“I saw you.”
It registered, vaguely, that this wizard had to be at least six-foot-two—Garrett towered over him. He tested the magic holding his arms to the wall and couldn’t move them a bit. He’d never felt so outmatched in his life.
“Could we please have a normal conversation upstairs with less skull-splitting?” he said, hardly able to hear his own voice over the roar of his pulse.
“Don’t be absurd.Talk.You cast the spell-scanner outside their house.”
No point denying it. Better to make it appear he’d done it coincidentally.
“Of course,” he said, stoking up anger to tamp down panic. Reminding himself that Garrett still had nothing on him to warrant arrest. “Every so often I check their property for spells becausefucking wizards are trying to kill them.”
Garrett’s face, coming into clearer view as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, twisted with some strong feeling. Loathing. Contempt. “The newspapers would be very interested to hear they’re requesting magic, don’t you think?”
“If you leak it to the press,” he said, carefully enunciating every word, “I’ll tell them why I’m doing it.”
“You sicken me.”
Peter couldn’t manage to hold back an aggrieved,“What?”
Garrett crossed his arms, a gesture of supreme confidence in his spellwork—confidence that was not misplaced. “Youwant Beatrix Harper, so you press her into working for you. You make yourself invaluable to her. ‘Oh, keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll take care of you.’ Well, youcan’t.You can’t even take care of yourself.”
Peter wasn’t certain whom this insulted more—him or Beatrix. “You think I hired her in some sort of grand plan to seduce her?”
Garrett slammed a fist into the wall an inch shy of his head.Shit. The collision sounded like metal on stone—like Garrett had a powerful protection spell on himself. As the man pulled back, Peter could see he’d damaged the wall.
“I know that’s what you did,” Garrett hissed. “I saw the way you looked at her when she thanked you.”
Fear zinged through him with the speed of a spell. This wasn’t Garrett the Army wizard, here on orders to scare him straight. It was Garrett the jealous ex-lover.
He took a moment to gather his wits because his life could depend on his answer.
“I hired her because she’s the brightest person in town. In fact, by giving her no choice about whether to work for me, I guaranteed I’d be”—he thought of her words and suppressed a sigh—“the very last person she’d ever love.”
Garrett didn’t seem entirely persuaded by this line of reasoning. But this time the man aimed nothing worse at him than a skeptical look.
“Listen,” Peter said, forcing himself to go on, to make the suggestion that was in Beatrix’s best interest but left him physically ill. “I know who you are, Wizard Garrett. I know how you feel about my assistant. It doesn’t have to be thisway—helpher. You could do it far more effectively than I could.”
Garrett was evidently too taken aback to have an immediate response. Peter pressed his advantage. “You don’t want to quit the Army? Fine. Tell Miss Harper whatever they’re planning. Keep her and her sister safe.”
Worm your way back into Beatrix’s heart.
“That’s a court-martial offense,” Garrett said, the words barely above a whisper.
“I guarantee what your unit is doing is illegal. Pick your crime.”
Garrett looked away. He needed more. One more reason.
“They’re doing important work,” Peter said—and realized an instant too late, as Garrett whipped about, that he’d made a mistake. That Garrett had fallen for Beatrix in spite of her League activities.
“You’ve got to bejoking.” Garrett gestured aggressively. “I don’t think Lydia fucking Harper will get anywhere, but if she did, she’d destabilize the entire country. It’s madness.”
“‘Throw the bums out’ has a rather long and storied place in American history?—”
“Throwing all thewizardsout is a short-sighted and naïve suggestion!” Garrett stepped in, too close. “Stop aiding the Harpers. She needs to quit—no good will come of this.”
Peter wanted to throttle the man. Garrett looked as if he felt the same way about him. Only one of them could follow through.
“She’s not going to quit.” He looked the wizard in the eye, willing him to be reasonable. “It doesn’t matter what either of us do or don’t do—you must see that.”
