Beatrix bit back a curse. “Funding?”
“No! It turned on some obscure rule involving the state’s oil production.”
They hadn’t finished digesting that—and deciding what, if anything, they should do about it here in Maryland—when Dot barreled down the hallway. “Massachusetts!” she said, her face leaving no doubt what she meant by that. Massachusetts, the sure-thing state, had voted no.
“Six senators switched their votes,six,” Dot said, voice hard. “All spouting the same ridiculous line about national security, and how they couldn’t let their political ambitions hinder it.”
If Maryland went the wrong way, they would be a single state short of failure—and California could easily be it. What could they do in the final hour they had left? What lesson could they take from their losses today except that the wizards had a different playbook for each state, and who knew what they had in mind for this one?
Lydia sent everyone off to try to counter the national-security argument with as many senators and staffers as they could buttonhole while the clock ticked down. “The magiocracy might try it more than once,” she said.
But Beatrix, who had to spend the remaining time with Gray, rushed into the Senate chamber behind him with a chilly sense that the Wizards Smith, those nameless members of the dirty-tricks squad, had something else up their sleeves.
She took one of the seats along the wall, where the aides sat, and looked up into the packed visitor galleries, trying to calm her jangled nerves as the Senate clerk confirmed the quorum. After a moment she found her sister and Rosemarie in a middle row, surrounded by other League members. Peter, though, wasn’t there. She scanned the seats, looking for him but unable to distract herself from the question to which they would soon know the answer: What had the dirty-tricks team done?
Just like that, she was overwhelmed by the memory of Garrett and his dirty trick—the near-assassination of her sister, designed to look as if it had been intended to succeed. She could feel the panic attack coming on. Gray was speaking about his bill and she couldn’t concentrate on his words. She remembered suddenly that Ella had insisted Lydia really was in danger, that the magiocracy would eventually turn to violence, andGod,she couldn’t breathe—she couldn’t?—
Then she caught sight of Peter. He was standing in the upper gallery at the other end of the room from the one in which Lydia and Rosemarie sat, leaning against a wall in a way that telegraphed a complete absence of panic. Her terror ebbed enough for her to get a lungful of air. With it came rational thought. Ella had made her pronouncement notlong after killing Garrett and shortly before attempting to kill Peter; she clearly wasn’t in her right mind at the time. If they panicked, Washington won.
She breathed in and out, calming down, focusing just in time to see Senate President William Dixon take the floor.
He was scowling.
“Gentlemen,” he boomed, “I do believe we’re being played forfools.”
The buzz of whispers stopped. Everyone looked at him. And Beatrix knew this was it—what Dixon was about to say represented the magiocracy’s gambit.
“These ladies”—he gestured behind him toward the visitor gallery where most of the League sat—“say this legislation is about typic rights. But this is just their first move, gentlemen. Let me show you what they have in mind for all of us.”
He brandished a piece of paper like a weapon. “‘I, Peter Blackwell, relinquish any so-called coverture rights over Beatrix Harper…’”
She stared at him in utter shock as he read the rest of the short contract in a highly outraged tone. How did he—how did themagiocracy?—
“‘Ridiculous laws to the contrary!’” he repeated. “These ‘ridiculous laws,’ may I remind you, areourlaws, which have served our state well, promoting proper behavior and well-regulated families! What other laws do Omnimancer Blackwell and his coterie of neo-suffragists find ridiculous? In what other ways would they warp our society? Listen to me, gentlemen, when I say that those of you imaginingyourselves gaining the ability to run for national office are being used as the instrument to take away your hard-won rights as the head of your own family!”
She looked at Gray, whose face matched his name.Say something, for heaven’s sake!
But he didn’t. It fell to one of his co-sponsors, a senator from Baltimore, to ask, “And where did you get that document? From the wizards, I suppose, who could have just invented it from whole cloth?”
“No, Roger Rydell gave me a copy this morning and asked for a comment,” Dixon said.
“And where didheget this?” the Baltimore senator said.
“I don’t care where he got it from if it’s the real deal,” Dixon thundered.
She was just about to yell out “it’s not, it’s a fake,” damn the rules against aides speaking up, when Dixon said, “And I see the omnimancer up there, so let’s settle this right now, shall we? Ho, Omnimancer!”
There was a scuffling sound as everyone on the floor turned around, and she knew she’d missed her chance. If she tried to answer for Peter, that would only look worse. She stared at him with her heart in her throat.
“Did you sign this document?” Dixon demanded as Peter walked to the railing and looked over it.
Say no. No!
“Yes,” Peter called down, “and there’s nothing wrong with?—”
“That will do,” Dixon said.
And it did. When the senators voted, the measure failed by a substantial margin.
