“All right,” she said. “All the confirmed supporters in the Senate have promised they will be in the building by seven-thirty tomorrow morning, which is a half-hour before the legislature can legally schedule any votes. We’re going to place a volunteer at every meeting room in the building to make sure that neither the time nor the location is switched without everyone knowing about it. And we’ll be visiting with all the senators willing to give us a few minutes so we can counteract any last-minute strong-arming by wizards.But what else should we be doing? What could the magiocracy spring on us that we’re not thinking about?”
Beatrix sighed. “More smears.”
“Or quid-pro-quo deals,” Peter said. “You know—‘we’ll give you funding for your district, Mr. Senator, if you kindly change your vote.’”
“Or ‘change your vote if you want your district to keep the funding you’ve already got,’” Rosemarie put in.
Lydia nodded slowly. “Can we counteract any of that? I mean, in advance, not just reacting if and when it happens?”
A moment of grim contemplation followed.
“No,” Rosemarie said finally. “We mustn’t bring it up first. We don’t want to put the idea in their heads that the magiocracy might retaliate if the thought hasn’t occurred to them.”
“We’d better remind all the volunteers to communicate to these senators that their reelection could well hinge on how they vote,” Beatrix said.
Peter gave a thin smile. “That reminds me: plum job appointments. That’s another way Washington could swing this.”
They spent a few minutes working out how they would react to the federal-funding issue if they got wind of that being the magiocracy’s last-minute point of attack. There was no preparing for the other problems, alas, only weathering them.
“How many more states can we afford to lose?” he asked, slipping a hand into hers. “Five?”
“Yes.”
“And there’s, what, seven states scheduled to vote tomorrow?”
“Eight,” Lydia said, “but only Maryland and California are on the bubble. The other six are firmly supportive. In fact, all the other states with bills in play are supportive, so we really do have momentum on our side.”
Beatrix knocked on the wooden table. She wasn’t normally superstitious, but it seemed impossible that the wizards didn’t have a plan to head this off.
“Listen,” Lydia said, switching from quiet undertones to her speechmaking voice, “we candothis. Think of everything we’ve handled so far. Good God, Beatrix, think of everythingyou’vemanaged. Whatever they throw at us,we will find a way.”
They all nodded, Beatrix still feeling as if this occasion would be the exception.
“Sayit: We will find a way,” Lydia demanded.
“We will find a way,” they dutifully repeated after her.
Lydia crossed her arms. “Again—andmeanit this time.”
It was almost like magic. As she said the words more loudly and forcefully, Beatrix did feel as if they might come true.
CHAPTER 18
The first bad news arrived at nine-twenty the next morning, delivered in an urgent whisper.
“We lost Rhode Island!” Joan, who’d just rushed up to where they’d gathered outside the office of a swing-vote senator, gasped in a lungful of air and added, “They voted no!”
Beatrix still could not look Joan in the eye, so she stared unhappily at her ear as Lydia asked, “Why?”
“They decided at the last minute that they didn’t want to be on the record supporting the effort because they rely so heavily on federal funding,” Joan murmured. “Which, I might add, didn’t seem to bother them on Friday.”
Beatrix glanced at Rosemarie, who had predicted just that sort of approach. At least they knew it now, when they still had a chance of doing something about it.
“Get word to League leaders in the other states voting today,” Rosemarie said to Joan. “Quick.”
The rest of them flew around the building, grabbing League activists by the elbow before they crossed into senators’ offices.Deploy funding plan. Go, go, go.
Then Joan returned, looking shell-shocked. “We just lost Texas.”
