Chapter 2 #2
Ella knew about the argument in Peter’s basement the night Beatrix foolishly told him her initial plan. And unlike Lydia, Ella knew about the fused Vows and the warped feelings. But even she did not know about the dreams and what happened there.
Beatrix thought for the four-hundredth time about explaining, then put it off again. She didn’t care to admit what she did with him there, that her resolution about not giving in to artificial desire was tested and found wanting every single night.
She didn’t even like to admit to herself that, tonight excepted, she went to bed with a quickening heart.
“There’s no need to worry—he doesn’t know the whole of it, and he’ll have no way of finding out,” Ella said, meaning well, trying to make her feel better.
Beatrix shook her head. “But let’s say he calls on my Vows. They specify that I’m not to harm him or Lydia. So what happens if I believe there’ll be no harm and he disagrees? Does he get the final say if he actually forces the point? Will the Vows’ restrictions belatedly kick in?”
Ella bit her lip—thoughtful, not anxious. “I’m not sure.”
Beatrix smiled despite herself. “What, something about magic you don’t know?”
“There’s only so much you can learn about wizardry from simply growing up in Bethesda,” Ella said, wrinkling her nose at her. “Although it’s amazing what you do pick up. For instance, have you heard that wizards’ sons pass the magic exam in astonishing numbers?”
“Magical ability is often hereditary, isn’t it?”
“That’s what they say.” Ella leaned in. “But I happen to know that just about every wizard’s son from my neighborhood who took the test between the year I turned ten and the year I got the hell out of there had magical assists from their loving fathers.”
Beatrix stared at her. “They’re cheating?”
“Like anything.”
“But how could you tell?”
“Because no one will arrest a wizard’s son for practicing magic before thirteen, and they all do it.
So I saw how lousy they were. They couldn’t have levitated the test weight a full foot, let alone the required four.
Also, my—” She stopped, shook her head at the memory, and continued: “My next-door neighbor’s father was sitting one person removed from me in the stands the year his son took the exam, and I saw him cast the levitation spell under his breath. To ensure the result he wanted.”
“Ugh.”
“Exactly,” Ella said.
“Do these typics masquerading as wizards flunk out of the academy?”
“Not the ones I’m aware of. But heaven forfend we should send women.”
Beatrix thought of the ninety-year-old report Peter had uncovered, the highly classified one that proved women, though not girls, could cast spells. “How many of the wizards know, do you think, that women are capable of casting? Omnimancer Blackwell had no idea until earlier this year.”
“Some of them know.” Ella grimaced. “I’d be willing to bet hard cash that one or more of them live in my old neighborhood.”
The anxiety lump in her gut expanded. “I hope the wizards assigned to League-watching duty aren’t in that group.”
“Mm.” Ella stared into space for a moment. “Sorry, you wanted to talk about Vows. But you probably know more about them than anyone. Has our omnimancer successfully called on yours to stop you from doing something you were able to do until he forced the point?”
Beatrix shook her head, but before she could explain, Ella said, “See? Nothing to worry about, then.”
“No—I mean he’s never called on my Vows.”
She didn’t count the first one. Any declarative sentence that fell from his lips had bent her to his will, intentionally or not. But he’d destroyed that contract. Her replacement Vow to him, the one that defied all their joint attempts to undo it, placed far fewer restrictions on her.
“I dared him to, you know,” Beatrix murmured. “When we were arguing over the idea of telling women about magic, I dared him and he wouldn’t. I think he couldn’t bear to force me if there was a chance I might not go through with it.”
“Hm,” Ella said, patently unimpressed. “Have you ever called on his Vow to you?”
Beatrix nodded. “Three times. Two obviously didn’t work—though I didn’t expect them to—and the other’s unclear. I demanded he tell me something, and he did, but he might have done it of his own volition.”
“Wait.” Ella frowned, tapping her chin. “Meg. Don’t forget Meg.”
Beatrix would have preferred not to think of Meg, their ex-treasurer who betrayed them for the price of her college tuition.
But Ella was right—Meg was the relevant example.
Her information-sharing with the magiocracy stopped once she Vowed not to harm Lydia, but nothing made Meg confess to what she’d done until Beatrix called on that Vow.
