Page 35 of Tusks And Conditions

He sets his pack by the door and looks around the apartment. The index cards on the refrigerator. The spreadsheets still fanned across the kitchen table. The dent in the couch cushion that has not recovered from his absence.

He is home. He knows it. I know it.

Neither of us says it.

I am reaching for the kettle when the mail slot clatters. A thick envelope hits the floor, the DMI's embossed seal catching the overhead light. I pick it up and slit it open with my thumbnail.

The header reads: DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL INTEGRATION — FORM 22A: OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE OF BOND ANNULMENT.

Approved. Effective immediately. Processed and expedited pursuant to the Penalized Severance and formal declaration of cohabitation violation submitted by Jagger Ironjaw. Eighty-seven days early. Signatures denote Petitioner A's acceptance of bond dissolution and Petitioner B's acceptance of magical backlash and a mandatory ten-year containment sentence.

The paper is warm in my hands. Blood-magic ink shimmers along the signature line, waiting for two sets of initials.

We're free.

CHAPTER 14

JAGGER

The DMI seal glows faint gold under Sabine's kitchen light. I know that seal. I have seen it stamped on arrest warrants, bounty contracts, deportation orders.

She sets the papers on the kitchen table, right on top of the spreadsheets we built together two weeks ago. The ones that traced Varkos's money through six shell companies and a haunted laundromat. She squares the edges of the annulment form with the table's corner. Precise. Measured. The way she does everything.

"Well." She reaches for her pen cup. Selects the black one. Always the black one for official documents. Blue for personal notes. Green for corrections. I should not know this. "This is actually excellent timing. I was going to call the DMI on Monday to ask about the violation report you submitted, but they've saved me the trouble."

The pen hovers over the signature line. Her fingers are white at the knuckles.

"Self-reporting a supernatural felony to expedite a bureaucratic process is certainly a novel approach. Drastic, but pleasant."

The Snarbo presses against my shin, all eyes tracking between the two of us like a spectator at a tennis match. Even the creature can read a room better than this paperwork suggests.

Sabine uncaps the pen. The small click sounds like a gunshot in the apartment.

"It says we both need to initial on page three and sign the final page. There's a notarization requirement, but the blood-magic ink self-notarizes upon contact with skin oils, so that's actually quite efficient. I have to give the DMI credit for streamlining at least one process in their entire⁠—"

Her hands are shaking. The pen trembles between her fingers like a dowsing rod over water. A small dot of black ink drops onto the signature line, blooming into the enchanted paper.

I pull out a chair. Sit. The chair protests but holds. My knees press against the underside of her kitchen table, which is built for someone a foot shorter and two hundred pounds lighter. The spreadsheets flutter.

She does not sit. She stands across from me with the pen and the papers and the tremor she cannot control, and her jaw is set at that angle I first saw in the DMI waiting room. The angle that means she has calculated every variable and reached a conclusion and will not be argued out of it.

But her hands.

"The sooner we process this, the sooner we can both resume our normal routines." She taps the pen against the table twice. Three times. "You can go back to your office. Take that new bounty. I'll repair the window deposit situation with my landlord. It's really the most logical⁠—"

"Sabine."

"—course of action, and I've already drafted a post-separation task list, which I can share with you via email if you'd prefer not to coordinate in person⁠—"

"Sabine."

The pen stops tapping.

I lean forward. The chair groans a second warning. Her kitchen smells like lavender dish soap and the oatmeal she burned this morning and forgot to scrape out of the pot. A small, calcified ring of oatmeal sits in the sink behind her. She has not cleaned it. Sabine cleans everything. Sabine once reorganized my ammunition box by caliber and color.

"Give me the pen."

She holds it out. Our fingers brush. Hers are ice cold.