Directly into Miss Knight.
“Leaving?” she said, stepping to one side.
“Actually,” Miss Harper murmured, holding the kitchen door open with her shoulder, “he’s staying the night. Thank you again, Omnimancer. And please don’t worry—I won’t be using the time to pepper you with questions.”
Miss Knight sighed. “We don’t need to be baby-sat. We really don’t.”
“No, no, he’s going to help us protect the house at—what, midnight?”
“Halfway between dusk and dawn,” he said. “About one o’clock, I should think.”
Miss Knight gave Miss Harper a conspiratorial smile. “The witching hour.”
“How appropriate,” she observed.
Peter jerkedupright in his borrowed bed. Someone was opening the door—the door he’d thought he’d locked. Leaf, he needed a leaf. He grabbed several, fumbling in his rumpled coat in his haste, and extended his hand with a spell on his lips before realizing with a second start that the intruder was Miss Harper.
“Surprising a wizard can be hazardous to your health,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry—I can’t sleep. I thought you might be having the same problem.”
She sat at the other end of the bed, and he finally noticed she was wearing nothing but a pale shift like the one she had on when he kissed her in that troubling dream the night before. Her hair, shot through with his magic, spilled over her shoulders. His heart sped back up, this time for a very different reason.
“Something feels off about the way I’m casting.” She frowned at the wall, clearly unaware of the effect she was having on him. “The Vow tonight, then the security spells—I can’t tell you what’s wrong, but something is. And all I can think is that the way I’ve been casting isn’t the way I did it when Lydia ...”
Almost diedhung in the air, unsaid.
He cleared his throat. “When is your conference over?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Come over afterward and we’ll run some tests.”
She shook her head in a distinctly apologetic way. “No, I—I can’t continue trespassing on your time like this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to repay you as it is.”
He could think of several possibilities, which just underscored that he needed to get her out of the room now.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even be telling you,” she added. “I just ... needed to.” She looked away. “And while I’m at it, you were absolutely right about Wizard Garrett. It wasn’t me he was interested in.”
The words tumbled out: “No, I was wrong. He’s in love with you.”
Her “what?” echoed his own internal reaction. What had he been thinking? Now he had to explain, damn it. “I saw how he looked at you. I don’t think he could fake it that convincingly.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You saw it from the car?”
“I crawled out the window and got within a few yards of you,” he admitted.
He expected an explosion—how dare he watch such a private moment. Or perhaps joy that her feelings for Garrett were reciprocated.
“Ah,” she said.
“Ah?”
She shrugged. Sighed. “I’ll never know how he really feels. But it doesn’t matter. Even if Ididwant to get married, it wouldn’t be to a man who sees a terrible injustice and says, ‘Here’s the solution—be a good little girl and stop asserting yourself.’”
He laughed. She’d surprised it right out of him.
“His employer is doing this. His ownunit. And he doesn’t think it’s bad enough to quit over.” She was breathing harder now, no longer dispassionate. “Well,youleft. And you haven’t questioned why Lydia is pushing ahead, not once—you’re giving us a fighting chance. So fuck him!”
