“You think I’m overjoyed about that? Don’t blame me, Miss Harper. You demanded the second Vow.”
“Oh yes! How could you possibly be to blame for all the actions you took to force me to that point?”
He was tired of feeling guilty. He was trying to keep the world from blowing itself up, and he’d be damned if he was going to stand in the bedroom of the woman who almost ruined his life and let her daughter declare him a villain—even if it was uncomfortably close to the truth.
“I didn’t force you to read that report,” he said. “I didn’t force you to cast those spells. If you were honorable, you would have closed that desk drawer and walked away.”
He’d obviously hit the mark. She turned and sat on her parents’ bed, looking out the window rather than at him.
“You’ve done what I asked,” she said. “You’re free to go. Thank you for proving that there isonehonest wizard in Ellicott Mills.”
Peter canceled the spell, wishing the wretched Garretthadcast something, and swept out of the house.
He had plenty of time on the slog back through the forest to think about everything Miss Harper might see if he continued to dream of past events. Creating Project 96. Testing it with ever-more effective and appalling fuel. Replacing it with an inferior lookalike and ferrying away the original in the dead of night. What if, slipping through some loophole he neglected to close, she found a way to pass the information to Garrett?
He poked at his order from all angles and could not find a weak spot. That left him free to chew over a different miserable thought. God knew what he would dream with Miss Harper watching—judging. His subconscious would be laid bare before her, the person who hated him more than anyone else in the world.
CHAPTER 17
Beatrix and Ella were hoisting their bags to tromp to work together when the doorbell sounded. Theo Garrett stood on the porch.
“I’ve come to collect,” he said.
“Oh?” Beatrix said, smiling at the contrast between his serious tone and quirked lips.
“You promised me a walk through the woods. I thought I might as well tag along when you were already about to take one.”
“I wouldn’t say Ipromised?—”
“Miss Harper, how am I supposed to prove I’m nothing like your idea of wizards if you never spend more than a few minutes with me? I call that unjust.”
A snort from somewhere behind her, presumably Ella’s, offered commentary. But Beatrix, who couldn’t very well tell him he had already proved himself, saw no way to keep himfrom joining them without being overtly rude. And she needed—urgently—to test every square inch of her Vow to see if some drops of information could get through to him.
“Come along, then,” she said. “This is my friend?—”
“Forgot something,” Ella said abruptly. “Go on, don’t wait for me.”
“Oh, but …”
Ella was already headed up the steps, away from them. “Hurry, or you’ll be late.”
“You know,” Garrett said sotto voce, tapping his forehead, “I’m beginning to think she might not entirely like wizards, either.”
Beatrix tried to hold back a laugh, with only partial success.
“It’s so refreshing to get out of D.C.,” he added cheerfully as they walked around the house to the back yard. “You know exactly where you stand here.”
His good humor was infectious. How tempting it would be to get caught up in it and put Blackwell out of her mind for the duration of the walk. But she had work to do.
She tried to say, “Blackwell’s spending hours firing off explosive spells.” She couldn’t so much as form the first word.
She attempted to just spit out“fordest”while pointing in the general direction of the omnimancer’s mansion, but she couldn’t move her tongue or her arm.
She made herself stop thinking of possible sentences or what she was trying to accomplish. “Blackwell,” she managed to say, and then started to choke.
“Are you all right?” Garrett reached for her as if he thought a few pats on the back were required.
“Fine,” she gasped, getting control of her traitorous lungs.
