How could she have given him to Barber? Why couldn't there be do-overs in life?
She wasn't used to guilt. She was used to being a player. She was used to having options, always planning her next move. She could look for other allies—Longbranch and Wylie, for instance. She could go back to D'Orsay. The Dragonheart could be her ticket into their good graces.
She could feel its constant pull, night and day, a tether to her Weirstone. It was like the stone had woken up, and its burgeoning power pulsed throughout the sanctuary.
Finding it wasn't the problem, even though it was no doubt heavily warded. Her problem was, she was immobilized, weighed down by loss. She didn't care to be a player any more.
As if her thoughts had called the devil, she heard a noise in the garage. Then the slow, measured sound of feet on the stairs. A key rattled in the lock and the door flew back.
It was Snowbeard. The old man stood in the doorway, parcels in his hands, his smile turning to puzzlement. “Are you well, Alicia?”
She swallowed down her fear. “How do you think I am?” she whispered.
“Ah.” He shuffled forward, dropping the keys into a dish by the door and setting a bakery bag and a tin of tea on the table. “Were you not able to amuse yourself?”
Which made her feel like it was her fault she was bored. “Amuse myself? How?”
Snowbeard put the kettle on, reached a plate down from the cupboard over the sink, and arranged some sinful-looking brownies on it. “Did you try any of the books I left you?”
She shook her head, her eyes on the brownies. “I couldn't concentrate.”
“A shame. They are some of my favorites. I was hoping we could discuss them this evening.” He gestured toward the table. “Please. Sit. We'll have supper in a little while, but I believe we should eat dessert first. Would you like tea, coffee, soda?”
Somehow she said, “Tea,” and moved to the table and sat.
She bit into a brownie. She was glad she had a wizard's metabolism. The old man brought killer sweets home every day.
When the kettle shrilled, he brought it to the table and poured, then sat down himself.
Leesha blew on her tea and reached for another brownie. “I can't stand it,” she said. “Not knowing what's going on, I mean.”
“Well, let's see. We met with Wylie, Longbranch, and D'Orsay today,” Snowbeard said.
Leesha choked on her tea, splattering it on the table.
Snowbeard pretended not to notice.
Leesha dabbed at the tablecloth with her napkin. “All of them together?”
The old man nodded. “It seems they've found common ground.”
They all hated Alicia Middleton, for one. “What did they…what did they say?”
“They requested permission to enter the sanctuary.”
Leesha gripped her teacup. “And you said…?”
“We declined.”
“Did they say why they wanted in?”
“They want the Dragonheart.”
“The Dra…what's that?”
Snowbeard shook his head, looking disappointed. “Please.”
She bristled. “I don't care what anyone says, I never…” Her voice trailed off as the old man's eyes nailed her to the chair. She swallowed hard. “So now what?”
He shrugged and rested his wrinkled hands on the table. “They've threatened to destroy us all.”
“What'd you say?” Leesha asked, fascinated in spite of herself.
“Basically, we told them to come and try.” Snowbeard grinned, and actually looked kind of boyish.
“Wow, you're…um…confident.”
Snowbeard rubbed the side of his nose. “We have weapons they've never dreamed of.”
“What are you going to do about me?” Leesha watched the old man, hoping he'd give away his intentions. They would kill her. She knew they would. She had no idea why she was alive, even now, unless they were waiting for Hastings. She'd helped with the wall, but that wouldn't matter when you weighed things out. She'd kidnapped Will and Fitch, betrayed Jason, and failed to deliver Barber.
Of course, they didn't exactly know about Jason.
“The existence of the Dragonheart and its presence in the sanctuary is common knowledge, it seems. Therefore, you have no information that can harm us. So. You have a choice, my dear. You can leave the sanctuary and go where you will.”
“You'd let me go?” Leesha burst out.
Snowbeard smiled blandly. “With the stipulation that you never return.”
Leesha turned this over like she might a precious stone, looking for flaws. “My enemies will murder me,” she said. “Barber and Dr. Longbranch.”
“I think you may find that they are…otherwise occupied … in the short term, at least. It might be a good time to disappear.”
Leesha nodded. “Okay. You said I had a choice. What's my other option?”
“You can stay here, as you have been.”
