Chapter 30
Mitchell Gray frowned at Lydia from across his desk. “You want me to do what?”
“Help lead the charge to repeal the Twenty-fifth Amendment,” she said patiently. “That’s the one that requires all candidates for national office be practicing users of magic.”
“I know which one it is,” the state senator said, and Beatrix bit her lip to stave off an inappropriate grin at his aggrieved tone.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Harper. Congress isn’t going to vote for repeal.
You might as well ask them to all step down—you’d get exactly the same results, which is to say none at all. ”
“I’m not suggesting we ask them anything. I’m talking about a constitutional convention.”
He snorted. “The Constitution has never been amended that way. It’s always gone through Congress first.”
“League members in every state are coordinating with their legislatures as we speak,” Rosemarie said. “All we need are two-thirds of them.”
“League members in every state.” He crossed his arms. “Considering how close your election was, Miss Harper, I have trouble believing you could get all your state leaders to do anything.”
Lydia broke out the demure smile she used on antagonists. “On this issue, we see eye-to-eye. Take a look.”
She slid him her two-page record of every state president’s signature—even Maine’s—under a resolution to push for a convention. He glanced through it, eyebrows raised.
“So you see, yours won’t be the lone voice,” Lydia said. “But you will have the advantage of being one of the first, which is always good for the reputation. You might even be able to launch yourself into the newly opened Congress.”
She let that thought ripen. Then she added, “Unless you agree with the Twenty-fifth Amendment, Senator.”
“Of course not,” Gray said, a wariness in his eyes that Beatrix took as a good sign. He was sizing Lydia up, reconsidering whatever notions he had about her. “I can’t understand how it ever got passed, Frozen Conflict or no Frozen Conflict.”
“I was ten in 1970,” Rosemarie said. “Trust me, there’s nothing like the early part of an arms race with four superpowers to make people too scared to think straight. Besides, at that point, wizards already had most of Congress.”
The politician grimaced. “Which brings me to the other objection: Even if we do manage to repeal the amendment, there’s no guarantee they won’t win all their elections anyway.”
“Yes,” Beatrix said, “but for the first time in our lives, it won’t be a foregone conclusion.”
Gray leaned his elbows on his desk, staring—practically glaring—at Lydia. “You know, Miss Harper, I’m not an idiot. You’re a neo-suffragist. You don’t just want wizards out, you want ladies in. If you’re not planning to run for Congress yourself in a few years, I’ll eat my hat.”
“I’ll provide the salt.” Lydia leaned in, folding her hands on his desk. “Can we count on you as a sponsor in January?”
He looked again at the document with all its signatures. A minute ticked by. Two. Beatrix made herself be quiet, as hard as it was.
“All right.” Gray sighed. “All right, I’ll do it.”
After that, Beatrix was nearly as busy as she’d been while helping plan the everything-that-could-go-wrong League conference.
She worked with the other county chapter presidents to coordinate visits to the rest of Maryland’s legislators, all one hundred eighty-seven of them.
She tagged along on the appointments Lydia handled herself that weren’t between eight and five, alert for anything deadly that could be made to seem like an accident.
She cast and re-cast protective spells on her sister, their house, the car.
She lay awake at night, wondering when the next attempt would come.
And when she finally fell asleep, Blackwell—employer, lover, tormenter—was always waiting for her.
Until suddenly he wasn’t.
She woke in her bed the next morning and thought for a few seconds that the dream had just begun.
Except there was Lydia, stirring in her own bed.
Beatrix needed a full minute to conclude that no, she hadn’t had a dream, hugely disorienting after three straight months of sharing her nights with Blackwell.
She found the scrap of paper with his telephone number and dialed it, fingers trembling.
“Hello?” he said, reedy but undeniably alive.
“Omnimancer.” It came out more relieved sigh than word. “I’m sorry if I woke you—I was just ...” She grasped for what. Worried? Confused? Disappointed?
“I wasn’t asleep.” He paused. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“Oh. Oh, I—I see. I …” A question, she ought to ask him a question. His phone was tapped. She needed a normal reason for calling, and it shouldn’t be to inquire if he was all right. “I wondered if you needed anything from the store.”
“No, thank you.”
“Right. Well—good-bye,” she said.
“Good-bye, Miss Harper.”
His tone was so somber, she shivered. Had something happened? She rushed to work. She waited for the usual explosions—waited and waited. Finally, beside herself with anxiety, she ran to the attic, knocked on the door and let herself in after a minute with no response.
He wasn’t there.
