Chapter 20
Fury and panic made Lydia communicate more clearly rather than less. In a few moments Beatrix understood what had happened, if not how.
“And now the Key says it’s booked solid this weekend, hotel rooms and ballrooms, and can’t possibly accommodate us!
” Lydia said, hand-in-hand with Beatrix not for comfort but to drag her along at a breakneck pace back home.
“You know this wasn’t our mistake. Remember the owner made a joke about how Kirkpatrick Day weekend was an ironic time for an ‘anti-wizard party’? ”
“Yes,” said Beatrix, dodging a sapling. She hadn’t liked the man, but she’d laughed, because he was right—Kirkpatrick being the country’s first wizard president.
“But how can this have been done?” Lydia asked.
“The contract was locked in the safe all this time? No one ever took it out?”
“Yes it was, and no we hadn’t. The safe doesn’t look tampered with.
” Lydia, decelerating, let out a scream that echoed in an unsettling way through the trees.
“Oh, this was well executed. I don’t see how we could prove the contracts were altered—and even if we did, where could we hold the conference at such late notice?
Where will we find enough hotel rooms for all the out-of-town women? ”
Beatrix bit back a groan. If only they’d had the League leaders reserve their rooms directly.
The hotel staff couldn’t have claimed dozens of guests asking for a room the night of the 10th had all said the 17th.
But instead, she had tallied up the RSVPs and passed them on to the hotel en masse—at the owner’s suggestion.
“Oh, and here’s the coup de grace,” Lydia said, her grasp on Beatrix’s hand tightening to the point of pain. “Not only does the Key not have to pay us for breaking the terms of the contract, but we’re still on the hook to pay them. Even if we could find another venue, we’ve got no money.”
So this was the end. Of trying to redirect the League. Of the possibility that they could make the country more equal.
She couldn’t dredge up the anger she ought to feel. She was numb.
With effort, she asked, “What does Rosemarie suggest?”
“She took the three o’clock train back to the city to see what she could do. Meg went with her—she nearly fainted when she saw the ‘contract.’” Lydia imbued the word with bitter sarcasm. “And Ella is rounding up the troops in hopes of a bright idea materializing. But what can be done?”
Lydia stopped moving, staring at the bits of Cedarlawn visible through the trees. “This is checkmate, Bee. The conference is ruined. I’m ruined. Everything we tried to do ... Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
Beatrix put her arms around Lydia, trying to understand why she was apologizing. Did she think this was somehow her fault?
“There’s nothing you could have done,” she said, tucking a few flyaway strands of hair behind her sister’s ear. “Honestly—no one could have anticipated this.”
Lydia pulled away. When she spoke, the defeat in her voice sent a chill down Beatrix’s spine: “What a fool I was to think I could beat them.”
“No!” The word exploded so forcefully from her lips that her sister fell back a step. “No,” she repeated, certain this was a turning point for Lydia the way their mother’s death had been for her.
Maybe she was tired of the League, maybe it would be easier if all that stopped tonight, but what use were her years of efforts to give Lydia a better life if her sister took the fork in the road to bitterness and despair?
“Oh?” Lydia snorted in a half-hearted way. “I’m not a fool?”
“No, you’re a fool if you give up now.” Beatrix grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her out of the forest. “I don’t know how, but we’re going to fix this. Come on! Rewrite your speech right now—tell everyone the lengths the wizards went to stop you!”
“But we’ve got no proof.”
“I’ll get you some,” Beatrix said grimly. “I promise.”
As Lydia paced in their bedroom and Miss Massey played a desultory sonata on the out-of-tune piano in the sitting room, Beatrix shut the door to what used to be her father’s study and pulled the curtains closed on the bay window. No one could see what she was about to do.
Blackwell never let her out of his house with fuel in her pockets, but fortunately she’d found a few green leaves on the cedars that lined the walkway to the front door. The four onyx stones she did still have, and these she placed around the safe sitting under the desk.
She arranged herself just so. She took a deep breath, thankful she hadn’t already hit her spellcasting limit for the day.
“Lang rēad lēoht,” she whispered as loudly as she dared.
The air around the safe, and all the way up to the ceiling, glowed red.
No white.
She inserted her key, fingers fumbling under the strain, and opened it.
Inside lay the contract, oh so innocently, and it too was lit up red without relief.
She burned up another leaf to cancel the spell and slumped on the floor, head in her hands.
She’d been so certain this was the answer.
But perhaps the magic was cast too many weeks ago and had faded into nothing.
Or perhaps it had been done without magic, just lock-picking tools and an almost identical replacement contract.
How was she to prove that?
