“You want to talk? Fine. I’ll eat while you talk.”
It was going to be horrible.
It was worse than horrible. First of all, the restaurant was empty except for guards and a blonde woman in a pink suit who sat at the same table I’d been at with Winston. She stood when she saw me, cocked her head and gave me a tight smile.
Cara Florshay was the voice of Apple City coven, and had been enough of my friend that she’d helped me sneak into her ball. The one where I’d met Winston. Her eye was twitching from the effort not to look me up and down with the special contempt she shared for those poor creatures cursed to have no personal style. Literally cursed in my case.
“I’ll be right back,” Winston said, abandoning me to my fate.
Sure. He wanted to talk. Lies, all over the place. I sighed and sat down in the chair opposite her and picked up a fried ravioli from the cheery bright blue bowl.
“Cara. ‘Sup?”
She flinched. Yep. If you can’t beat them, join them. I decided that a long time ago.
“Is it really you?” she asked, accidentally taking in my floral pants and then flinching hard.
“No, notreally, but at least the fake version gets to eat carbs.” I shoved another ravioli in my face and almost chewed with my mouth open, but she already looked like she was on the brink of a heart-attack. I could have compassion. Maybe. Unless it turned out that she was already secretly married to Winston too and needed me to understand their situation.
She cleared her throat and straightened up, cocked her head and gave me a sympathetic smile. Wow. She’d gotten almost as good at acting as Winston in the last fifteen years. Maybe he’d taught her.
“It’s so good to see you again, Clary. I’ve been so worried.” She looked worried, also distracted by how many raviolis I was eating.
“Sure. Me too. Why are you here? I’m going to leave the second I’ve finished eating, and since there are already raviolis, I might not have to wait for the pizza.” I smiled brightly before biting into another rich, gooey bite.
She blinked rapidly and then leaned over the table. “What did they do to you?”
“Theyas in secret government entities, or carbs?” I ate the last of the raviolis and stared at the empty bowl sadly. How long would it take her to break with my idiocy? If she wasn’t going to answer my question, since she’d bothered to set this whole thing up with my husband…
I took a deep breath and looked up at her. “You’re very close to being turned into a toad. I used to like you, so that’s your warning. I’m not as emotionally balanced as I used to be, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now. Evidenced by my hair.”
She started hyperventilating, quick shallow breaths until the words finally spilled out, one over the other in a torrent. “Your coven was the first. Ripped apart seemingly from within. Bythe time they hit Apple City, Winston had gotten the coalition together enough that he could provide stability we needed to pull through when my parents were targeted. Since then, he’s worked tirelessly along with the rest of us, trying to put a stop to the unseen threat.”
I took a second to process her confession. That’s how she’d said it, like a confession, rip the bandage off fast, words she never would have chosen to let out of her mouth. Her parents were dead then. They’d seemed nice. I mean, disapproving and judgmental and holier than thou, but it didn’t seem like they sucked the lives out of people and buried them in the backyard, so that was a plus. I guess. Nice wasn’t my forté. She was saying that me killing my mother was connected to her parent’s dying? Like a serial killer was involved? Impossible, but she seemed to genuinely believe what she was saying.
I nodded wisely. “So the firstthey. Unseen threat sounds very mysterious and impossible to prove. That’s exactly the kind of threat I’d use if I wanted to build a coalition that gave me power over all the other covens. The thing I’d like to know is what Winston the Warlock does with so much power. Using power is almost as exhausting as controlling other people.”
She gave me a slight smile. “You find it exhausting to control others? I thought that was supposed to charge you up.” She said it part casual friends chatting about one’s hobbies, and part accusation for being someone like my mother. I was sort of like my mother, in that I’d inherited her magic, but I hadn’t inherited her taste for the pain and suffering of her victims. Pity, because I was feeling insecure with Cara and her do-gooder ways, working with Winston all these years, both of them commiserating in their orphan status, uniting to take down their parent’s murderers. And he’d said he wanted to talk to get me to talk to her. He’d lied for her. I was starting to think I’d really enjoy her pain and suffering.
“Where’s my stuffed crust pizza?” I asked, standing up and looking around the empty room, empty other than the guards watching the exits and windows.
She stood with me. “You don’t want to find those who destroyed your coven and killed your mother?” Ah, she’d let me join their orphan club.
I looked at my nails. They needed about fifty coats of paint. “I killed her. If you don’t believe me, just ask Winston.”
