“I’ve beenbusy,” I snarled. “I was summoned away from our conversation this morning, if you recall. Ever since, I’ve been chasing one crisis after another—”
“And last night, when it first happened?” Amy frowned. “You know perfectly well how often we’re awake with Miranda. If you’d only sent over a note, we could have come—”
“Argh!” I scowled back at her. “We don’t have time to argue about this. Iknowwhat the two of you are enduring right now. I know how desperate you’ve been for sleep,andwhat you’ve already given up for my sake! So I was hardly going to drag you from your bed last night, and I willnotdrag you into every crisis I face. Iwillsolve some problems for myself rather than allowing you two to be hurt—again—by them!”
“And we must feel deeply grateful for that.” Jonathan’s tone was so dry, it scraped against my skin. “Because,obviously,neither of us—or your niece—could possibly be hurtat allby the way you’re planning to launch yourself at your latest crisis. Isn’t that right, Amy?”
“No oneis going to take any more risks except for me,” I gritted through my teeth. “No one else will be punished for any more ofmy failures. That is the entire point—”
“Oh, Cassandra, youfool.” Amy took two quick steps forward and grasped my shoulders, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “What failures? Your school and your husband have both been attacked by outsiders. You can’t assume responsibility for evils that other people—”
“I’m responsible formyself,” I snapped, “and I should have gone after him hours ago. I should have known!” Somehow, my hands had closed around hers; I only realized it as our fingers clenched around each other. “I could have known—I would have figured it out hours ago, if I’d only stopped to think! I’ve been lurching from one disaster to the next, not managing any of them well enough. I didn’t even have the simple wits to put the pieces together—”
“Because you’ve been trying to do everything yourself,” Amy said firmly, “asalways.” She gave my shoulders a gentle shake. “I swear, Cassandra, sometimes you seem to forget you evenhavea family.”
“Pfft.” I sniffed to pull myself together. “According to Lionel Westgate, my fatal flaw is that I’m far too much a Harwood.”
“Hmmph,” said Amy. “If you have any flaws, we are here to balance them—just as you do ours. That’s what family is for. It’s why we’realwaysstrongest together.” She shook her head at me. “How could you possibly imagine that it wouldn’t hurt us to lose you?”
“You’ve given up too much for me already. Your career, your closest friendship—”
“I made the decisions I believed in.” Amy’s tone was unbending. “I followed my principles. If you think I regretanyof that, you haven’t been paying enough attention to what I care most about. I told you: I want to change our country for the better, and this school,right here, is doing that. So for goodness’ sake, don’t shut me out of it!”
“Orme,” added my brother, looking hangdog. “If you think I spent all those years sneaking you the key to Father’s library of magic only for you to lord it over me now because I can’t do any special spells myself—”
“That isnot—! Oh, Jonathan!” I slitted my eyes up at him as I finally spotted the smirk that he’d been trying to hide. Despite the relentless ticking of the clock within my head, I couldn’t help but groan. “That was aterriblejoke to make in any circumstance.”
“I could make far worse,” my brother told me. “I could pretend I wouldn’t mind losing my baby sister, as if it wouldn’t rip out half of my heart to have you killed.Thatwouldn’t be funny, would it? Or I could tell you it would be fine for Miranda to lose her only aunt.” He shook his head. “Who would ever stand up for her against us, with you gone? Or tell her to ignore all the old-fashioned rules we set?”
“Who will ever give her a chance to learn magic if you give up and let this school close down now?” Amy added.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as every unanswerable question rose up to besiege me. I’d been trying so hard not to think of any of them.
“I can’t let Wrexham die,” I said. “Icannot.”
“Thendon’t,” said Jonathan. “But don’t save him by killing yourself! For once, give up your precious pride and let other people help you. You don’t have to do it all alone!”
I opened my eyes and found Amy looking at me from scant inches away, her brown eyes dangerously perceptive and her fingers still clasped warmly around my shoulders. “We’re doing this forus,” she said quietly, “not for your sake. We’re doing what’s necessary to makeourselveshappy. And we’re not the only ones who will be affected if you lose this particular battle. Every single one of those young women in the library is depending on your victoryandyour survival—not to mention all the other magical girls and women of the future.”
“Andthe non-magical boys,” added my brother quietly. “We all need those stifling old dichotomies to be knocked askew, for all our sakes. Men need to find our own paths in life, too.”
The door opened behind him before I could answer—and this time, my entire class of students piled through it. Miss Banks led the others, her fair cheeks flushed.
“Forgive us for the interruption, Miss Harwood,” she said, “but we’ve been listening to your discussion.”
“I beg your pardon?” Stepping away from Amy, I cocked one authoritative, outraged eyebrow. “If you’ve been pressing your ears against the door of my private office—”
Miss Stewart cleared her throat. “We’ve been using a spell, actually—I found it in my uncle’s library last summer. It’s quite...clever?” Her voice lilted, turning the statement into a hopeful question.
“We didn’t let either of those inspectors overhear it, though,” Miss Hammersley added hastily. “We leftthemlistening to Mr. Luton’s theories about the proper management of woodland.”
“Poor Honoria,” Amy murmured.
“Nonetheless!” I heaved a sigh. “You know perfectly well—”
“What weknowis that Mr. Harwood is right,” said Miss Banks. “It is time to let other people help you.”
Earlier in the day, I’d glimpsed confusion and even suspicion on some of my new students’ faces, as they’d wrestled over whether to listen to me or to the visiting members of the Boudiccate. Nothing that I’d said to them earlier had been enough to wipe away that uncertainty entirely.
