Martinelli laughed and almost fell getting up from the table. But once on the line, he sounded perfectly sober and said he expected he would be in just an hour or two late. They sat in the kitchen a while longer, bracing themselves for the trip up the stairs, and finally made it without an accident.
He got Martinelli settled in a spare bedroom. Back in his own room, he returned the contracts to their hiding place under a floorboard. There would be no use in running now.
He went to bed dreading what he would have to tell Beatrix.
As Lydia,Ella and Rosemarie gathered with her in the sitting room, Beatrix passed around a note with a fraught question:Do you think it was an accident?
No one needed her to clarify what “it” was. Lydia nodded. Rosemarie gave a weary shrug. Ella shook her head, frowning.
Think—is there anything else about the afternoon we should know?Rosemarie wrote.
Beatrix realized with a start that she’d told only Lydia what Garrett had said about the not-actual attempt on her life. The original paper was gone, burned, so she wrote the explanation out again. Ella and Rosemarie looked at it with identical expressions of shock.
But then Rosemarie took the pen and wrote,It does explain why nothing like that incident has followed. And we know for a fact that they’re trying to find something to discredit us.
We need to concentrate on that,Lydia wrote.I think we can put these worries about my safety behind us.
For the second time that day, Ella grabbed the pen from her hands.No! Huge mistake! Morse is Draden’s wizard, and I’m telling you, if they can’t stop you by ruining your reputation, they’ll arrange a tragic “accident.” We can’t lower our guard!
The old panic pricked at Beatrix.This could be the dayechoed in her head. But she took a deep breath and the panic subsided. She’d let the supposed assassination attempt hijack her, press her into decisions she never should have made. She wouldn’t let fear control her this time. She wouldn’t.
Lydia, taking the pen back with a small frown, wrote:I can’t live my life this way. I refuse. They’ve shown that theyplan to bury us in scandal, and we should treatthatrisk with the seriousness it deserves.
Ella put her hand out for the pen, obviously intending to argue, but Rosemarie got it first.We’ll discuss it later. Time for bed.
That left Beatrix with no distraction from the question that most of her fears now centered on: What would become of Peter? Would the next day be the last she saw him in real life?
The relief she felt when she landed dreamside and he said he’d decided to stay was intense but brief. So much could still go wrong. She held him, trembling, as they discussed the call to the police she would have to make the next day.
Then she told him what Garrett had admitted about Lydia.
“What?”he said, looking furious.
“I know,” she murmured. “But how are we supposed to know if he was telling the truth that time?”
He slumped onto his back, his scowl softening into a thoughtful frown. After a while, he said: “I can’t think of a reason he’d lie about this. It doesn’t do anything for him—quite the opposite.”
“Ella insists Lydia is still in danger.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Garrett was in a far better position than Miss Knight to know the magiocracy’s intentions, don’t you think?”
She exhaled. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to hear him refute Ella’s warning. She reached for his hand and impulsively kissed it.
“Beatrix …” He swallowed. “There’s something I must tell you.”
He was an unwilling narrator, judging by how frequently he stopped and how little he looked her in the eye. She listened in blank astonishment as his evening revealed itself.
Martinelli’s certainty that separation would be dangerous for her and Peter—perhaps drive them insane—was chilling but not a complete shock. Worse, somehow, was what he’d learned about the few others who had been in their predicament.
Peter didn’t draw conclusions about what it meant. But it was obvious.
“Then … you don’t love me.” She couldn’t disguise the strain in her voice. “Everything we’re feeling, both of us, is a lie.”
His gaze was on the ceiling. “So it would seem.”
No part of this should have broken her heart. There was nothing rational about the way she was taking it. She searched for something to say and came up with, “Is it better for you, knowing we’re in the same boat?”
“No. It’s worse. The whole mess is still my fault, and I would much rather have the satisfaction of knowing that my feelings aremine.” He looked at her then, the two of them separated on his bed by a few inches of physical space and this massive revelation. “How does it make you feel?”
