The magical pressure from the sidelines was increasing. Linda staggered a bit, as if from a physical blow. She inclined her head and said something to Nick. He stood and put his arm around her, steadying her, and his staff flared up brightly.
After a moment, Linda was able to speak. “If the council observers cannot resist intruding on the proceedings, we will have to clear the room.”
“This is a joke,” the wizard Geoffrey Wylie snarled from his seat against the wall.
“I did not recognize you, Mr. Wylie,” Linda said coldly. “You are an observer and not a participant in this process. Speak again, and you're out of here. Think again, and you're out of here.”
The Anawizard Weir stared at Linda with a mixture of admiration and astonishment. Jack suspected the wizards in the room were already regretting their choice of the enchanter as chair.
The observers settled, still fuming, but the pressure dissipated a little.
“Is there a motion to add this issue to the agenda?” Linda asked, looking around the room.
“I so move,” said Akana Moon, who seemed to have found her courage. She defiantly turned her eyes toward the Wizard Council.
“I second,” said Jack. Ah, well, he thought. We may all end up dead, but we're sticking it to them in the meantime. He was worried about his aunt, though. It almost seemed as if she were trying to pick a fight.
The motion carried.
Gregory Leicester spoke up. “In the interest of time, I suggest that we table this truth-finding enterprise until after we consider the constitutional issues.”
“Is that a motion, Dr. Leicester?” Linda asked.
Leicester sizzled with irritation. He put the suggestion forward in the form of a motion, seconded by D'Orsay. It was voted down.
“If you'd like to make a motion, Dr. Leicester, we can also allocate time for a discussion of attacks by members of the other guilds against wizards,” Linda offered sweetly.
“That will take two minutes,” Jack muttered to Ellen.
Leicester shook his head, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.
“The issue is, wizard aggression against the other Weir. Is there anyone who has something to share on this topic?” Linda gazed around the table.
Jack rose to his feet. “I'm Jackson Swift, a warrior. Actually, I should have been a wizard, but Dr. Longbranch here fraudulently planted a warrior stone in me.” He pointed toward Jessamine Longbranch, then Geoffrey Wylie. “Mr. Wylie tried to kidnap me, to keep me from playing in the Game. And then Dr. Longbranch tried to kill me when I wouldn't play for her.”
“You ungrateful mixed-blood mongrel! You wouldn't even be alive today if it weren't for me.” Longbranch combed crimson-painted nails through her mane of pitch-black hair. She looked like she would have said more, but stopped herself, sliding a look at Linda Downey.
“Warriors are bred for the tournaments,” D'Orsay said coldly. “That is their purpose. It makes good use of their natural talents. I don't know what all this whining is about.”
“Precisely why we need to have this dialogue,” said Linda Downey. “Anyone else?”
Almost everyone had a story, and grew more and more confident in the telling as the morning wore on. Jack was amazed at how Aunt Linda worked the group, without seeming to. She encouraged a little more detail here, asked a question there, headed off a challenge by the wizards in the room.
She's done this before, Jack thought. It comes naturally to her. The group was coalescing into a righteously angry body with a common grievance. One that might take a chance on a new beginning.
Finally, Ellen Stephenson stood and cleared her throat. “I have something to say.” Her hand crept to her side, groping for a weapon that wasn't there.
“Go on, Ellen,” Linda said.
Ellen lifted her chin, drew herself up, and faced Geoffrey Wylie, who did not look happy at this development. “I am Ellen Stephenson, a warrior. Wizards kidnapped me from my parents when I was a baby so I could be trained for the tournaments. They stole my childhood and turned me into a killer.” She looked at Jack, and he nodded encouragingly.
“When I refused to kill my friend Jack, they attacked me on the tournament field and tried to murder me.” She looked over at D'Orsay. “Some of you know all about it, because some of you were directly involved,” she said softly. She sat down. The other Weir nodded and whispered among themselves.
“Are there any questions for Ellen Stephenson?” Linda asked.
“I have a question,” Claude D'Orsay said. “Why doesn't this girl hire a therapist instead of wasting the committee's time complaining about her difficult childhood?”
The conference participants rumbled with anger.
“I have a story, too,” Linda said, ignoring D'Orsay. She gazed around the room, pausing until she had everyone's attention. “There are actually many stories I could tell, but I would like to tell you about my son.”
