Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air by Melissa Scott, Jo Graham

couldn’t help his sorrow. This was no way to start the show.
    “You’re thinking you should have been able to warn them.”
    He turned away from the window to see Stasi Sorley standing in the doorway. Mitch’s wife was dressed to the nines, her jet-black hair neatly waved beneath a pair of silver and rhinestone clips, her face white with powder and her lips a vivid scarlet that matched her nails. The black satin bias-cut evening gown made the most of her skinny figure, but the shoes that peeped from beneath the hem were sturdy dancer’s pumps: she was still planning to enjoy the evening, he thought, and felt his heart lift a little. And she was right, too.
    “What’s the use of being a clairvoyant if you don’t see something like that coming?” He did his best to keep his voice light, but the glance from her dark eyes suggested she saw right through him.
    Stasi waved her unlit cigarette at him, and he reached automatically for his lighter.  Neither he nor Alma smoked much, but when Stasi was around, it was only polite to be prepared.  She released a cloud of smoke, her eyes slitting in pleasure, and slipped the long jet holder from her lips. “Darling, be grateful you didn’t know.”
    “But —”
    “What would you have done?” she asked, her voice gentle. “Gone and told the Tower or the French pilots — what? That they were going to crash? That there was something wrong with the plane? Almost certainly they wouldn’t have believed you, and even if they had, you’d have had to explain how you knew. And that would have been rather awkward, to say the least.”
    She was right, of course. He could just imagine what the French pilots would have said — could imagine what he himself would have said, in the same circumstances, and he was a part of the Aedificatori Templii, a lodge member and a trained clairvoyant who believed in such things. He would still have taken his chances and flown.
    Stasi nodded as though she’d read his mind. “You see, darling, sometimes things work out for the best. The powers don’t give us pointless knowledge.”
    “I suppose,” Lewis said, but his mood felt lighter. He’d stopped at the nearest church, San Giovanni Evangelista, on his way back from the airfield to light a candle and say a prayer for the dead; he’d stop there again tomorrow, and add another candle for thanks.
    The door to the suite’s smaller bedroom opened, and Mitchell Sorley came into the living room, a rather sheepish grin on his face. “Sorry. I had to get Douglas settled.”
    Stasi raised her voice to carry to the next room.  “If Douglas doesn’t settle, there won’t be any pastries tomorrow. Or the next installment of Queen Esther versus the Barbarians.”
    Lewis blinked. He was fairly sure he didn’t remember that from his confirmation classes, but with the Old Testament you never really knew.
    “I think Elena has them well in hand,” Mitch said. Like Stasi, he was dressed to kill, the beautiful, conservatively cut tuxedo emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and tactfully blurring the thickening of his ex-athlete’s body. Behind him, Tiny Foster looked even taller and more gangly than usual in his first real evening suit, a fleck of blood on the point of his chin where he’d been extra determined with his razor. Lewis suppressed a smile, remembering when he had been that young, and glanced at his watch. Alma should be ready now, surely.
    At that moment, the hall door opened, and Alma slipped inside, her smile apologetic. “Sorry.  Is Dora taken care of?”
    “Elena’s got them,” Mitch said again.
    Lewis nodded, his eyes on Alma. Floyd Odlum had paid them well enough that she’d bought a new long dress for the trip, ordered and fitted on a couple of her trips to Los Angeles. This one was heavy, old-gold satin only a shade or two darker than her blonde hair, cut to flatter her figure, more generous now after Dora’s birth, with the skirt sweeping into a tiny train. It was