Page 131 of The Witch is Back

“Not the calming potion, Mom.” He shoved it away. He didn’t feel like being calm. Raking a hand through his hair, he held on to his patience. Barely. “The other thing.”

“Oh.” Diana let go of her spoon, but her coffee continued to stir itself. “Emma has released you from your engagement.”

That was what he’d thought she’d said. “Not possible.”

“Her dad put a hidden veto clause in the contract.” Diana picked up her coffee, blew across it. Like she’d taken a freaking calming potion herself. “Emma told us her mother let it slip at the Exhibition.”

His stomach turned over. That fucking contract was the gift that kept on giving. He pushed away from the table to pace, needing to eat up the ground. “Why wouldn’t she talk to me first?” He gestured out of disbelief. “This is the kind of thing you talk to someone about first.”

Although she sure had made a habit out of making these decisions on her own. Maybe he should be grateful there were no hexes involved this time. He braced his hands on the mantelpiece and hung his head as he stretched out his body.

“Would you have talked her out of it?”

“Yes. No.” He closed his eyes and smacked the mantelpiece. “Damn it. I don’t know.”

“Did you want to get married?”

He turned, frustration bleeding from him. “It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.” His mom took a moment. “You never asked why we signed the contract.”

Well, that had come out of left field. He jittered in place, unsure what to do with that.

“Bastian. Come sit with me.” She waited until he was sitting before indicating the mug of coffee she’d conjured. A healthy color lived in her skin again and he was split in two, with one half overjoyed that his mom was well and the other losing its mind.

She held her mug close to her. “We said at the time it was for the financial advantages the Bluewaters could bring to our family. That’s something Clarissa understands.”

“It wasn’t, though?”

“No. I had a...knowing, I suppose you could call it, the first time I saw you and Emma playing together.”

Shock made him lean back. Knowings were an erratic power and not every witch or warlock could get them.

“I’d never had one before, and I haven’t had one since,” she went on. “But I looked at you both and this...tight feeling crushed my chest and hope bloomed inside. Warmth and a glow and a feeling of home. I knew Clarissa Bluewater had her eye on marrying off the next generation and I didn’t stop to think before I made the deal. Clearly,” she added with a face, “Clarissa did, because she sure had her fun with it, didn’t she?”

Bastian was still stuck on the knowing. “You think we were destined for each other?”

Her face softened. “I don’t know. It wasn’t romance I felt—just a sense of belonging. You might only have been destined to be the greatest of friends. But I hoped with that as a basis you might form something of an attachment. I’ve seen how other society sons can grow up and be drawn to the same cold arrangements for power. I thought this might avoid that, hoped with her in your life from a young age, a marriage would be the best thing for you. I never dreamed it would hurt you both to the point where you ran from each other.”

His heart twisted. “Emma didn’t run,” he pointed out. He hesitated but even with the silencing hex destroyed, he didn’t say anything about his reasons.

His mom’s mouth quirked. “Not then,” she said somewhat cryptically, then put down her mug. “She told us about the other clause in the contract.”

Shock made him mute. His eyes apparently said volumes as his mom took one look and smiled. “Yes,” she said to whatever she saw in them. “I was surprised, too, and so was your dad. She gave us permission to tell everyone.”

“Don’t.” It was a whiplash of sound, as he reached to touch her arm.

She glanced at his hand. “Your reputation...”

“I don’t care. It’s not important.”

“Then what is?”

He struggled with an answer. “It’s... It happened. Did she—did she tell you everything?”

“The silencing hex, the ‘important person’ she was trying to protect.” His mom sipped her coffee, keeping her eyes on him. “Do you think that justifies what she did to you?”

It was that question that had consumed him for the past seventy-two hours. And he’d finally come to the realization that if it had been his sister, he’d probably have done the same thing. “Yes,” he murmured. And yet...

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