Beatrix’s chest tightened in that reflexive way it did when an unexpected bill materialized. “Has the infernal contraption brokenagain?”
Lydia sighed. “Twice in one week has to be a record.”
“I’ll drop it off with Mr. Hawkins tomorrow.”
“I brought it by this afternoon.” Her sister brushed a stray hair behind her ear, the gesture looking weary. “He thinks there’s nothing more he can do.”
A stroke of bad luck—another one. The typewriter had been ailing for months, but Beatrix had hoped it would last until the end of the year, when she might have enough scraped up for a replacement. Or better yet, until May, when Lydia would graduate.
The dress soaking in the bathroom was almost certainly ruined, too. But at least that dress was the very oldest she owned—one of her mother’s—and its absence could be dealt with by wearing Monday’s outfit again on Friday.
She sat on her bed, a groan escaping.
“It’s all right, Bee.” Lydia glanced over at her. “Really. The professors accept handwritten essays—I checked. And Meg said I could use her typewriter when I’m on campus.”
Meg Wallace, Lydia’s classmate and League treasurer, came from a family of means. She would never have to worry about broken typewriters. Neither would the rest of Lydia’s classmates at Hazelhurst College, for that matter.
“What are you working on?” Beatrix asked, unable to keep the question from sounding wistful. “The biology assignment?”
“Finished it. On to twentieth-century history.”
“Ah.”
“I’m arguing that the period is a prime example of the fallacy that progress is inevitable.”
“No doubt the wizards would disagree,” Beatrix said, her sense of humor reasserting itself after hours of suppression.
Lydia shot her a look. Wizards, in her opinion, were no joking matter. She didn’t subscribe to the idea that laughter counted as protest.
“Tell me about Peter Blackwell.” Lydia turned more fully in her chair. “How dangerous do you think he could be?”
“Rosemarie taught him for eight years. Wouldn’t you rather ask her?”
“I already did.”
That was what she got for being petty. She laughed under her breath at herself.
“But I want your opinion,” Lydia said—so sincerely that Beatrix’s resentment faded back to its usual under-the-surface condition, like a headache just before the pain.
Of course her sister was worried. Lydia had been born just after Blackwell left for the Wizardry Academy in Arlington. She’d grown up hearing gossip about his skill and intelligence, and suddenly he’d reappeared.
“I’ll grant you he could be dangerous if he was so inclined,” Beatrix said, running fingers through her damp hair so she could braid it. “He’s a much better wizard thanOmnimancer Graham. You know Graham had half the town convinced that spellsnevertook on the first try?”
Her sister’s lips quirked. There was hope for the girl yet. It was hard to grin back, though, because at that moment Lydia looked so very much like their mother. Naturally she did, with her auburn hair, hazel eyes and pale skin (none of which Beatrix had inherited—brown, brown, browned), but for all that, her face hardly ever suggested their mother, whose default expression had been a smile. Usually mischievous.
“What else?” Lydia asked, dragging her back to the present.
“Well ... he’s bright. Very. We were in the same grade, so I can attest to that.” She tried to think of other relevant facts as she finished her braid. “He doesn’t have any family left in town. Oh, and he’s clearly used to everyone doing exactly as he says, but I suspect that’s standard issue for wizards.”
“What did he do today? While he made you clean house, I mean.”
“Harvested leaves. He claims Washington won’t be supplying him, which makes no sense.”
Lydia raised one eyebrow, a habit she’d picked up from Rosemarie. “It does if he’s trying to create the impression there’s a rift.”
Beatrix almost shot back “not everything is about you”—almost—but kept the uncharitable words to herself. Lydia hadn’t asked for most of what she’d got. She hadn’t even asked to be sent to college. It was simply that she took as a given that uncomplaining Bee would plow every sparemoment into her cause, and it was getting harder and harder to see that as anything but unfair.
It wasn’t that Lydia was selfish. Just single-minded to a fault.
