Chapter 34
Beatrix walked back into the now magically protected dining room, nerve endings still tingling from the memory of Peter’s hand in hers, to find all three women staring at her with identically worried expressions.
“What?” she said, heart sinking. Now what?
“Take the car and go check on Meg,” Rosemarie said.
“Her name was on the hotel contract—they must know who she is,” said Lydia, no longer pacing around the table. “I want to make sure she’s OK. We should have gone hours ago.”
She was right. None of their lockets extended past their property, so they had no way of knowing whether their treasurer had also received a visit. Even Peter’s stopped at the town limits, which didn’t include the college and its dormitory.
Calling, obviously, was out of the question.
“Try to get her back here to allow for an actual conversation,” Rosemarie said.
Beatrix sighed, thinking of their last interaction—the Vow. The shouts and tears. “She won’t want to see me.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ella said, rising from her seat.
Hazelhurst College was a mile and a half out of town, close enough to walk if you weren’t in a rush, which was how Lydia got there most days. By car, it was hardly a trip at all. In five minutes, they were knocking on Meg’s dormitory door.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then the door opened a crack and Meg stared out at them, eyes wide, face drawn.
“Um—hello,” Beatrix said awkwardly.
“It’s not safe to talk here,” Ella added in a whisper. “Could you come home with us?”
It seemed as if Meg would refuse. But whatever internal struggle the girl was having resolved itself in their favor. She stepped out, locked the door and followed them to the car without a word.
“Don’t worry, everyone’s all right,” Ella murmured, sitting in the back with her.
Beatrix eyed Meg in the rearview mirror. She’d expected her to look better than the last time she’d seen her. Certainly not worse. “Are you all right?”
Meg’s eyes welled up and Beatrix focused on starting the car, embarrassment and guilt gnawing at her in equal measure.
“What classes are you taking next semester?” Ella said, apparently hoping to hit on a subject that would not prompt tears.
Meg said nothing for a long moment. Then: “I’m not.”
“What?” Beatrix said.
“I’m leaving Hazelhurst.”
“But—don’t you need another semester to graduate?” Ella asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand,” Beatrix said, swallowing what she really wanted to ask: Were you threatened? Or was the attack on Lydia and my reaction to it simply too much?
“I have to,” Meg said, sounding profoundly dispirited.
Beatrix sped along the streets and parked in the driveway, not bothering to pull into the garage. She needed to know if this was her fault—if she’d brought Meg’s college education to an untimely end by being ruthless at exactly the wrong moment.
Lydia and Rosemarie were waiting for them in the dining room.
“Meg’s dropping out of Hazelhurst,” Ella said, getting right to the heart of the matter.
Lydia led her classmate to a chair. “Why? You’re so close to graduation. Why leave now?”
“I have to,” Meg said again.
“No one can listen in here.” Lydia squeezed her hand. “There’s a spell on the room. It’s safe—I promise. You can tell us the reason.”
Tears slid down Meg’s cheeks. “I just have to. Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Beatrix mouthed, “Should I leave?” Lydia hesitated but shook her head, then sat next to Meg. “At least tell me you’re transferring. Smith? Barnard?”
“No,” she whispered.
Regret so sharp it felt like dread exploded from Beatrix’s stomach in waves.
They should have offered Meg more support.
Invited her to dinner. Made sure she wasn’t alone.
Instead, they’d concentrated all their energy on Lydia and ignored the one person who’d shown she had no reserves of bravery and strength to call on.
And she, Beatrix, should have been first in line to say something.
She’d seen Meg’s eyes when she—she, Beatrix—screamed at her to get the Vow to take.
“Please don’t drop out.” The words fell from her lips like acid, both necessary and awful to get out. “I know it’s nerve-wracking, but we’ll be here for you. You can get through this, it’s just a few more months—I’m so wretchedly sorry for what I said. Please don’t give up now.”
Meg looked at her with something like horror before dropping her gaze. “You’ll be better off without me.”
Ella launched into an argument about every person counting. Lydia put her arm around the girl.
But Rosemarie said: “You’re the spy. Aren’t you, Margaret Wallace.”
Meg opened her mouth, bottom lip trembling. No sound came out.
Beatrix threw up her hands. “Rosemarie!”
“Answer the question,” Rosemarie demanded, striding around the table.
“I’m—I’m not ...”
Ella crossed her arms. “These continual accusations are really getting tiresome. Beatrix, can’t you call on our Vows and ask us all whether we’re the spy so we can be done with it?”
Meg, face chalk-white, stuttered, “P-please, not magic. Not that, not again, please, please ...”