She indicated the tiny apartment with a sweep of her arm. “I'll die of boredom if I stay here any longer.” Die of guilt, more like. She needed something to do, something to distract her from thinking about Jason.
Snowbeard s mouth twitched. “Don't worry. If you stay we will find something for you to do.”
“Why would you let me stay?” Leesha was genuinely curious.
“Well,” Snowbeard said, “given your history, there's something to be said for having you where we can see you. And wizards, especially, are in short supply.” He paused. “Before you make your decision, there's something you should know. Jason came back two nights ago.”
For a moment, Leesha thought she was going to faint for real (she'd faked fainting dozens of times.) All the blood left her head and traveled wherever blood goes when you've had a shock.
If she hadn't been sitting down, she would have collapsed. “J-J-Jason's back? He's alive? He's okay?” She practically screamed it.
“Well, yes, to all three.”
“I can't believe it!” Impulsively, Leesha hugged the old man (not the kind of thing she normally did), then drew back and eyed him suspiciously. "You wouldn't lie to me, would your
“No. I wouldn't.” Snowbeard studied her shrewdly. “Though Jason did have a rather nasty encounter with Warren Barber.”
There was a long pause. He knows, Leesha thought. The geezer knows. But she was too happy to care. “Well. Did Jason…say anything about me?”
“I think you two will need to talk between yourselves,” Snowbeard said.
Even that prospect failed to dampen her spirits. In the end, it might do her little good that Jason was still alive, yet it totally cheered her.
In the back of her mind, a voice crowed, Do-over.
Maybe.
“Should you decide to stay, I should point out that you can't change your mind later,” Snowbeard said. “Once they lay siege to the city, it will be difficult to get out.”
It was ludicrous, the notion that they'd soon be under siege. She felt the gathering presence of hundreds of wizards, like a noose tightening around the town. Yet, she was strangely reluctant to leave, like those idiots who elect to ride out the hurricane in a trailer park.
There was a power in this town, like some great thrumming heart that drew you into its rhythm until you matched it, beat for beat. To turn away from it was like walking away from the hearth and out into a winter's cold.
It was the Dragonheart. It must be. But maybe there was more to it than that. And if she stayed, maybe she could find a way to win Jason back.
“What are you going to do about the Anaweir?” she found herself asking.
“God knows,” Snowbeard said, rolling his eyes. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Well, she thought, at least the Anaweir were malleable. Perhaps they could all be sent to Cedar Point for a few weeks on holiday. Or loaded onto boats and ferried across the lake. Good thing the college wasn't…
She looked up abruptly. “What are you doing to me?” she demanded.
“Doing to you? What do you mean?”
She and Snowbeard both reached for the last brownie and their hands collided. The old man broke it in two, and gave her half.
“You're spelling me or something. Using Persuasion. You've got me worrying about the fricking Anaweir when I should be thinking about saving my own skin.”
“My dear, I assure you, if you are worrying about the Anaweir, you are doing it on your own.” He rose and carried the plate to the sink, then turned and leaned back against the drainboard. “I am a very old man, Alicia, and have made many mistakes over a very long life, some of them unforgiveable. I have to believe that people can change. That people deserve a second chance.”
“I could really stay here?” Leesha asked humbly.
“So I said. Would you like to?” There was all knowledge, yet no hint of judgment, in the old man's face.
“I would like to,” she said simply. And said to herself, “Fool.”
Chapter Twenty-five Sightings
Warren Barber was hungry for news, stuck on the periphery, and running out of options. After lying low for a while, he'd returned to Trinity, hoping he could get word on the outcome of the fire at the waterfront tavern. To his surprise, the town was surrounded by a forty-foot Weirwall much more elaborate than anything he'd ever built. And who was guarding the gate? Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson, who'd somehow escaped the trap he'd put them in.
Leesha was certainly dead. No one but him could've taken off that collar. But Leesha dead was not necessarily a good thing. Because there was no way he'd get past the guards at the gate on his own.
He felt like a kid locked out of the circus—convinced it was all happening inside. He wandered back to the perimeter, again and again. Ripples of power emanated from the town—like someone had thrown a rock into the center of a magical pool. The whole town was juiced and he just wanted to soak in it.