Finally, Rosemarie spoke up from the back. “What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing’—it’s clear as day that it’s something. You haven’t been right all weekend.”
“We’re worried about you,” said Ella, who had more reason than the rest to be anxious.
Beatrix didn’t know what to say. Blackwell had seen to it that she was physically incapable of answering the question.
Lydia laid a hand on her shoulder. “Bee, please ...”
She opened her mouth to try to deflect. Then it occurred to her that the newest development in what was wrong fell largely outside the constraints of the Vow.
“I’ve discovered that my mother—our mother,” she amended, glancing at Lydia, “had a burning hatred of illegitimate children. She was prepared to let Peter Blackwell rot in Ellicott Mills rather than allow the scholarship foundation to cover his high school tuition.”
She regretted the words as soon as she heard Lydia’s breath catch in her throat. Her sister had grown up on stories of the mother she’d never known. She’d preferred them to fairy tales.
“No—no.” Lydia’s voice was low and pleading. “That doesn’t sound like her at all.”
What good did it do to knock their mother off the pedestal she’d built? But she couldn’t take it back now. Turning the sedan up their long driveway, she said, “It’s true. I had it from Mrs. Price.”
Lydia made a dismissive noise. “Oh, Mrs.Price?—”
“He knows, doesn’t he?” Ella leaned forward, her face visible in the rearview mirror. “You heard it from Omnimancer Blackwell first.”
Beatrix couldn’t say. That fell under his broad “don’t communicate about anything that happens in this house except for brewing” rule. But the women took the choked sound she made when the pomegranate coated her throat as confirmation.
“Ohno.” Ella sounded horrified. “Is that the reason he strong-armed you into working for him?”
“It would seem so” came out with no difficulty at all. And it was probably true—not the reason he needed a female assistant, but the reason he pickedher.
She pulled the car into the garage and they sat for a moment in silence. How much she had wanted to explain her situation to everyone, to Lydia, and how terrible this bit of it proved. Her sister’s eyes were shut tight, mouth screwed up in a grimace.
“I’m mailing a complaint to the wizard ethics board tomorrow,” Ella said. “It’s worth a try.”
“No,” she heard herself say.
“No?Why?”
Because saying anything else—or even nothing at all—would be actively trying to get him into trouble, and the Vow wasn’t having it.
“Because ... because it’s not going to get him removed,” she said, settling on another true answer. “It would just make my situation worse.”
“Bee,” Lydia said, “I want you to quit.”
Beatrix gasped. Rosemarie, quicker to the mark, said, “Lydia,think!If she quits, you might have to drop out one semester short of earning your degree!”
“That’s exactly what I did think of at first.” There was disgust there, and bitterness, too. Lydia took Beatrix’s hand. “I just assumed you’d want me to finish at all costs, and like an idiot I never asked.”
Beatrix’s throat clogged again, but this time the Vow had nothing to do with it. She squeezed her sister’s hand. “I’m all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll be damned if I let him rob you of your degree.”
The expletive did what she hoped and broke the tension. Rosemarie snorted. Ella laughed. Only Lydia did not look entertained.
Just then, Miss Massey—who had stayed home with a headache—came rushing into the garage. Beatrix opened her door, concerned.
“Are you coming in?” Her boarder was so excited or agitated—hard to tell which—that the volume of her voice was nearly equal to a normal conversation. “There’s awizardwaiting for you in the sitting room!”
“Omnimancer Blackwell?” Beatrix grasped the doorframe, wondering what new horrors he had in store.
“No! Come in, comein!I’ve been sitting with him for fifteen minutes and I can’t take the strain for another moment!”
They piled out of the car. It was all Beatrix could do not to run. She caught sight of their visitor through the picture window, sitting with one of the good-china teacups in his hands—the striking-looking wizard who’d chauffeured the general to town the week before.
