She could feel the future she wanted, the one his proposal represented, accelerating away from her. “Tell them why,” she said. Pleaded, actually. “They’d understand that.”
“Ican’t.”
“Well—stay, then, and blow the whistle. Tell Congress, if they’re not in on it—tell the press.” She knelt down and grasped his shoulders. “Someone has to stop them. If not us, who?”
“Beatrix,” he said, running fingertips down her jawline, shaking his head, “my whole life—it’s all tied up with the Army. You can’t ask that of me.”
“What about mysister’slife?” She let go of his arms before the urge to shake him overcame her better judgment. “Do you really intend to—to stand by as your colleagues murder her?”
“What? No! There’s only one thing to be done. Surely you must see that.”
“What?”
“She has to step down.”
The words cut into her far more effectively than a knife. A knife could damage only what it touched, just muscle and tendon and bone. She scrambled to her feet.
“I see,” she said, cursing the way her voice caught. “Gain my trust, then use me as the tool to get this inconvenient woman out of the way.”
“Beatrix—”
“I might be a fool, but I’m not an idiot.”
“This isn’t a trick!” He leapt up, and she had to take two steps backward to avoid his grasping hands. “For God’s sake, I’m asking you to marry me! Your sister is all the family you have left, and the wizards in my unit are very, very good at what they do?—”
“Lydia willneverquit. And neither will I.”
He threw up his arms. “This isn’t worth dying for.”
“Freedom of speech? Self-determination? An honest-to-God democracy? People died to ensure we would have these things!”
“Men died, Beatrix.Men.”
A second ticked past, then two, as her ears rang with this proof that he didn’t see her—would never see her—as an equal. What was it that Blackwell had told her?Very revealing, the things people say when they’re provoked.
“Get out of here,” she snarled. “Don’t come back.”
Peter,hovering a dozen feet from the action in tortuous suspense, sagged in relief after Garrett snatched a red from his coat and teleported away. Every muscle had been tensed with the effort of watching the man for signs of imminent spellcasting—and with the horrible thought, until the finalmoments of the conversation, that Miss Harper might actually accept the proposal.
Miss Knight came running from the car, her unbuttoned coat flying out behind her. “Is he definitely gone?”
Miss Harper put a trembling hand over her eyes. “I think so. Teleportation makes a distinctive sound.”
“I know, but I want to check.”
“Hang on—I’ve got it,” Peter said and loped off.
He demarcated the entire property, burying the stones so Miss Harper could draw on them later without anyone coming across them. When he jogged back, she was leaning against her friend, eyes red. He cast the magic-detection spell, turning everything a matching shade.
Almost everything. The exceptions he’d expected glowed bright white: the teleportation spot, his own invisible body, Miss Harper’s hair and the link between him and her. He glanced at the women as they pulled away from each other, wondering if Miss Knight’s one-way Vow to Miss Harper had produced a smaller thread of magic between them, but found nothing.
Then he glanced at the house and saw another tell-tale white glow at the same instant that Miss Harper did, judging from the breath catching in her throat.
The front door.
“Ohno,” she said, taking off for it at a sprint.
He caught up with her, grabbing her hand before she could touch the illuminated doorknob. “Stop! It could be booby-trapped.”