She was as petrified as she’d been that night. A question cut through Beatrix’s churning guilt: Why?
Lydia bit her lip. “Surely it’s not necessary—”
“Rosemarie Harriet Dane, Ella Ruth Knight and Margaret Gertrude Wallace,” Beatrix interrupted, “answer my questions in this room fully and truthfully or it will harm Lydia Josephine Harper, her efforts with the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic and the League generally.
And sit down,” she added as Meg leapt from her chair.
“Right,” she said as the girl sat. “Have any of you passed information about us to the government?”
Rosemarie and Ella said “no” in unison. Meg, trembling, whispered “yes.”
“Meg!” Lydia’s eyes were wide with shock. “You were pretending to believe in the cause? All these years?”
Meg stared at her lap. “No. I do believe in it.”
“Then ... why? Did they threaten you?”
She hesitated. Beatrix stepped in: “Explain.”
The words poured out on command. “My family had a reversal at the beginning of the year. They don’t have the money to keep me at Hazelhurst. The government offered to pay my tuition.”
“Ah.” Rosemarie shook her head. “Never mind about equal rights and justice so long as you get what you want.”
Color flooded back into Meg’s face. “It’s not like that!”
“Oh? Do enlighten us.”
“I gave them a lot of completely pointless information. And I thought when I occasionally had to tell them something sensitive, or do something damaging, I could just”—she waved a hand—“fix it after the fact.”
“Like the conference invitations,” Ella said, eyes narrowed. “You handed them over ten short.”
“Yes, but then I ‘discovered’ the problem and mailed out the rest, so it didn’t do any harm.”
Ella slammed her hands on the table. “It most certainly did! It made Lydia, Rosemarie and Beatrix—Beatrix, my best friend—think I was the spy!”
Meg looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“The caterer who backed out—was that your doing?” Beatrix said.
“I just told the wizard who it was. I didn’t think the company would break the contract,” she said, half-pleading, half-defiant.
“And the hotel?” Rosemarie loomed over Meg. “What about that?”
“I didn’t switch the contracts or know they were going to be switched, I swear.”
But only Beatrix’s questions had the force of magic behind them. And she didn’t trust Meg anymore, not one whit. “What role did you play in that?”
“The wizard said he wanted to see it. I told him when the house would be empty. I came along to show him where the safe and key were hidden, and to make sure he didn’t steal anything. I don’t know how he switched the contracts. He must already have had the altered copy.”
As she looked around at the glares aimed at her, Meg added: “He said he just wanted to look! And the contract had such a penalty for backing out, it never occurred to me that we’d have a problem!”
“Which wizard?” Simply asking the question made Beatrix’s chest constrict. “What’s his name?”
“Smith, he said. I don’t think it really was, though.”
“Amazing bit of deduction,” Ella muttered.
Beatrix swallowed, trying to ease the vise-tight feeling. “Handsome man? Tall, reddish eyebrows, high cheekbones, Romanesque nose, mid-thirties? Or a bit older, high forehead, perhaps a tendency to wear dark glasses?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Did you pay absolutely no attention?” Rosemarie snapped.
“All wizards look basically the same,” Meg said, a sullen edge to the words. “It’s difficult to see past the blinding silver hair. Besides, I only met him the one time.”
“It was a different wizard the other times?” Lydia asked.
“Yes.”
“What did he say his name was?”
“Smith.”
Beatrix groaned. “Could you describe him?”
Meg faltered. “Taller than me. Maybe in his thirties? Or forties.”
“Oh yes, that narrows it down,” Rosemarie said. “Beatrix, ask her if it was our omnimancer. He fits the ‘description.’”
“Meg,” she said, leaning her head on her hand, “do you have any reason to think Peter Blackwell is involved in the conspiracy against us?”
“No.”
“Did either of the Wizards Smith explain why they were trying to sabotage us?”
“The first one, my regular contact, said they monitor subversive activities.”
Ella’s irrepressible grin resurfaced. “Subversive. I like the sound of that.”
Beatrix was too tense to manage a smile in response. Tense out of all proportion. Her heart raced. Her lungs seemed half their normal size. It felt familiar, her physical response to Meg’s betrayal—just like when she’d thought Lydia was going to die.
But for now, at least, her sister was safe. Calm. Be calm.
Then Lydia asked a question that sent even more adrenaline rushing through her veins. “How did they know where to find us after the vote?”
Everyone stared at Meg. Meg looked at the floor.
“How did they know where to find us?” Beatrix repeated, pushing to her feet. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “How did they get a chance to try for an ‘unfortunate accident’?”