“Please stay for dinner, then,” Miss Harper said.
He didn’t want to. He wanted to be out of this house, away from these women who—variously—distrusted him, disliked him, tolerated him and unwillingly loved him. But the thought of leaving Beatrix while a wizard potentially lurked nearby, waiting to do who-knew-what harm, twisted his internal organs into knots.
“Thank you,” he said. “I will.”
The wait was every bit as uncomfortable as he’d anticipated. Beatrix excused herself to start dinner, and he was prevented from following by Miss Knight and Miss Dane, who practically frog-marched him to the sitting room. For tea, as if he were a social caller. The missing tenant returned and joined the crowd, staring at him in wide-eyed silence as the others questioned him.
Did he have any family in town? No, none anywhere since his grandmother died, six months after he’d been whisked off to Arlington to train as a wizard. (It had not been a good first year.)
How did Ellicott Mills compare with his memories? Smaller. Poorer.
What was his opinion of Washington? Not fit for mixed company.
Not asked was the question he knew at least some of them were dying to put into words:What exactly is going on between you and Beatrix?
Dinner was quiet, perhaps because everyone had exhausted their store of polite and semi-polite small talk. Afterward, the tenant—whatever her name was—worked up the courage to whisper “it was very nice to meet you” and tiptoed upstairs.
The time had come. He slipped out into the darkness.
He worked quickly, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. Invisibility would do him no good at this point—either way, it would be immediately obvious who was casting the spell if anyone from D.C. was watching.
Nothing in the garage. Nothing in the garden. He did a brisk circuit around the house: nothing, nothing, nothing ... something. The telephone junction box lit up just like his had.
He dropped his spell and went back to the dining room, where four sets of eyes bore into him. “You’ve been tapped,” he said.
Beatrix shook her head, looking less upset than perplexed. “Why now? I mean, why not months ago?”
He shrugged. “New man on the job?”
“Perhaps the leak’s been shut off and they need a new source of information,” Miss Dane said. Looking directly at Miss Knight.
Miss Knight threw up her hands. “Oh, for?—”
“Thank you, Omnimancer,” Beatrix cut in, standing up. “I know you must want to get home.”
He hastened out after her before someone could insist he stay. She walked him down the darkened driveway, the silence between them like a physical weight he didn’t know how to cast off.
She turned to him as they reached his car. “It feels so inadequate, but all I can think to say is that I’m grateful.” She hesitated, then took his hand in both of hers, sending a jolt up his spine. “Thank you very much, Peter.”
She hurried back to the house before he could respond.
He drove home, thoughts in turmoil, and went to his greenhouse to see to the plants. Strictly speaking, he never should have involved himself in the Harpers’ problems. Doing so increased his chances of arrest, made him fall inlove with Beatrix and led to the final Vow that bound them so inextricably.
But he wanted her sister to succeed—and to stay alive. Hadn’t Beatrix lost enough already?
He looked down to find he’d thoroughly overwatered the last plant. He couldn’t afford to lose track of his surroundings—for all he knew, the nameless wizard was still in town. Brushing the dirt off his hands, he cast a careful eye over the greenhouse. It seemed fine. So did the lawn beyond. He strode to the side of the house, dropped the protection spell around it and opened the basement door.
The next instant he was on his hands and knees in the dark cellar. An assailant he couldn’t see had barreled into him so violently that it felt more like being hit by a truck than a man. The door shut with a bang.
Adrenaline surging, he struggled to his feet. Grabbed for leaves. Tried to cast a protection spell. The intruder slammed him into a wall and affixed him there with a whipcrack-quick incantation that left his locket burning, his fuel out of reach and his feet an inch off the floor. He couldn’t move anything but his head, which ached from the impact. Clearly his stutteredbeorgandidn’t take.
The wizard spit out the spell that reversed invisibility and growled, “What do you think you’re doing?” His face was deeply shadowed, but his voice was unfortunately familiar.
Garrett.
The man didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re casting on the side for the Harpers. You’re the reason they keep pushing on as if they have an ice cube’s chance.”
“I’m not?—”