“He’s going to be able to make me stop, isn’t he,” she said.
Ella patted her shoulder. “It’s not precisely the same. He might not have that power. Anyway, remember—we already have three out of the four.”
But without Dot, all or nearly all the recruits would live in Maryland, right under the noses of the wizards who could sniff them out. And eventually, they’d run out of people the recruits trusted who hadn’t already been recruited by someone else.
She gave a moment’s thought to staying up all night and calling in sick, but no—that would ensure she’d be in this house where Peter could get to her if it raised his suspicions, which it almost certainly would.
More to the point, she couldn’t afford to lose a day’s pay.
Lydia’s final tuition bill was due soon.
“I’m going to need your help tomorrow,” Beatrix said, catching Ella’s eye.
“Sure. With what?”
“Keeping Omnimancer Blackwell away from me.”
Ella’s lips quirked. “About time.”
Beatrix sketched out her plan, piggybacking on efforts in town that were already in motion, twisting them to her purposes. It might do the trick, it just might.
But only if she could get through the night without letting the truth out in a rushing flood.
Peter opened the door to his townhouse in Washington and stood on the stoop for a full minute, letting the oddness of it sink in. He hadn’t been here in four months.
It was ridiculous—he should have been back immediately to pack the rest of his portable things.
He should have rented the place out right away.
He felt even more foolish when he finished emptying his drawers and closets and ended up with a grand total of six boxes—few enough that he could fit all of them into his car.
The leasing agent showed up ten minutes later, assured him that a furnished place like his would rent on the spot—“such a lovely neighborhood”—and took the keys. Then there was nothing for him to do but drive … home. For lack of a better word.
He gazed at his packed car and decided not to leave just yet.
It was a mild afternoon, the biting cold temporarily receded, and he walked through the neighborhood with the finality of a goodbye tour.
No one looked twice at him in this place crawling with wizards.
When he gave in to the temptation to buy something at the confectioner’s, he stood in a line in which two of the four people in front of him were wizards, and so was the man who came in immediately afterward.
It was—not comfortable, exactly, because Washington now had too many bad associations, but familiar. He missed being invisible.
Back outside, he walked to the park across the street, intent on dawdling a bit longer.
He sat on a bench and bit into a fudge square, watching Washington going about its Sunday.
A woman pushed a baby carriage past. The wizard who’d been behind him in line came out of the shop.
A father trailed by six children caught the door and let his brood in.
The wizard who’d been behind him in line crossed into the park and walked past, gray coat flapping in the breeze. Peter glanced that way, trying not to appear as if he were looking, the paranoia he now lived with spiking. Hadn’t he seen a wizard in a gray coat on his old street? Was this a tail?
The man sat two benches over and took a bite of his own candy.
Peter got to his feet, unsettled, and walked on the path that circled the park, keeping his eyes frontward for a slow count to thirty.
Then he stopped, bent down to tug on his pant leg, and looked behind him for a fraction of a second.
Gray Coat was still sitting on the bench.
He really was paranoid. Or maybe the issue was that he hadn’t pulled out of sight yet?
No, this was silly. If he were being tailed, why wouldn’t they have sent Theo Garrett or some other wizard from the dirty-tricks squad, someone with the clearance to go invisibly?
He turned around and crossed back to O Street, intent on returning to his car and leaving this city he could no longer visit without jumping out of his skin.
A black limousine, two sedans flanking it, pulled up at the five-star restaurant a few yards ahead of him.
Men in dark suits and darker glasses piled from the sedans, one of them opening the limousine’s back door.
Out came Vice President Draden. The man who knew about and approved of the weapon that ran on human fuel and could reduce a major downtown to ashes.
He watched Draden stride into the restaurant, giving a wave to the star-struck mothers on the sidewalk, and as a result almost missed the wizard following him out of the car. High forehead. Square jaw. Grim mouth. The wizard who tapped Beatrix’s phone a few weeks earlier.
Was the man Secret Service? What did this mean?
“All right, move it along, folks,” one of the remaining wizards in dark glasses called as the door closed behind the vice president and the phone-tapper in the tan coat. “Keep walking.”