Chapter 19 #2
“I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while, but you were never around, and anyway it’s so hard to talk anymore,” Lydia said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought—” She gave a bitter laugh. “A lot of thought. The only way their tactics make sense is if October wasn’t a real assassination attempt.”
“Lydia,” Beatrix said, voice shaking, “the crane fell on my coattails. That’s how close it came. If I hadn’t pushed you out of the way—”
“If you hadn’t pushed me out of the way, it would have barely missed me, just as it barely missed you.”
Tears slid down Beatrix’s cheeks, and he was certain—not as a result of their connection but because he knew her, he did—that Lydia’s reinterpretation of what had happened hurt her more than anything else her sister had said.
He could stand it no longer: He closed the gap between them and took her hand.
“Oh,” she whispered, looking at him for a brief moment before turning back to her sister. “Garrett admitted they were trying to kill you—he admitted it. Don’t you remember?”
“They were trying to rattle me into quitting. That’s why Garrett said it. If they couldn’t scare me into stepping down, they probably thought they’d cause us to do something foolish.”
He could see the logic, but he wasn’t convinced. It sounded to him like hopeful thinking on the part of an assassination target.
“And it worked, Bee,” Lydia added, grimacing. “It worked brilliantly. You don’t have control over this thing you’ve set in motion—no one does.”
Beatrix leapt to her feet, her hand slipping from his.
“These wizards are dangerous! They’re not going to stop with tele-vision cameras, and you know we can’t count on saving you again when—not if, when—those bastards make a second attempt!
We have to get out in front of this! I—” She stepped closer to her sister.
“I can’t lose you.” The words came out half-strangled. “I can’t.”
“And yet you never spend any time with me!”
Beatrix sagged, as if these words let all the air out of her. Lydia left the room, the door banging shut behind her.
“Oh,” Beatrix said, tears flowing freely now, “oh, oh, oh.”
“Sit,” he urged. “Wait here.”
He found her sister in the kitchen again, head on her arms.
“Lydia …” he said, then hit a wall—no idea what to add to that.
“What I said to her was true,” she said, the words muffled. “I’m sorry I said it, but it’s the truth.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Turn the clock back and keep this from happening.” She looked up at him, eyes red. “I don’t see what I really can do except go to the four League leaders and ask them to do what they can to stop it. But even if they agree, they can’t make anyone else stop.”
He nodded, the sick feeling in his stomach intensifying.
“Please talk to her,” she murmured. “See if we missed anything that would allow us to undo this.”
Very unlikely. But he returned to the receiving room. Beatrix looked up, unhappiness dulling her normally bright eyes, and so many conflicting emotions battered him that he could not hold her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hoarseness edging her voice. “I didn’t want to lie to you. I didn’t want to keep this from you. I just … didn’t know what to do.”
He sat at her feet, leaning his back against the chair. “Is there any way for me to think of this except as a betrayal?”
Her breath hitched.
“I understand now,” he said heavily. “I do. But if you’d told me …”
“Then what? What’s the alternative? Or—or do you also think I’m crazy for believing that Lydia’s life is in danger?”
He shook his head. “No, I agree with you.” He took a moment to collect his thoughts and added: “I will do all I can to protect her. I’ll invisibly bodyguard her any time you say the word. This is a top priority for me, Beatrix—she’s my Plan B.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I may never find a defense against Project 96,” he reminded her, choking the words out. “If so, she’s my only hope.”
“Peter …” She slid off the chair and kneeled on the floor next to him. “What I’ve done is my Plan B. And it would help both of us, don’t you see? Women who use magic meet the constitutional qualifications for national office.”
“But that assumes something doesn’t go terribly wrong first. When it does—when it inevitably does,” he said, raising his voice as she started to interrupt, “the wizards will swiftly trace it back to you. And then they’ll come for me.
Did you not consider the consequences for me at all, or did you just not care? ”
“No, no, I didn’t put you at risk, I swear it.” She looked so earnest he could see she believed that. He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “There’s no way for the wizards to trace it back to me, or you.”
“Beatrix,” he bit out, “you’ve no idea the pressure that will be put on your recruits to cough up names. None of them will be able to withstand that. None.”
“Every one of them took a Vow.”
His heart sped up. He exhaled, trying to tamp down wild hope. “To do … what, exactly?”
“To not say they were recruited—in fact, to say nothing about what they know or suspect regarding their recruiter, any previous recruiter or how any of the women learned magic.”
He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “And that’s it? You thought that sufficient?”
“Well, I—I also included a clause that they were to take no action that would knowingly put their recruiter in harm’s way.”
That was it. The lever.
“Beatrix Jane Harper,” he said, “you are not to recruit or train women in magic use again. You will call on the Vows of your recruits so they will stop participating in this scheme and call on their recruits’ Vows to get them to stop, and so on down the line, or else you will harm your sister, her efforts with the League and me—absolutely me, because no amount of sealed lips will keep the magiocracy from hauling me off if they discover spellcasting women near Ellicott Mills. ”
“No! Peter—!”
“And do it now,” he said grimly.
She lurched to her feet and went for the door with an awkward, unnatural stride. She was trying to stop walking and couldn’t. “You’re not in danger—take it back, take it back!”
“No,” he said.