She opened the door to get out and realized with a start that they were not in Ellicott Mills. Nor did it seem to be Annapolis. She stood, turned and saw towering buildings down the street. Baltimore.
“We’ve got dinner reservations,” he said, taking her arm and leading her the other direction. “Miss Dane has deigned to approve.”
Rosemarie probably suggested it.You ought to do something, Omnimancer. That column about you and Lydia is a problem. People will talk.It was a perfectly good ideafrom a strategic point of view, but her heart was involved, and she wished she could go home.
They were on a street with some of Baltimore’s ritzier offerings, which made her feel even worse. But then he turned right, walked two blocks east and opened the door of a restaurant that looked perfectly ordinary and comfortable.
Her relief was short-lived. Every head turned. The room went all but silent for a second, followed by the buzz of excited whispers.
The waiter who rushed to them was followed by two guests, five, ten, most of them putting out their hands in hopes of a shake. A moment later, all the people in the restaurant were on their feet, applauding.
“Thank you both for standing up for our rights!” an elderly lady at the closest table called out.
Her husband waved his fist in the air. “Give ’em hell!”
“I think, sir and miss, that I’d better take you to the back room,” their waiter said, and managed to part the crowd.
“I’m sorry about the uproar,” Peter said as the waiter pulled the door closed behind them.
“We can go, if that would be easier,” Beatrix murmured.
“No, no!” The waiter was emphatic. “No one’s reserved this room tonight. Please stay. Stay as long as you’d like.”
He took their orders and left. Peter shook his head. “Well, this wasn’t what I had in mind …”
Wasn’t it?
“… but I’m not going to complain about getting a room entirely to ourselves.”
Her throat felt thick.
“I’m sorry about West Virginia,” he said. “We knew all the states around here were going to be especially tough. They’re just so intertwined with Washington.”
She nodded.
“It’s safe to talk,” he said. “Well—reasonably safe. Nobody knows we’re here specifically, no one followed us on the road, I felt around carefully in the car to ensure no wizards were hitching an invisible ride and I made this reservation under ‘Smith’ from a payphone.”
Clever as it was, it wasn’t safe enough for the conversation they needed to have.
He looked around the empty room, which was clearly meant for a bigger crowd. “This is such a relief.”
“Yes,” she said, wondering how she was going to get through the evening without breaking down.
“You’re really good at this, you know,” he said, and for a second she thought he meant “pretending everything is all right,” but then he added, “Politics. Figuring out how the system works, organizing people to push for reform, coming up with a clear answer to an unexpected question in a split second.”
“Thank you,” she said, surprised and touched.
“Have you changed your mind? Do you like this work now?”
Her expression must have been answer enough. He laughed. Then he sighed. “You’ve never been able to do what you really wanted.”
“You never really had a choice, either.”
“True. But if it were up to me—if I could get paid enough to get by—I think I’d keep omnimancing.”
She stared at him. “Really?”
“Honest to God.”