On instinct, she tried his bedroom door. Locked. She pressed her ear against it but was unable to hear anything over her heartbeat, so she detoured downstairs to look up the strongest unlocking spell in his library.
“Onirnan,” she murmured at the doorknob before turning it gingerly.
He was in bed, deeply asleep.
She retreated, feeling foolish—what else would he be doing? She spent the rest of the day thinking of nothing but brews. Trying to, anyway.
The next night was similarly dreamless. And the night after that. By the fourth night, it was obvious he hadn’t gotten off-kilter by accident. He was staying up nights and sleeping days on purpose. Circumventing their link.
What a relief it should have been. The sharp edge of loss was not supposed to enter into it, leaving her both upset and mortified.
Switching her own sleeping schedule had seemed unworkable.
Now she wondered if she’d simply justified an action that would allow her to carry on a relationship with Blackwell—in a manner of speaking—without having to admit she was hopelessly compromising her principles.
And Blackwell—he’d said he loved her. Why was he doing this? Was his id so out of step with his rational mind that he couldn’t stomach what it was getting up to while he slept?
She was, after all, her mother’s daughter. He’d said her parentage didn’t enter into his decision to hire (compel, subjugate) her, but there was a great deal of difference between an employee and a lover.
She didn’t intend to ask him. She hardly saw him, in any case. But when he trudged into the brewing room near the end of an afternoon to assist with sleeping drafts, dark smudges under his eyes serving as proof that he ought to be taking them himself, she blurted out, “Why?”
He didn’t pretend confusion, but he took his time with an answer. “Getting nightly glimpses of what you want but can’t have is agony.”
Oh. Her heart revved up. “You were having it. The dreams were practically indistinguishable from real life.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“I can’t—”
“I know,” he said, eyes on the ingredients. “I know you can’t.”
The quiet words, no hint of resentment to them, nearly overcame her resistance. She rushed through the steps for the brew and fled home.
After dinner and dishes, she made a beeline for Ella, marking assignments in the sitting room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt ...”
Ella set the papers aside. “Oh, please do. I desperately need a break from reminders that my students don’t seem to listen to a word I say.”
Beatrix attempted a commiserating smile. “Well—I could really use your advice. I promise to listen.”
“Shall we take a walk?”
“No,” she murmured, glancing over her shoulder. “I can’t risk anyone overhearing. My room?”
Ella followed her up the stairs and closed the door behind them. “You have my undivided attention.”
Beatrix’s courage momentarily failed her, but she grasped enough of it to force the words out. “Peter Blackwell is in love with me, and I—I think I’m falling for him.”
Ella’s eyes went predictably wide. “Good God! What is it with you and wizards?”
Exactly. She managed an extremely half-hearted laugh.
“Well, this explains why he was suddenly helpful,” Ella said. “Please tell me you’re not looking for my blessing.”
“No! I want you to talk me out of it.”
Ella shook her head. “You can’t be reasoned out of feelings, Beatrix. They’re notoriously unreasonable. Besides—I couldn’t talk you out of Wizard Garrett.”
“I’m trying to learn my lesson.”
“All right. Well … I’ll get straight to the heart of it: He made Mayor Croft lay you off so you’d be stuck working for him. He tricked you into breaking the law and forced you into a Vow. He’s a manipulator, Beatrix.”
Arguments popped up like crabgrass in the garden. He’s trying to stop something bad from happening. He’s desperate. He needs help. But she wanted Ella to persuade her—and desperation did not excuse what he did.
Ella squeezed her hand. “Here’s my advice: Whenever fond feelings threaten to overcome your better judgment, think how you felt the day I found you in the forest.”
A good suggestion. Excellent, really. So when Ella left to finish grading, she thought of the first Vow. She thought of him raging at her beforehand and having so much control over her afterward that he could make her move, stop her tongue, even summon her without actually meaning to.
She thought of him lying next to her in bed, those green-flecked eyes alight with laughter, his fingers interlaced with hers.
She fell back onto her pillow, an arm over her face. Maybe Ella was right. Maybe you couldn’t reason yourself out of attraction, no matter how inappropriate. Or inexplicable.
She jerked up, throat dry.
I, Beatrix Jane Harper, swear to assist Peter William Blackwell to the best of my abilities and to do him no harm.
No harm.
Oh God—how far might that reach? Did the misery of unrequited love count?
She tried to think of a sign that she’d developed feelings for him before that second Vow, any sign at all, and came up empty-handed. The dreamed kiss and her waking reaction to it, a few hours post-Vow, were her first clues.
She ran from the house, not pausing to grab a coat, and barreled through the dark forest toward the omnimancer’s mansion.