“Mom?” He said the word as if it were second nature, his voice trembling, young, feminine. “I love you,” he whispered, throat closing in on him. “We all need you.Terribly. Lydia is bawling without you, I can’t believe the noise she can make with her tiny lungs, but I don’t blame her, I want to scream, too—please, Mommy,” he said, gasping for air. “Please, don’t leave us. Don’t leaveme.”
He woke with a start in bed, heart galloping, wondering why in the hell he’d dreamt he was Miss Harper as she watched her mother fade away. Possibly his conscience trying to tell him something?
“Where were you when I needed you,” he croaked.
Beatrix was readingtheStarafter breakfast, half-listening to the newsreader on the radio, when she got to her feet without any idea what she was doing. She tried to sit and couldn’t, the ghost of pomegranate coating her throat, making her cough.
Lydia ran over with a cup of water, pressing it into her hands. “OK?”
“Yes, thank you.” Beatrix downed it, trying to wash away the taste. “I just remembered that our omnimancer wants me back today.”
“On the weekend? Again?” Outrage pinched Lydia’s face. “Howcanyou like this job?”
“Temporary insanity.”
Beatrix darted to her room for her wizard’s coat and marched to the Victorian on the hill, a marionette with her strings pulled. When Blackwell opened the door, she said nothing for fear of what might come out of her mouth.
He blinked at her. Then, a guarded edge to his voice, he said, “Good morning.”
“It was,” she said, “until yousummoned me here.”
Shock twisted his features for an instant before he got control of himself. “Come in.”
She lurched forward.
“Please,” he said in a hurry, turning the order into a request.
She steadied herself against the doorframe and stepped inside, heart pounding in her ears. He hadn’t meant for her to show up. That seemed perfectly clear. How did this ghastly contract work? Did he even know?
Blackwell closed the door behind them. “I should have given you your pay yesterday. If you’ll wait here, I’ll fetch it.”
So that was how it would be. The sick feeling in her stomach intensified. She didn’t want to imagine what she might be forced to do by a stray muttering of his—or worse, an errant thought.
He returned with an envelope and handed it over. “I thought you might have bills in need of settling immediately.”
Oh, really.
“I see,” she said. “So you made me walk a mile on a day off—with no idea why—to rectify your oversight.”
He winced. “I ...”
“You could have telephoned, you know. Or come yourself.”
But the man was too quick to be caught flat-footed again. “The telephone company isn’t due to reconnect the house until Monday. And I doubted your sister would appreciate a wizard appearing uninvited on her doorstep.”
“How thoughtful. Am I free to go?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding as if he would like nothing better. But as her hand closed on the doorknob, he added: “Unless, that is, you’re able to work today.”
She stared at the light filtering through the window above the door. Freedom—so close, so far. “I am at your command.”
“Are youwillingto work today? For overtime pay, of course.”
She wanted to say no, both to get away and because “no” was an answer she would rarely be allowed to give him. But she couldn’t afford to turn down a day’s pay, let alone time-and-a-half. The sooner she got to the end of Lydia’s crushing tuition bills, the better. Their roof, long overdue for replacing, might start leaking at any moment.
“Yes,” she said, sighing. Feet leaden, she followed him further into the house she’d left the day before at a run.
He led her to the cellar. She thought of Persephone, forever wintering in hell.
