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“I wanted to go over a few last minute meal considerations,” she said. “May I come in?”
I could practically feel her already reaching for the door knob. How suspicious would she be to find it locked?
My hands darted in opposite directions. One whisked a breeze through the room and back out the opposite window. The other released the lock. I snatched up the wand and tucked it back into its case, just as the knob turned behind me.
“All right,” I said, turning around with a quick swipe at my forehead. “I was just deciding what to wear.”
Mrs. Gainsley stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind her. She cocked her head. “I’m surprised you didn’t choose your dress days ago.”
Had her eyes narrowed a little, taking in the room? I pushed a giggle from my throat. “Oh, I had, but now I’m rethinking it. So hard to decide.”
The estate manager’s lips curled with a hint of amusement. Yes, let her think I was being a ditzy, nervous girl. She wouldn’t look for a powerful witch there.
“It turns out we’re short on radish,” she said, glancing over a slip of paper she was holding. “The chef wanted to know if you’re all right with substituting red onion—that’s his recommendation. And he wondered if you had any preference which of the hors d’oeuvres went around first.”
Was that all? I could have really laughed. “Red onion is fine. And he can use his own judgment for the order—whatever’s the easiest sequence to prepare them in, I suppose.”
“Good. Thank you.” The estate manager gave me another sharp look. “You’d better get on with that dress-choosing. Your potential consort will be here in just a couple hours, along with the less important guests.”
She hustled away, leaving me with an uncomfortable prickling in my chest. I waited until she’d descended the stairs, and then I tucked the wand’s case into the box with Jin’s art and followed.
The staff had strict instructions not to enter the dining room until after Dad and I had admitted our guests. And the initial magic on the case should only work on Dad. But my lungs still constricted a little as I laid out the last pieces of my plan.
It wasn’t all an unpleasant sensation. I imagined Killian’s slick figure sitting at Dad’s left, facing the first blow of magic, and that satisfied heat flickered inside me again. He’d deserve it. So many of them deserved more than I was doing—
I halted, bracing my arms against the back of one of the chairs and leaning my face into my hands. No. That wasn’t how I wanted to think. That wasn’t how I wanted my magic to make me feel.
It was a dark spell I’d cast. There was no escaping that. How much of that darkness had crept into me during the magicking?
How much had already been there?
The power of my spark stirred in my chest. I could bring this whole house down in an instant if I wanted to. I knew it, as surely as I could count the staccato beats of my heart. That was exactly why Dad and Celestine and whoever else had wanted to constrain my power. But Iwouldnever do anything that destructive, lose control over good sense and decency… Would I?
My gaze came to rest on the gilded wand case, and a fresh tendril of nausea coiled around my stomach.
Spark help me, what if I already had?
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabriel
Igave one more swipe with the rag to the freshly waxed side of Mr. Hallowell’s Bentley, my eyes on my work but my attention on the gate. Most of his guests—and Rose’s—weren’t supposed to be arriving for a while yet, but I couldn’t help listening for the sound of a car.
The car in front of me was a fine one. I always thought it was kind of a shame when total jackasses owned nice vehicles. His car deserved better.
And let’s not even get into what his daughter deserved.
To check the task sheet Matt had pinned to the board just inside the garage hall, I took the long way around—skirting the front of the garage and coming around to the side door so I could casually glance toward the manor. The old house with its weathered stone and spiking turrets looked no more ominous than usual, but that was still pretty ominous.
This was the only view I was going to get of the party. The knowledge that Rose was taking such an immense risk all on her own itched at me, but I couldn’t think of a single excuse that would get me in there for more than a minute or two. And making that intrusion would catch her dad’s attention.
No, it was better for her that I laid low and stayed out of the way. Better for her if she didn’t even need to think about me. I’d already jerked her around enough. I’d be keeping watch out here from my apartment, and if something went wrong, if she needed me…
My jaw clenched. Who was I kidding? We’d been there before, in the line of fire, when her stepmother had dragged her away, and I hadn’t been able to do a single thing to help her then.
I peered at the task list for several seconds before my brain caught up and recognized that in my furor of keeping my mind off the impending party, I’d finished every single job. Matt’s voice from earlier that afternoon came back to me.Take it easy, kid. You know they will be. No one’s going to be making any urgent trips tonight.
Damn, I couldn’t sit in the apartment for the next two hours just waiting for the real waiting to start. I paced back and forth in the hall, willing Matt to appear and give me something to do, but then I remembered he’d headed for home. He wasn’t usually here on the weekend at all—it’d been a short shift preparing for the party. Tyler wasn’t around at all. It was just me and the cars.
