He raised her hand to his lips.
On the train ride home, they considered in hushed undertones where he ought to stay. His house, as long as he couldn’t protect himself from wizards, seemed a dangerous option. Her house—with three unmarried women—was a nonstarter. A boarding-house room outside Ellicott Mills, just temporarily? But that would be no guarantee of safety, either.
“I wish we knew why the WA is so eager to have you,” she murmured.
“I wish they’d leave me alone and everything would come up daisies, as long as we’re wishing,” he muttered, “but yes, that would do for a start.”
“It’s about the League, isn’t it,” she said, still keeping her voice down. None of the people seated near them werewizards or appeared to be paying any attention to them, but it was impossible not to be paranoid.
He gave an eloquent shrug in answer to her not-quite question, but he didn’t argue the point. She well remembered the FBI agent telling him—before Ella’s attack, before the coma, before she knew for a fact that she really loved him—that the agency was worried about “radicals” like League activists.
Given how narrowly D.C. avoided disaster at Ella’s hands, the agent’s warning seemed more foresighted than she liked to admit. But it wasn’t the League that had radicalized Ella. What motivated her, other than whatever malign role knitting played, was the shocking mistreatment by her father, current vice president of the United States, after he learned her brother repeatedly raped her, got her pregnant and gave her an abortifacient that almost killed her.
Where was she? And what,whatwould she do next?
“EllicottMills!”the train conductor bellowed. A minute later, they were standing on Main Street, looking up the hill to Peter’s house.
“Omnimancer! Good heavens!” Pastor Hattington came bustling toward them, his shock of white hair as charmingly mussed as always. “I had no idea—we thought you were still in a coma—appalling, of course, what happened to you—but it appears that our prayers have been answered! It’s so wonderful to have youback.”
Peter’s smile might have been a mix of amusement (Pastor Hattington could never go more than a few minutes without declaring himself appalled about something) andappreciation for the earnest welcome. But she could no longer catch the echo of his emotions, so it was simply a guess.
“Thank you,” he said, shaking the pastor’s hand. “I woke up yesterday and came home as soon as I could.”
Within a minute, they had half a dozen people clustered beside them—exclaiming, laughing and, in the case of one little boy, dancing in circles around them.
She finally had to intervene. “Omnimancer Blackwell really must rest, as you can imagine, so I’d better get him back to his house.”
As they walked up Main Street, this kept repeating itself—cries of “Omnimancer!” and wide smiles and hand shaking. Mayor Croft actually teared up and pulled him in for a hug.
Peter shook his head as she helped him up his long driveway. “I never thought … I mean, I know they must have missed the omnimancing, but …”
“They missedyou,” she said.
She unlocked his door, grinning at him. But the happy bubble popped as they walked into his house and he got his first look at the magiocracy’s mess. He took in the state of the receiving room, the brewing room and even his bedroom without comment. But she saw his wince when his eyes landed on his grandmother’s quilt, ripped open by someone checking to see whether anything had been hidden inside. She wished she’d fixed it.
He shrugged on an older version of his wizard’s coat, the same midnight blue as the one he nearly died in but frayingat the edges, and made short work of packing. Once his suitcase was in his car trunk, however, they had to face the fact that they still had not decided where he ought to go.
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” he murmured, leaning on his car, “but I might do best to go back to D.C. I wouldn’t stick out there.”
She shuddered. He wasn’t wrong, but the thought of him there—alone—was deeply unpleasant.
“Let’s go to Reed’s first, though,” he said, taking her arm. “I think we both could use an early dinner.”
He was predictably swamped when they walked into the diner, but she was eventually able to maneuver him past the well-wishers—“who does she thinksheis,” she heard someone mutter—and into a booth. She watched him relax, the tense rigidity seeping out of his neck and shoulders, and give Mr. Reed an honest-to-goodness grin when the sandwiches arrived.
“Don’t go,” she said quietly, once they’d finished. “We can figure something out—I mean, anyone here would gladly have you for a night, and you can rotate around. We’d just explain that you shouldn’t be alone while you’re recovering.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that would be?—”
“Beatrix!”
She turned to find her sister, out of breath and agitated.
“Hello, Omnimancer, lovely to see you, so wonderful you’re all right,” Lydia said in a rush. “I wonder if I could borrow you both for a moment?”
The image was hardly artistic.But as a political smear, it was devastating.
Their kiss, frozen in time. His hand about to cup her face. Her hair spilling down her back, looking for all the world as if he had unpinned it. Just enough of the surroundings to make clear they were in a bed, but not to identify it as a hospital. With the photograph was a typewritten, unsigned note: “This is how Lydia Harper’s unmarried sister behaves with wizards. Thought you deserved to know.”
