Chapter 19 #4
When she reemerged, Croft was somewhere amid the shelves, talking to a customer.
She left him a note of thanks and slipped out, hoping Peter would have more luck.
But he was already back at the house, and his expression said it all.
They trudged to the bedroom and he handed over a sheet of paper with the contact information for five men. Beside each he’d written an X.
“These are the Maryland and D.C. lawyers who specialize in hospital bills,” he said. “But—”
“Let me guess: No one could speak to you today.”
He nodded.
“Same for me,” she murmured.
“I’m sorry, Beatrix.”
She wasn’t ready to give up. She convinced him to drive them to Baltimore, drop her off at one law office and go to another, where they separately sat in hopes of catching an attorney on the way out.
Maybe Peter’s status as a famous (or at least infamous) wizard would help?
But he circled back at a few minutes to five, shaking his head.
“The receptionist took pity on me and said she’d work me in as soon as his last call of the day was done,” he said. “Then the man got word that his mother was ill, and he ran out.”
She sighed. “The receptionist here didn’t do me any such favors. ‘Mr. Zhu is far too busy,’ etc. etc. And when she left at four-thirty, she told me not to bother trying to get back to his office because the door to the hallway is locked.”
The sparest shadow of a grin passed over his face. “And was it?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
They sat in silence as the loud clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. Then the door opened and a man strode out, eyes on his pocket as he fished out his keys.
Beatrix jumped to her feet. “Mr. Zhu?”
“I’m afraid I’m in a rush—” The man looked up and halted, goggling at them. “Omnimancer and Mrs. Blackwell?”
“Yes,” Peter said. “Could we have just a few minutes of your time? We’d be incredibly grateful.”
Zhu looked at his watch. “Uh—yes. Ten minutes. I can make ten minutes work. What’s the problem?”
Heart leaping, Beatrix pulled out their bills and quickly covered the key details.
As the lawyer scrutinized the documents, Peter said, “Do you think there’s a reasonable chance of saving the house and negotiating the debt to something we could pay off over time? I have a decision I must make tomorrow morning, and it’s entirely dependent on the answer to that question.”
Zhu gave a thoughtful frown. “These are odd bills. They didn’t itemize them—you see? Nothing to specify how the costs added up. I’ve handled cases from this hospital, and those bills were itemized from the start.”
Beatrix bit her lip, trying not to be hopeful yet, and failing.
Zhu looked up from the paperwork. “Listen, I can’t promise anything.
I think these bills are peculiar, and they may well be inflated, but I’ve got no way of knowing without digging into it.
Bottom line, though: I think we can make the hospital see that a reasonable payment plan is in everyone’s interest. And I’m pretty confident we can get them to agree not to take your house, Mrs. Blackwell, seeing as Omnimancer Blackwell is willing to sell his. ”
She steadied herself on Peter’s shoulder, the rush of relief leaving her wobbly.
“Thank you, sir.” Peter put an arm around her. “That’s very good to hear. You’ll take our case?”
“Yes, call tomorrow for an appointment—I’ll have my secretary fit you in later this week.”
Zhu put out his hand. Peter shook it. They walked out of the office and let the lawyer take the elevator to the front exit while they headed to the stairs in the back. Just in case.
“I don’t think I was followed here,” he murmured in her ear. “I didn’t park near the other law office and I ducked into Lexington Market on the way. You can’t effectively tail anyone there. Too many people. I took a roundabout way here, too.”
He’d dropped her off hours earlier at a restaurant—one with a back door to an alley that connected to the building Zhu’s office was in—so she felt reasonably confident she too had not been followed.
Her euphoric relief was tempered on the car ride home by the recollection that “I can probably save your house” and “more likely than not, the hospital will pull up short of ruining you” was not the same as actually saving her house and avoiding ruination.
And even the best-case scenario wasn’t good—just less awful.
But she would take less awful at this point.
And she would absolutely, gladly roll the dice on Mr. Zhu when the alternative was sending Peter back to the hell he’d come here to escape.
She smiled at him when he stopped at a light. He leaned in and kissed her.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much for not giving up.”
Awareness crept up on him by degrees. He felt—oh, God. He groaned, pulled back and thrust again, every nerve ending alive, Beatrix’s hip warm against his hand, her bottom pressed against him, a soft mmmm on her lips, darkness enveloping them—harder faster yes—
“Oh!” she cried not in ecstasy but in alarm, and that was the exact moment he realized this was not a dream, this was certainly not dreamside, this was really happening and he was past the moment of no return.
With a shout of alarm, he pulled out, ejaculate bursting onto the bed.
“How … how …” He couldn’t get another word out. He thought he might be sick.
“I don’t know!” She reached out and switched on her nightstand lamp. “I thought we were in dreamside, but then I woke up a bit more thoroughly and …”
He shuddered. Semen on the covers, along the back of her legs—what were the odds that none of it was inside her?
He stumbled to the bathroom, pulling up the pajama pants he’d apparently pushed down to his knees in his sleep. He wet a facecloth and brought it back for her, so deeply in shock he didn’t say a word.
But with all their melding of day and night, real and unreal, was it any wonder this had happened?
“Peter,” she said, after he’d returned the cloth and come back to bed, “it’s OK.”
“No,” he said, beginning to shake. He wrapped the covers around himself. All the anxiety—the fear—he’d suppressed yesterday came roaring back, stronger than before. “It’s not OK. It’s a wake-up call.”
“What?”
“I’ve got to take the job.”
“What?” She propped herself up on one elbow, staring at him in evident agitation. “No—I’m sure you didn’t get me pregnant! I’m due any day, it’s the safe part of the cycle—”
“No, I mean—I have to take the job because we can’t live like this.
” He swallowed. “Let’s say we can save your house and negotiate the bills down from impossible to merely onerous, and we both get jobs, and we’re able to keep our heads above water.
That’s the best-case scenario, right? You agree with me? ”
“Yes, but that’s better than the alternative!”
“No,” he said. “Because even if we get the best-case scenario, which is no guarantee, life will go on happening after that. Unexpected bills we’ll have no ability to pay because we’ll already be at our limit.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue but said nothing. He could see the truth of what he said sinking in as her expression shifted from determined to unsettled.
“And this could happen again,” he murmured, gesturing between them. “Easily.”
“We can put precautions in place.” It was a pleading statement, not a confident one, because what would be good enough? If they slept apart, wouldn’t they eventually be tempted to go back to the same bed? If she cast a shielding spell between them, wouldn’t they eventually forget?
“There’s something I vowed to myself when I grew up dirt poor here,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Well—two things, actually. First, that I would take care of my nan as soon as I graduated.”
His grandmother died during his first year at the Academy. Beatrix knew that.
“Second,” he said, “that I would never, never, never do anything that could possibly result in fathering a child who would grow up like I did.”
He heard the breath catch in her throat.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t. When the Pentagram calls, I have to say yes.”
He turned to look at her. “Say you understand,” he whispered. She’d been there during his childhood. More than that, she’d seen a bit of it through his eyes, feeling what he felt. “Beatrix—”
“I understand.” The words came out slow and heavy.
She laid her head on his shoulder, and he held her, knowing her too well to think this was a minor concession.
She’d contracted his deep-seated horror of that job.
And on top of that, she had a powerful determination to push on in the face of adversity.
She never gave up. He was making her agree to a plan that went against her every instinct.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking.