Chapter 7 #2
Peter stepped back, resolutely not looking at her, and she stood with her heart racing, thoughts in a jumble.
If he didn’t love her, he might feel a driving obligation to continue on as if he did.
He might consider that her reputation was at stake.
He might think of how he upended her life once already, or how she saved his life—never mind that his association with her was what endangered him.
Whether she wanted to marry a man who no longer felt for her what she felt for him would probably not occur to him in the midst of all that roiling guilt.
She heard “Gray” and forced herself back into the stream of conversation around her.
“A press conference?” Hickok was giving Lydia a skeptical look. “He doesn’t have the votes to get out of committee—a press conference isn’t going to change that.”
“It’s not over until it’s over,” Lydia urged. “Please stop by.”
Hickok shook her head. “There’s nothing to cover. What’s the headline? ‘Senator Reiterates Support for Own Bill’?”
A press conference with no press—Beatrix could just see it. If Hickok wasn’t interested, that was a bad sign.
“It’s a … a two-part event,” she said, with only the germ of an idea about what the latter part could entail. “The second piece is what you’ll really want to see, or so I hear.”
Hickok turned to look at her. “Oh? Do tell.”
“I can’t, not yet,” Beatrix said. “But Gray’s not giving up without a fight. Two o’clock Thursday—there aren’t any important hearings scheduled then, I promise.”
Hickok didn’t look fully convinced, but she said, “All right. Two o’clock Thursday.”
Oh, good. Now she just had to finish thinking up this promised event, get Gray’s permission and arrange it.
All in all, that seemed less stressful than thoughts about Peter.
As they walked out, Lydia whispered, “We need to tell the senator before he hears it somewhere else,” and it took Beatrix a moment to realize her sister wasn’t talking about the press conference. Lydia was right: They would have to try to catch him tonight at home.
She spent the first part of the drive there pondering the event she promised Hickok, which was suitably distracting for a while, but then she recollected that they still hadn’t found a place for Peter to stay.
She stole a glance at him. His head was turned away from her, exhaustion apparent by the way he’d slumped in his seat.
She couldn’t simply ask how he really felt about her—not now, not only because wizards might be listening in but also because this would be a terrible conversation to have with her sister and Rosemarie trapped in the back seat.
It would have to wait until they got dreamside.
For now, while he couldn’t cast spells, that was the only safe place to talk.
This day of holding back three-quarters of what she wanted to say, of second-guessing every word, would have been hard enough without suddenly doubting something she’d taken as a rock-solid fact. She needed to know where she stood with him. Maybe she was imagining the whole thing.
She slowed for the turn onto Gray’s driveway with a memory replaying in her head—saying “I love you” as they walked out of the hospital and getting no reply.
She lifted her chin as she walked in the dark to Gray’s door.
She would not cry. She was stronger than this.
She had survived the death of her parents, a pseudo-assassination attempt on her sister’s life, a magical contract that subverted free will and a nearly successful attack with a weapon of mass destruction, for God’s sake. How could a broken heart compare?
She knocked on the door, feeling no better for the internal pep talk. The senator opened it, blinking in surprise. Then he saw who was standing on the front lawn and quickly closed the door behind him.
“Omnimancer,” he murmured, shaking Peter’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Lydia cleared her throat. “We thought you should know—”
“Yes, very good news.”
Her smile was thin. “You haven’t heard it all yet.”
They told him the story, this time Rosemarie’s way—from the beginning, starting with the somewhat fabricated version of their romance rather than the very real photograph. Beatrix got through it without giving herself away.
By the end, Gray’s eyes were practically popping out of his head. He took a deep breath. Beatrix braced herself.
“The Star is really going to write about it?” he said.
“Yes,” Lydia said.
He looked at Peter. “And you really told them you were helping the League?”
“I did.”
Gray started to chuckle. He saw their startled looks and said, “Good soul, a Romeo-and-Juliet romance, a wizard helping fight for typic rights—mark my words, Washington miscalculated. I can’t tell you what your members will do, Miss Harper,” he added, giving Lydia a level glance, “but this will be great publicity for my bill.”
“Speaking of which,” Beatrix said, “I’d like to get your approval for a, ah, strategic action immediately after the press conference.”
“Oh?”
“The groups that are coming to support you could buttonhole all the committee members, urging them to green-light your bill for a full Senate vote. I think I can make sure there’s at least one constituent for each of them. And we can bring the petitions the League has been working on.”
He smiled. He approved. For once, it felt as if they were all truly working on the same side.
She decided to go one more time to the well.
“Senator—until Peter’s recovered sufficiently to safely cast spells, he shouldn’t be alone in his house. Could you put him up for a little while? You have a spare bedroom, don’t you?”
Gray’s smile slipped. “How the heck am I supposed to protect you from wizards, Omnimancer?”
“You don’t have to protect me,” Peter said, as smoothly as if she’d warned him about what she was going to do. “You’re just giving me a place to sleep where I’m temporarily out of sight.”
“I’m bugged!”
“You don’t have any tele-vision cameras. I’ll keep my mouth shut indoors.”
Gray scowled. “You could be putting me in danger, you know.”
“If the wizards do find out and want to use the opportunity to make Peter disappear, which, I should add, they have never tried before,” Beatrix said, “don’t you think they would teleport in while you’re sleeping, grab him and teleport out, leaving you blissfully unaware in your bed?”
“You’re not in danger, Senator,” Lydia said in soothing tones. “We had confirmation recently that the wizards never intended to kill me. It was a ploy to get me to quit.”
“Oh,” he said, gazing at her. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Beatrix cleared her throat. “So you’ll do it?”
Gray threw up his hands. “Fine, fine. Starting tonight, I presume?”
They nodded.
“Every time you show up,” he grumbled to Beatrix, “my life gets crazier.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to Lydia and said, “I have a request about the statement you’ll give on Thursday …”
Peter took Beatrix’s arm, making her pulse jump, and led her a few paces away.
“Did he hire you?” he asked. “Is this the job you landed?”
She nodded. “I’m filling in for the legislative aide the wizards seem to have incentivized to quit. Not officially, though—officially, I’m a secretary. Not that he wants people to know I’m working for him in any capacity …”
The sardonic twist of his lips was full of fellow feeling. He dipped his head to hers, whispering, “What, this paragon of courage? I refuse to believe it.”
Had they still been under Vows, she would have kissed him. She wouldn’t have been able to help herself, as close as he was, standing in the dark with no one looking their way. It was hard enough now, her skin tingling where he touched her.
But she was not under a Vow, and she didn’t know how he felt. She gave a strained laugh.
“Very good,” Gray said from what seemed like a mile away. “All right, then. Coming, Omnimancer?”
“Yes.” Peter looked at her, opened his mouth, closed it, and ultimately said nothing to her but “good night.”
Dreamside filled her head as she drove off with her sister and Rosemarie. What would he say there?
The answer, she discovered when her alarm rang the next morning and she sat up in bed with a start, was nothing. There had been no dreamside or anything like it. No dreams at all.
She crept downstairs to prepare for work, unsettled and alone.