me hanging in the wind, and Duchess Arianna clearly planned to give it to them.
She was cutting me off.
It wasn’t until then that I noticed that while my brain had been calmly paddling down the stream of logic, the raging cauldron in my belly had overflowed, and I was walking with smooth, swift strides down a hallway, my staff in my left hand, my blasting rod in my right, and the runes and carvings of both were blazing with carmine light.
That was somewhat alarming.
Someone was shaking my arm, and I looked down to see that Molly was hanging on to my left arm with both hands. I was dragging her sneakers forward across the stone floor, though she was clearly trying to stop me.
“Harry!” she said desperately. “Harry! You can’t!”
I turned my face away from her and kept walking.
“Harry, please!” she all but screamed. “This won’t help Maggie!”
It took me a few seconds to work out how to stop walking. I did it, and took a slow breath.
Molly leaned her forehead against my shoulder, panting, her voice shaking. She still held on tight. “Please. You can’t. You can’t go in there like this. They’ll kill you.” I heard her swallow down a mouthful of terror. “If we have to do it this way . . . at least let me veil you.”
I closed my eyes and took more deep breaths, concentrating on pushing my anger back down. It felt like swallowing acid. But when I opened my eyes, the runes on the staff and rod were quiescent once more.
I glanced at Molly. She looked up at me, her eyes reddened and afraid.
“I’m okay,” I told her.
She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay.”
I leaned over and kissed her hair gently. “Thank you, Molly.”
She offered me a hesitant smile and nodded again.
I stood there for a moment more before I said, gently, “You can let go of my arm now.”
“Oh, right,” she said, releasing me. “Sorry.”
I stared down the hallway in front of me, trying to order my thoughts. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“Harry?” Molly asked.
“This isn’t the time or the place to fight,” I said.
“Um,” Molly said. “Yes. I mean, clearly.”
“Don’t start,” I told her. “Okay. So the duchess is here to play games. . . .” I clenched my jaw. “Fine. Game on.”
I started forward again with a determined stride, and Molly hurried to keep up.
We proceeded to the White Council’s ostentatiatory.
I know. That isn’t a word. But it should be. If you’d seen the quarters of the Senior Council, you’d back me up.
I strode down the hall and nodded to the squad of twelve Wardens on guard outside the chambers of the Senior Council. They were all from the younger generation—apparently there were grown-up things happening on the other side of the large double doors, to which the children could contribute nothing but confusion.
For once, the Council’s geriatocracy had worked in my favor. If they’d left one of the old guard out here, he would certainly have tried to prevent me from entering on general principles. As it was, several of the doorkeepers nodded to me and murmured quiet greetings as I approached.
I nodded back briskly and never slowed my steps. “No time, guys. I need to get in.”
They hurried to open the doors, and I went through them without slowing down and stepped into the chambers of the Senior Council.
I felt impressed upon entering, as I always did. The place was huge. You could fit a Little League baseball field in it and have room left over for a basketball court. A rectangular central hall splayed out in front of me, its floor made of white marble with veins of gold running through it. Marble steps at the far end swept up to a balcony that circled the entire place, which was supported by Corinthian columns of marble that matched the floor. There was a quiet waterfall at the far end of the chamber, running down into a pool, surrounded by a garden of living trees and plants and the chirp of the occasional bird.
A platform stage had been erected in the middle of the room, complete with stagelike lighting from a number of brightly glowing crystals, plus another mounted on a wooden podium that would, I took it, provide amplified sound for anyone speaking near it. The place was packed with wizards standing on the floor in a miniature sea of humanity, with more of them lining the balcony above, filling the place to its capacity.