Theo. She picked up the telephone to dial his work number, memorized but never before used, when a disquieting thought struck: What if he switched the contracts? He’d been in the house—left alone near the study—
No, it made no sense. If he’d cast spells here or anywhere in the house, they would have shown up when she and Blackwell checked the next day.
And why would Theo have gone out of his way not to cast spells?
Surely he had no reason to expect Blackwell would help her.
Of course, he hadn’t known until afterward that she and Blackwell were not on good terms . ..
That way lay madness. She trusted Theo—she might never have told him anything that could be used against the League, but she trusted him. She pressed on the switchhook, got the dial tone back and called him.
No answer.
If she needed a wizard, and it seemed obvious that she did, her options had narrowed to one.
The one she hated and who hated her in return—today more than ever, after her unkind jab about his father.
Her only hope was that he might feel compelled, in the literal sense, to give some desperately needed advice.
She forced herself to her feet, tucked the contract into a coat pocket and slipped out the back door for a return trip through the forest.
Peter couldn’t put his finger on why he felt a new sort of uneasiness—sharp anxiety in counterpoint to the dull ache he’d had in the pit of his stomach for months—until he heard the knock on the door and saw the state Miss Harper was in.
It wasn’t just her dreams that were his, then. Her emotions, too, at least the strong ones.
His own troubles were plenty enough without more piled on. He glared at her, saying nothing.
“Let me in,” she demanded, voice low and dangerous.
As he stepped aside to make way for her, he couldn’t resist a snide remark: “Problems with the conference already?”
“Yes,” she snapped, turning on him as he closed the door. “Did you have something to do with that?”
“Of course not.”
“Tell me the truth right now, Omnimancer, or it will harm my sister, her efforts with the League and the League itself.”
He had just a second to enjoy an uncharitable thought about her sister, her efforts with the League and the League itself before his mouth opened of its own accord.
“I had nothing to do with any problems at your conference and am unaware of what they might be,” he said, the words forced out of him. How far would his Vow reach? Could she demand anything of him short of letting her out of her own Vow?
She seemed to sag before his eyes, all the animating anger gone. “All right. I’m sorry. I didn’t really think you’d done it, but—well, have a look.”
She pulled several pieces of paper from her coat and handed him the top page.
“Somehow, someone changed the date on the contract with the hotel hosting the conference so it appears we reserved it for the wrong weekend. This is our copy, which was locked in a safe. I checked the safe and contract for magical tampering—no signs of white.”
He glanced at the document, then back at Miss Harper.
“Can you think of anything—anything—I can do to prove this wasn’t our mistake?” she asked.
“The hotel is in on it, I assume?”
“Almost certainly.”
He bit back a curse. He didn’t have time for this. His own mess was in much greater need of fixing.
“If this conference doesn’t go on, all my sister’s work—our work—will be worse than wasted.” She stared at the floor, as if she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “We will be completely discredited. There must be something I can do.”
She glanced up and quickly looked away. He realized he was scowling.
“Order me to help you—please,” he said, remembering at the last second that this would be an order without that crucial word tacked on.
She hesitated.
“Well?” he said, keeping his thoughts studiously blank.
“Assist me now or my sister, her efforts with the League and the League itself will be irreparably harmed.”
He waited for a feeling of compulsion. None set in.
“No,” he said.
As she turned toward the door, shoulders slumped, he added: “First, we’re eating at Reed’s—I’m starving. Then, and only then, will I go with you to this hotel.”
The look on her face would have been amusing if it didn’t speak volumes about her shock that he could, in fact, be a decent human being. Her “thank you” was faint, but her relief hit him so forcefully that he fell back a step.
He turned and all but stumbled into the receiving room, lightheaded. He came back out with his projector and camera.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Oh yes.”
“You see where this is tending?”
“Brilliant.”
They wolfed down their sandwiches at Reed’s and jumped into his car. By the time he covered the main details of his plan and she relayed every relevant fact she could dredge up, they were inside the city limits and closing in on the hotel. The sky glowed with the last gasp of the day’s light.
“You wanted to make clear you’re doing this of your own accord,” she said abruptly. “That’s why you asked me to order you.”
“Yes.”
“Did you want to make it clear to me? Or to yourself?”
“Both.”
He could feel her eyes on him, but it took her a long moment to respond. “Why are you helping me?”
He almost said by way of apology but chickened out. “I know what it feels like to stand against powerful people.”
She wanted him to say more—unspoken questions pressed against him. But there on the right was the Key Hotel. He turned left into a massive parking lot for the sugar-processing factory across the road, emptied out for the lack of a swing shift, and was saved the necessity of further comment.