The way I saw it, my only foolproof way of getting out of this thing alive was getting rid of Blythe and ensuring the spell didn’t happen at Cotillion. It had taken the Ephors seventeen years to find her; who knew how long they’d have to search for a new Mage? Besides, no Blythe, no spell, no need to kill David’s Paladin.

But all I said to David was, “Harper Jane Price doesn’t quit. Ever.”

David’s lips quirked. “Yes, I believe I’ve picked up on that over the years.”

He turned back to his phone, punching in Saylor’s number. As he talked to her, making plans to meet in a few minutes, I watched the kids playing and tried to tell myself I wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Chapter 24

“YOU SHOULD TRY the oolong,” Saylor told David as she unfolded her menu at Miss Annemarie’s. As I’d anticipated, the tearoom was nearly empty, with the exception of two women sitting by the front window, both of them easily in their eighties. Outside, the wind had picked up, and gray clouds moved swiftly across the sky. Miss Annemarie’s was situated in the town square, right next to the jewelry shop where The Aunts bought all my Christmas and birthday presents. In the middle of the square, there was a statue of one of the town founders, Adolphus Bridgeforth. David was glaring at Saylor over the top of his menu. “I hate oolong,” he told her. “It tastes like leaves.”

“It is leaves,” I noted, opening my napkin over my lap.

“Touché,” he muttered, a faint smile hovering on his lips.

Saylor was watching David, and the look on her face wasn’t quite sadness and it wasn’t exactly longing, but it was some mixture of the two. Then she folded up her menu, slid the corner of it under her saucer, and folded her hands on the table, fingers clenched.

Her diamonds winked in the light from the tiny lamp in the center of the table, and now her expression was as placid as all the china cats dotting the restaurant. Seriously, Miss Annemarie could give Saylor a run for her money in the glass knickknacks department. “Well,” she said at last. “I assume the two of you had a reason for bringing me to Miss Annemarie’s.”

I squirmed a little bit in my rose-patterned damask chair. I’d made my chart and I thought I had a good idea of what I wanted to tell Saylor, but there was no escaping the fact that David and I had kind of screwed up today. Even though I knew Saylor wasn’t the person I’d thought she was, old habits die hard, and I hated the thought of disappointing her.

Maybe David picked up on that, because he leaned over the table, and in a very low voice, said, “Something happened today.”