“Why didn’t youtellme?” Peter asked her.
“The same reason you didn’t tell me about the threats you got, I expect,” she said wearily. “I didn’t think they really meant it, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
Her sister slipped a hand into hers. “We must take every precaution.”
Easy to say. Difficult to do.
Rosemarie, walking briskly toward them, handed over the virulent pack of notes. Then she threw her arms around Peter, to his evident shock.
“I’m sorry,” she said in an urgent undertone. “I’m so sorry for what I said. You could have died, and—and I want you to know that the Senate vote wasn’t your fault. If it hadn’t been the contract, it would have been something else. And this hospital-bill disaster—we all should have seen this coming.”
He let out a ragged breath. “I’m sorry for what I said, too. Truly. None of this is your fault, either. And I deserved to get chewed out for presuming to tell you how to fight an uphill battle I just joined.”
Rosemarie shot him one of her rare, wry smiles and hugged her next. “Be careful, my girl.”
Ten minutes later, back in their bedroom, Beatrix cast the usual spells and emerged from checking the bathroom to find Peter sitting on the bed, reading the threatening letters addressed to her.
“Stop,” she said, stomach twisting.
“I have to know.”
“Peter—”
“This is deadly serious,” he snapped. “These are three times as vile as the ones I got. You should have toldme.”
“And then what? What on earth do you think you can do about it?”
She realized what it sounded like the instant she said it—half a second before he winced as if she’d struck him. “I—I didn’t mean?—”
“No.” He looked down at his hands—the hands that no longer could work magic. “But it’s true all the same.” In a near-whisper, he added, “I don’t know what to do. Everything’s falling apart, and there’s not a single thing I can do about it.”
She sat at his feet, leaning against him, feeling exactly the same way.
He began to laugh—a heartrending sound. “As little as I had when I grew up here—as little as you’ve had—we’ve never been in a financial mess as bad as we are now.”
She couldn’t even saythank God you’re alive, at least.What if some other wizard came after him? What then?
She stood and kissed him with desperate intensity. He pulled her onto the bed, undressing her, touching her, and for a short while there was no room for thoughts beyondyesandmore.
Then it was over, this coupling without really coupling. They lay under the covers, Beatrix trembling as her mind danced from one terrible fact to the next. She’d thought they would be able to manage the bills, but they couldn’t. She’d thought they would be safe from physical attacks, but they weren’t. She’d thought she had a job, she’d thought they were making progress on typic (and maybe even women’s) rights—so much of what she’d believed had just spectacularly collapsed.
The phone rang,and Peter’s first instinct was to not answer it. But Beatrix was still asleep, so he untangled himself from the kitchen table and grabbed it with a sigh.
“Hello?”
“Wizard Blackwell?” Brisk, female.
“Yes?”
“Please hold for the general.”
The line click-clicked as she transferred it, and he nearly slammed the phone into its cradle.Please hold for the general—a phrase he’d heard dozens of times in his previous life. It was the Pentagram.
“Blackwell,” said the smooth voice on the other end. “Lt. Gen. Rodney Whitaker. I oversee R&D.”
Peter was aware that Mercer had retired, but he hadn’t known who had taken over—other than that, in Martinelli’s words, the man was some “buddy of the vice president’s.” He managed a curt “hello,” thinking hard but coming up with no other information about Whitaker whatsoever.
“I’ll do us both a favor and get right to the point,” Whitaker said. “We want you to come back.”
