But she couldn’t, and as she drove home, her mind returned to a different question, the one that had made her feel sick when it struck her earlier that evening. Could Theo really have been interested in her? The odds seemed low. Perhaps they’d sent him to do double duty: investigate Blackwell and romance Lydia Harper’s sister. What if, despite her efforts, she’d told him something that helped the magiocracy?
She should have listened to Ella.
Turning up the winding driveway to Cedarlawn, she braced herself for problems. But she wasn’t expecting the one that revealed itself as the trees gave way and the house came into view.
Theo. Theo pacing outside the front door, walking in and out of the glow cast by the porch light. He stopped as he caught sight of the car.
“Shit,” Blackwell said, sounding as tense as she felt.
“I’ll take care of this,” Ella said.
Beatrix sighed. “No. I need to tell him something, and it had better be in private.”
“Scield,” Blackwell murmured, and she felt the results of his protection spell prickle her skin.
She parked the car shy of the garage, close enough that the porch would still be visible, and rubbed her arms to get rid of the goosebumps he’d raised. The churning in her stomach wouldn’t be so easily subdued. It wasn’t fear—Theo couldn’t be intending to jump anyone, not out in the open like that—but rather the expectation of a simply awful conversation.Exactly how much of what you’ve said to me has been lies?
“Don’t let him put his hands in his pockets,” Blackwell said, the words sharp.
A burst of anxiety hit her, so out of proportion with how she’d felt the moment before that it could only be his.
“Miss Harper, do youhearme?”
“Yes,” she said, truly uneasy now. This man understood the magiocracy. He’d guessed at what might happen to Lydia. And now he was worried, very worried, abouther.
She opened the door and walked toward Theo, taking deep breaths. He covered the distance at a run.
“Are you all right?” he said, urgency in his words, on his face, in the way he grasped her arms. “Is your sister all right?”
Of all the things she thought he might say, that was not among them. “What do you mean?”
His answer was whisper quiet. “My unit’s been ordered to stop her ... by any means necessary.”
She stared at him, shocked he would admit it. Had she misjudged him?
“Tell me I’m not too late!”he insisted.
Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. This didn’t seem like the behavior of a man pretending to care. “You’re not.”
“Thank God,” he said, pressing her to him.
Her doubts about him didn’t disappear, but they faded beneath the warmth and solidity of his embrace. She hadn’t realized until this moment how badly she wanted him to be the Theo she’d thought he was—how much she wanted this one thing in her life to go right.
“I tried to find you in Baltimore, but I had no idea where you were. Beatrix ...” His grip on her tightened. “Your sister is in terrible danger.”
“Why?” she said, all her fear, anger and shock about Lydia’s situation making the word a protest. “Why on earth would anyone want to assassinate the leader of aladies’group?”
“They think she might succeed.”
“In banning magic?”
“In getting them tossed out.”
She pulled away so rapidly that her head spun. “She’s never said that in public before tonight.”
“She must have said it in private. Word got back.”
Yet more confirmation they had a leak. If it wasn’t Ella, who could it be?
