Page 41 of Up in Smoke

“The contract stipulates you had to be given to an unmarried man of appropriate age,” he replied, pointing at the relevant section. “Really, Jade? You didn’t read your contract thoroughly?”

“I read the courtesan laws but not the specific contract. It wasn’t like I had a lot of choice, and I was more interested in the various ways I could escape the contract if I wanted out of it. At what point did we actually get married?”

“When I signed the contract under the spot designed for the unmarried man of appropriate age,” he replied, flipping through the paperwork to the appropriate sheet and showing it to me. Sure enough, Sandro’s parents had signed, he had signed, and I had signed. “I didn’t sign that section until after you seemed pleased with the general arrangement, though. And I’m willing to do the paperwork required to revoke this section if necessary, although it serves us well here. At what stage did they have you sign the paperwork?”

“Sometime after the initial treatment, I think. There were probably copious amounts of painkillers involved. Realistically, I understood it didn’t matter what I was signing; it wasn’t as if they were letting me out of there without being sold. I focused more on the general rules and regulations than the paperwork. By that, I mean how the taxes worked, how a courtesan could buy out her contract, and so on. I learned I was probably too poor to buy out my contract. And then when I realized your mother was the crazy woman who’d bought me, the whole thing didn’t seem so bad. But I really thought I’d been purchased by crazy people.”

“You were purchased by crazy people,” Sandro replied, shaking his head and laughing. He set the courtesan documents aside. “That’s just Mansfield telling me he’s aware he’ll have a lot of trouble on his hands if he does anything to you. He tends to acknowledge situations he can’t change by passing over the official paperwork he can’t have revoked even if he wants to. So, that copy is my victory, and he’s making our lives simpler through acknowledging that.”

“Asylum sounds like a complicated place to live.”

“It really is.” Sorting through the papers, he made four piles and organized everything, careful to avoid the cookie sheet and its glittery payload. While he did that, I escorted the mess to the counter where it wouldn’t cause trouble if one of us took offense to the paperwork Mansfield had delivered. “Thank you. I would have put it somewhere safer eventually.”

“Glitter takes forever to get out of my fur. That stuff should be classified as a lethal weapon.”

“Ah, so if you are particularly bad, I’ll just throw some glitter on you and leave you to get it out of your hair and fur?”

“Cruel and unusual punishment is against the law,” I hissed at him.

He smiled. “Oh, it’s not cruel and unusual punishment unless I add glue, Jade. Before then, it’s just a little cruel and fairly common.”

My fox wanted me to chitter a warning, and while I kept quiet, I indulged her with turning my ears back. “What sort of thing counts as me being particularly bad?”

“If you get hurt seriously again, as soon as you’re recovered, you will be doused head to toe in glitter.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And what do I get to do to you if you get seriously hurt?”

“I would accept a glitter punishment without complaint, but I’m sure you can figure out something to keep me on the straight and narrow.” Sandro patted his hand on one of the stacks. “These are your new properties, which are merged into one large property. On the surface, the paperwork looks correct.” He tapped a second stack. “These are my new properties, which are adjacent to your new properties, which has also been merged into one large property.” He tapped the third stack, much smaller than the first two. “This is the documentation that merges both our properties into a co-owned property.”

“He must have been busy.”

“According to the dates I spotted, he began working on it the day after I’d emailed him with our intent to return to Tulsa. None of the dates are prior to my email, so until then, I suspect he believed me to be out of the picture for a while.” Sandro turned his attention to the final pile. “This is the important pile, I suspect.”

“What’s in it?”

“Our supply share, his tentative plans he’ll want me helping with, and administrative necessities. I’ll want to audit the properties soon, perhaps tomorrow if the weather holds. We’ll also want to check to the west to see if we can find anything important. He expects me to start investigating things for changes, especially now that we have some extensive property.” Sandro glared at the stacks of deed paperwork. “I suspect that’s his goal, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the Alley, land goes to the nearest city still intact with a government, and the person who decides who owns what is the mayor or administrative head.”

“Mansfield,” I said, joining Sandro in glaring at the paperwork. “So he gives you some prime land in his headquarters, hoping for your help so he can better establish his claim. And he can take more and more land using the choirs? If the landowners are dead, the current laws in the Alley dictate the government gets it, and the nearest head of the government can dish it out or sell it at his or her whim.”

“Correct. But for this to work, he would have to have undeniable control over everything nearby.”

“Including Antlers?”

“He won’t be finding out there are survivors in Antlers from me, that’s for certain,” Sandro muttered. “But yes. Inheritance laws require there be no one left to inherit the properties for him to take it over, so as long as those in Antlers maintain their paperwork, they’ll be safe enough—assuming Mansfield decides to leave them alone. I think they’ll be safe. What Mansfield needs and wants is north of Tulsa. The South itself is a good deterrent. He’s aware of the Voodoo queens and their long reach.”

“And long memory.”

“And long memory,” Sandro agreed. “What does he have in store for us?” Flipping the first page, he skimmed, shaking his head at the text. “I hope you like eggs.”

“I don’t mind eggs. Why?”

“Apparently, he has a flock of hens for us and a notation to make a coop for them in our yard. There is also a rooster. He wants to see if chickens are sustainable in Asylum. Fresh eggs would make a big difference.”

“But what are we going to feed them?”