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He looks away. “I never asked you to do that,” he says quietly.

“I know.”

“You should’ve let me figure it out.”

“With what?” I ask, more tired than angry now. “Magic?”

That gets the smallest breath out of him.

Not a laugh. Close.

I keep going because if I stop now, he’ll decide the silence means he’s right. “We both needed the money,” I say. “That’s the truth. I just happened to be the one who got offered a way to make it.”

He rubs a hand over his face. “That sounds horrible when you say it like that.”

“It was horrible.”

Then he says, “Why didn’t you tell me before you took it?”

I lean back into the couch. “Because I knew you’d say no.”

“Yes.”

“Exactly.”

“I would still say no.”

“I know.”

He turns to me. “Maggie.”

“What?”

“You can’t keep deciding huge things by yourself and then telling me after the building is already on fire.”

I almost laugh. “That is deeply rich coming from you.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is a little the point.”

He exhales through his nose. “Fine. Maybe. But I still get to be mad.”

“You absolutely do.”

That seems to help, weirdly. Just me admitting it.

He sits there for a second longer, then says, quieter now, “I hate that you felt like this was your job.”

I look at him. Not because I disagree, but because that one hurts.

“It was my job,” I say. “That’s the whole problem.”

He waits until I’m done being pathetic, then says, “So. The doctor.”

I go still. “What doctor?”

He gives me a look. “Don’t.”