She stared at him, hardly able to believe it.Wrong?
“I was stuck in the room at that point and couldn’t leave until you went to the lavatory,” he said. “And then I got back home to find …”
He pressed his hands to his eyes and said, “That was the most wonderful present I’ve ever had. And it couldn’t have been better timed to drive home what a terrible mistake I’d made.”
“You …” Beatrix swallowed. “You were in the room as we discussed the march.”
“Yes.”
“And then you slipped out.”
“Like a thief.”
He’d missed it. He’d been there, could have overheard all their plans, but simply hadn’t followed them to the restroom. They’d avoided discovery by the barest of margins.
“I know full well that I shouldn’t have done it. It was a breach of trust. Again,” he said, and his voice cracked.
Oh, God, she couldn’t take it. She stumbled to a chair and sat.
He took the seat next to her. “I don’t want to spy on you, or badger you dreamside when you have no ability to holdback, or force you to talk by calling on your Vow. I won’t. Just—please, tell me what you’ve decided to do. Tell me of your own volition.”
Could she be sure that anything she did was of her own volition? Anything, at least, besides Plan B?
She wanted to tell him, if “want” wasn’t such a woefully inadequate word for it. Her stomach churned at the thought of continuing to hide this from him. Her hands trembled. Her chest ached.
Oh, her chest ached, all right—precisely where the twined threads that connected them dove, unseen and unasked-for, into the body he’d unwittingly taken over.
And yet if he could undo it, he would. Of all the things she doubted, that was not one of them. Could she really sit here and lie to his face to protect her sister?
This could be the day.
“I …” she gasped out, blinking back tears. “I …” She grasped for the only true thing she was willing to say: “I don’t know what to do.”
There were two ways to take that, and she watched him latch on to the one she hadn’t meant. He let out a breath, shoulders relaxing. His jolt of relief washed over to her, zipping to her belly in a strange counterpoint to the tension there. He said, “I’m not going to repeat the arguments I’ve made too many times already. But could you make me one promise? Will you tell me when you come to a decision?”
There was no way to slide around this question. Truth or falsehood. The time had come.
She thought of Lydia, swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “I promise.”
And though she put her head in her hands and cried after he left, she walked out of the dining room knowing she’d done what was morally required of her. Lydia was her only living relative. She had to take the actions that offered her sister the best chance of surviving this nightmare. If the situation were reversed and Lydia were Peter’s sister, he would do the exact same thing.
CHAPTER 5
Ella stared at her from her perch on the edge of the tub, aghast.“What?”
“He didn’t hear anything but the march discussion,” Beatrix repeated, “but he followed us and we had no idea. What if a wizard who isn’t on our side does that?”
“I don’t think our omnimancer is on any side but his own,” Ella muttered, “but I take your point.”
“We need to know whether we’ve got an invisible watcher on our heels without casting a spell.”
“Would give that invisible watcher abitof a clue that something was afoot if we did.” Ella’s lips turned up, but Beatrix was too upset for her friend’s good humor to work on her.
“The new magic’s the only way,” Beatrix said. “But our knitting’s not working.”
“Well, itis, just not …” Ella waved a hand, looking for the right word.
“At all well,” Beatrix said, gazing at the broken tile near the toilet.
