“Don’t you think it far more likely to have been an unlocking spell so they could do more casting inside?”
Miss Knight clattered to a halt on the porch. “That’s almost certainly it.”
“We can’t just assume—” he began.
Miss Knight jumped forward and turned the handle.
Nothing happened—magical or otherwise. The door was locked.
“You could havekilledus,” he said, only just managing not to yell.
Miss Knight, putting her key in the lock and opening the door, waved this off. “They won’t set off an explosion or anything else that would look like a hit. ‘Accidents’—that’s what we have to worry about.”
She was right, which made him even angrier in the split-second before reason took over. He breathed in, calming down.
“H-hello?”
A woman he didn’t recognize, a waif of a thing with large eyes, peeked out from the sitting room. One of the boarders?
“Miss Massey—sorry to startle you,” Miss Harper said. “It’s just me and Ella.”
The woman tiptoed closer and looked out, as if to reassure herself of that. In a voice little louder than a whisper, she said, “I thought I heard a man’s voice.”
“Wizard Garrett.” Miss Harper’s shoulders stiffened. “He won’t be back.”
“Oh,” Miss Massey said. It was probably just his imagination that she seemed disappointed. What was she doing in a house full of League members if she liked wizards?
Miss Harper shot Miss Knight a look. Miss Knight stepped into the house and took the waif’s arm.
“I hate to impose upon you,” she said, “but I find myself in desperate need of your assistance.”
Miss Massey blinked several times in evident confusion. “Myassistance?”
“Yes. I need you to teach me how to play a passable game of checkers.” Miss Knight looked up at the woman, expression so extremely serious that it crossed the line into comical. “It is of theutmostimportance.”
Miss Massey must have had no idea how to respond to this, for she simply said “oh” again.
Miss Knight was already maneuvering her up the stairs. “I promised my pupils I would play with them during lunch on Monday, you see, and I’ve no idea how. And you’re ever so good at the game ...”
She gave Miss Harper a lunatic grin over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner. How could she joke at a time like this? But Miss Harper, stepping into the house, made a choked sound that could only be a laugh.
“Miss Massey’s not in the League, I take it,” he murmured, following her in and closing the door.
“No.” Miss Harper’s smile faded, and he thought for a second that the mere reminder of his invisible presence had wiped away her mirth. But then she added, “Someone’s passing information to the magiocracy, and there’s anoutside chance it’s her, so we absolutely cannot let her see or hear anything we don’t want them to know.”
That explained the checkers game. He couldn’t imagine a more unlikely spy, though.
“I’ll cast the detector spells,” he said, whisper-quiet, stepping nearer so she could hear him. “It’s always possible there’s a wizard in the house right now, and until we know there isn’t ...”
She took a step closer still, skirt brushing against his boots. “How many spells were cast here while we were gone?”
He could smell the faint citrus scent in her hair again. He inhaled, thinking of that moment in the interlocking circles—and then the dream, pressed against her—oh God he couldn’t keep standing here. Rapid fire, he said: “No idea. I have to be in town for the charm to work. Hang on.”
He placed stones in each corner of the living room, cast the detection spell and leaned against the wall, relieved, when no white marred the red besides the faint remains of the detection spell he’d cast here weeks earlier. He’d taken care to do it in a corner of the room so he would recognize his own handiwork.
From there, it was a slightly altered repeat of that September afternoon. This time, only he cast the spells and Miss Harper limited herself to searching in drawers and looking under furniture. And this time, when she stepped into her parents’ room as he finished up there, he realized three twined threads linked them rather than two. Surely itwasn’t his imagination that each was thicker than the ones binding them together before.
She stared at the bright-white connection with what looked—felt—like despair. “I didn’t find anything. You?”