Madison hesitated at the edge of the trees, scanning the grounds of the winery. No one was around. Naturally, Leicester and the others would be focused on the proceedings in the conference room. Besides, it was a cold, dismal rainy day. A good day to be inside.
“Do you see it?” Seph whispered. “It goes all around the clearing.” He extended a hand, then drew it back as if he were afraid of touching something.
“I'll take your word for it.”
“You know who you're looking for?”
She nodded. “The blond guy from the picnic with the back-combed hair.”
“Right. He'll be someplace quiet, watching the barrier. Now, remember, you don't want to let him get hold of you. You want a power release. Don't let him think he can get to you without it.”
“We've been over all this,” Maddie muttered. You volunteered for this, she reminded herself. But now, she just wanted to get it over with. She was scared she would let Seph and Jason down. Along with everyone else.
Seph gripped her arm as if he thought she might charge off before he'd had his say. His dark brows were drawn together in a frown, and his eyes changed in the light, from green to blue to gold. Yet not a trickle of power came through his fingers. She'd never met a witch with that much control.
But then, Seph McCauley didn't need any magic to slide the bones right out of her body. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on what he was saying.
“If he does get hold of you, fight like hell. Make him think he has to use power to keep you from getting away.”
“Got it.”
“He'll probably recognize you from the park. So you know what your story is?”
“Are you going to talk me to death or what? I'm freezing out here.” Her teeth were chattering.
“Sorry.” He let go of her arm, looking embarrassed. “I just don't want anything to happen to you, okay?”
“Okay.”
She went to turn away, but he pulled her toward him and kissed her on the forehead. “For luck,” he said.
She crossed the yard, hoping that she was the kind of girl whose luck could be improved by kisses. She entered the unlocked back door, shaking the excess water from her hair. She stood in the deserted kitchen, surrounded by the debris from meal preparation left for later cleanup. She scanned the room for weapons, pulled a large carving knife from a butcher block, and held it close to her side.
Where would Warren Barber be? Would he need to be someplace near the wall? She prayed he wouldn't be hanging out in the conference room where the meeting was taking place.
She ghosted through the rooms on the ground floor, skirting the great hall. No Barber. Her breath came faster, and her pulse quickened. Time was wasting. She decided to try the garden. Maybe he didn't know enough to come in out of the rain.
As soon as she stepped onto the stone patio, she heard someone talking. Crooning, as one might to a small child or a pet. She walked toward the sound, down a crushed-stone pathway, between clipped boxwood hedges and beds crammed with ragged mums, through an arbor intertwined with wisteria.
And there was Warren Barber, like some kind of grotesque gardener mime, tending to his invisible wizard wall. Making little adjustments and repairs, straightening tangles, twining new additions into place. He must be powerful, Madison thought. It was still raining, a cold drizzle, but he lit up the entire corner of the garden. His clothes were dry, even steaming a little. He was using some kind of charm to keep the wet away.
He was concentrating so hard that she'd almost reached him when he looked up and noticed her. “Well, well,” he said. “What's this?”
“What have you done with Seph?” Madison tried to look scared and determined at the same time. Which wasn't difficult, since that was how she was feeling anyway.
Barber looked her up and down and smiled, revealing crooked teeth. His blue eyes were so pale as to be almost colorless, the lashes invisible. “I remember you. You were at the river with McCauley.”
“Where is he?” she demanded, her voice tremoring a little.
“How the hell did you get here?” Barber asked.
“I … I came in the raft with him.”
“Well, now,” Barber said, advancing toward her, hands extended. “Here's how it works. You be nice to me, and maybe I'll tell you where he is.”
Madison brought the butcher knife from behind her back. “You tell me where he is and I won't use this.”
Barber's eyes widened at the sight of the blade. Then he grinned. “Not the way to win me over, sweetheart.” He extended his hands toward her and spoke a charm.
Seph and Jason crouched in the trees, their eyes focused on the wizard wall.
“I hope she's okay,” Jason muttered, for perhaps the third time. “Maybe one of us should have gone with her. I mean, Barber's a nasty son of a…”
“She knows what she's doing.” Seph checked his watch. Almost noon. Madison had been gone half an hour, and the wall was still up. But then, it would take time for her to find Barber and get the plan underway. But what if she'd run into someone else along the way, or several someones?