“You’re not.” His voice was low. “Beatrix, I swear I’m on your side.”
And yet he didn’t say a word about the recording equipment. She crossed her arms.
“Once I’m determined to do something, I never,everquit,” he said, pinning her with his gaze.
Her stomach clenched. Did he mean Peter or her?
She caught a glimpse of red as he pulled a leaf from his coat. He was gone with a pop. She braced herself against a tree, waiting for the adrenaline to clear. Then she strode on to work, the conversation replaying in her head.Helpless woman. Don’t make me say what I mean. Honestly! Garrett all but accused her of prostituting herself and then had the gall to say?—
She stopped at the edge of the forest. If he had known about the recording equipment, he could have seen for himself that she didn’t leave her bed all night. Did henotknow? Did he not have access to the recordings? Or perhaps he did but thought someone was listening, and that was his roundabout way of warning her?
He wasn’t in his bed last night.Wait—did Garrett break into Peter’shouse?She remembered with a jolt why she hadn’t slept with him overnight: Dreamside had abruptly cut off.
She ran the rest of the way to work.
As she lifted her fist to hammer on the door, it opened, revealing a white-faced Peter. She leapt inside and shut the door behind her.
“Are you—” she started to say, but he put a finger to his lips.
“He’s gone,” she murmured.
His eyes widened. “You saw him?”
“Talked to him and watched him dematerialize.”
He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “Let me check the house. Just in case.”
The trembling wasn’t obvious at first, but by the time he got to the attic, he had to hold his casting arm still to get the magic to take.
“Peter—what did he do to you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “He didn’t see me. But I couldn’t get any sleep after he left.”
She took his arm. “Come on. Bed.”
“No, the R&D?—”
“You’ll be good for nothing until you sleep,” she said, leading him out of the attic.
“All right.” He sounded so exhausted that she wondered how he’d stayed awake as long as he had. “What did Garrett say to you?”
She recounted the conversation—he winced at Garrett’s accusation—and finished as he crawled into bed.
“It was too much to hope that he’d never come back,” Peter said. “But why now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely that it was pure coincidence he showed up so soon after the equipment was installed, but he didn’t say anything about it.”
“Well—we did learn something useful.”
“What?”
He sighed. “I saw him dematerialize hours ago, and my locket charm went off only once since then. So when wizards teleport in?—”
“It doesn’t set off the charm,” she said, stomach sinking. They’d suspected as much, but she’d hoped all along that it wasn’t true.
“Without fail, we must keep the protection spell around this house,” he said.
If a wizard got in unobserved … She shuddered. She didn’t want to think about the consequences.
