Page 70 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“I had someone changing my scores when everyone else’s backs were turned because he wanted to keep me,” I said.

Leonard flushed red and turned his face slightly away. Score one for the annoying American.

“Charming,” he said.

“I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win,” I said, and waited a beat for his reaction. None came. I sighed. “You need to watch more reality television, or my tendency to talk entirely in pop culture references when stressed isn’t going to make this easier. Look, we need to have a serious conversation about what you’re doing here, and what you’re going to do to make up for shooting me.”

“I told you, I’m observing—”

“Observing me, right. I assume you have some sort of blood-based tracking charm, right? Something that lets you keep a solid lock on where I am? Well, first off, I’m going to need you to give that to me. And I want your word, on whatever it is that passes for your sense of honor, that you don’t have the materials to make another one.”

He turned enough to scowl at me. “What makes you think I’d tell you the truth?”

“Well, again, you want to recruit me. You let me live because you want to be the Covenant operative who brings the big, bad Price family back to the table.” I leaned forward, smiling my most feral smile. “You can’t lie to me and hope to bring me home with you at the same time. It’s one or the other, and I’m banking on your self-interest telling you the bird in the hand is going to peck the crap out of you if you don’t put it back in the bush.”

Leonard’s scowl deepened before he said, in a tightly controlled tone, “I was able to collect enough of your blood to make a single tracking charm. Margaret and Chloe have been persuaded to keep their silence.”

“How?”

No reply.

“How, Leonard?”

“Chloe … had no actual evidence of your malfeasance,” he said slowly. “I was able to convince her you’d been taken against your will. She believes, and is convincing our parents, that I’m trying to recover you from a kidnapping. I lack backup because retrieving one half-trained agent is less important than recovering from Robert’s death and bolstering our resources against the coming conflict.”

It was surprisingly easy to believe that. Chloe Cunningham was a smart woman, skilled enough to stay alive in a fight and canny enough to see which way the wind was blowing. She was also a Covenant girl, trained from birth to take orders and believe her superiors. Leonard was their grandfather’s heir apparent, and one day he was going to run the entire enterprise. Assuming he didn’t end up disappearing into a shallow grave first. Plus, Chloe and I had been roommates back in the training facility. If I was a double agent, that reflected poorly on her. If I’d been kidnapped, on the other hand …

“What about Margaret?” I asked. “She knows damn well that I’m not a patsy.”

For the first time, Leonard looked uncomfortable. “Margaret has been … pliable since her first mission in the States. I wondered whether something might have happened to her there. Regardless, she’s been easy to convince, under any form of hypnosis, of almost anything I needed her to think.”

I stared at him. Finally, stiffly, I said, “Only the fact that you don’t look happy about this is keeping me from stabbing you right now. If I find out you’ve put a finger on her—”

“What? No!” Leonard recoiled, looking honestly appalled. “I would never abuse the trust of another Covenant soldier like that. What kind of monster do you take me for?”

“A murderer and a liar, mostly, but that’s another conversation.” I shook my head. “You’re willing to manipulate her mind for your own gain. Why should I believe you’re not willing to do the same to her body?” My words came out even sharper than I’d intended, powered by the strength of my guilt and dismay.

Margaret Healy was my cousin. Distant, yes, and from a branch of the family that hated mine and wanted to see us all dead, but still, she was blood. She’d been raised in the Covenant, told from birth that the Healys—now Prices—who’d left to go to America were traitors at best, and villains at worst. Sure, she was an adult and could technically make her own choices, but it can be hard to go against the dominant philosophy espoused by literally everyone in your life.

She had been on the Covenant strike team that tracked down Verity and Dominic in New York. They’d managed to capture Verity. They would have been able to use her to learn everything about the family. We would all have been lost … if my cousin Sarah hadn’t used her natural telepathic powers to basically melt Margaret’s memory and rewrite it into something more convenient.

Doing that, using her powers that way, had hurt Sarah badly enough that she’d spent more than a year unable to manage even simple arithmetic, wandering in a fugue state while her adoptive parents and my brother did their best to keep her from hurting herself. I’d been angry with Verity for a long time after that. No: that didn’t cover it. I’d been furious with Verity for a long time after that. I’d been angry and unforgiving, and I’d blamed her for the fact that one of our cousins might be lost inside her own head forever.

Then Sarah had started getting better. She still wasn’t what she’d been before, but she was well enough to have confirmed that she’d acted of her own free will, and that made a difference, at least to me.

I had never really considered what the long-term effects for Margaret might have been.

“I thought you’d be happy,” snapped Leonard. “If I hadn’t convinced her she’d seen you taken by that beast you continue to call a boyfriend, she’d be here with me—and she wouldn’t be aiming for recruitment. You’re playing a dangerous game, Annie Price. It’s going to end badly for you, one way or the other.”

“My freedom or my life, you mean?” I shook my head. “It’s going to end badly for one of us. I want you to stop fucking with Margaret’s head.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not seeing where you have the grounds to make that request.”

“How about she’s my family, and I owe her at least that much?” I leaned forward. “Also, how about someday I’m going to be coming back to England to tell your leadership where to stick it, and I bet they’d be real interested in hearing how much you’ve been messing with that poor woman. She deserves better than your bullshit. Leave her alone.”

Leonard leaned back in his chair. “I think I liked you better when you were playing at being Timpani.”

“And I think I liked you better when I thought you were a brainwashed foot soldier instead of a would-be mastermind, but here we are, and this is what we have to work with,” I said. “I came here because I wanted to sit down with you. I have a proposal.”