Chapter 15
Peter frowned at the pile of leaves in the basement. It was looking awfully small. He ran up the stairs to consult his indispensable Brown’s for a leaf-counting spell, then returned to cast it—and grimaced.
When Beatrix arrived and the house was sealed up again, he told her the bad news. “We’ve got only a bit more than seven thousand leaves left downstairs.”
Her eyes went wide with alarm. He quickly added, “It’s not a disaster, but I’d really like to avoid buying more.
This is the time of year when they’re the most expensive.
We’ll just need to be mindful of what we’re using until spring.
Assuming two more months before we can harvest more, that’s a maximum of a hundred-twenty leaves a day. ”
She cleared her throat. “What do you think we’re using now?”
“Haven’t a clue. I’ll do a count every day so we’ll know how much we have to cut back, if that becomes necessary.”
“Right,” she murmured. She held up four lockets. “Did you want to charm these now?”
He gave a moment’s thought to waiting until the evening.
Because the spell required temporarily demarcating the entire town, it took about an hour to set up and break down, an hour she would be left alone in the house.
But then he remembered it might snow later.
So he gave Beatrix his locket keyed to the property and left the house using his five-second procedure—drop the spell, squeeze out, recast. That took four leaves. Onward to burn up a dozen more.
He was stepping out of his car later, task complete, when he got to see with his own eyes the limits of the warning charms. Two people materialized near the forest’s edge, and his locket didn’t react.
He waited, trying to remain calm, as the men walked toward him.
One was a typic; he wore a winter coat over a suit, and his hair was short and brown.
The other was a wizard. A wizard, he realized as the distance between them narrowed, with a high forehead, a square jaw, a grim mouth and dark glasses. Morse.
Good God, had Garrett seen something illegal yesterday?
“Wizard Blackwell?” the typic said in a businesslike tone.
The words didn’t have the bite one would expect when you are under arrest was due to follow, and on second thought, Washington would surely send more than one wizard to arrest another wizard. Peter took a deep breath. “Yes?”
“I’m Mark Radcliffe from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
His heart dropped.
“May we come in,” Radcliffe said, and it wasn’t a question.
The moment Peter opened the door for them, he called out a warning that wouldn’t appear like one: “Miss Harper! We have guests—could you please fetch drinks?”
She rushed out, stopped dead at the sight of the “guests,” but quickly recovered. “Yes, Omnimancer.”
“What will you have, Mr. Radcliffe?” Peter asked.
“Coffee, two sugars.”
Peter turned to Morse. “And you, Wizard ...?”
Morse simply shook his head. That was more unnerving than if he’d spoken.
Peter walked into the receiving room and turned to find that only Radcliffe had followed. The man shut the door behind him, leaving the wizard on the other side of it—with Beatrix.
It would be OK. It would.
“Please cast a soundproofing spell on this room,” Radcliffe said.
Peter obliged, though the room already had one, and sat in the seat that put his massive desk between them. “What can I do for you?”
“I have some questions about your omnimancing operation.”
“Oh? Ask away.”
“I understand that neither Washington nor the town is paying you. Is that right?”
He’d expected that someone from the magiocracy would ask this eventually, followed by more subtle variations on the theme of Are you in the employ of Canada? He relaxed a notch. These sorts of questions posed no danger.
“Yes,” he said, “nothing from Washington, Ellicott Mills or anyone else. Our state senator did offer to see if he could get a small stipend for me, but it didn’t feel right, so I declined.”
“And I understand you are paying an assistant.”
At that moment, the assistant—or lead omnimancer, more accurately—walked in with two cups of coffee. She gave him an inscrutable glance as she set them down. He managed a half-smile and waited until she left.
“I am paying my employee, yes,” he said.
“How are you supporting yourself and covering her salary, Omnimancer?”
“From my savings account.” With effort, he grinned. “Are you here to offer me a stipend, Mr. Radcliffe?”
Radcliffe’s smile was brief. “If the federal government decided to fund omnimancers outside of cities again, the money wouldn’t come from my agency, would it? Tell me, why is it that you have chosen to do this work not merely for free but at a financial loss?”
“I desperately needed the change—something far less stressful,” Peter said, with complete honesty, and then tacked on a not-quite-truth: “I wanted to come home.”
“You picked an unusual way to reduce stress, given that omnimancers often report high levels of it.”
“I’m sure they do. They’re overwhelmed with requests. But I’m in a town with one traffic light,” he said, thinking of Martinelli and breaking into an unmanufactured smile, “and with my assistant’s help, I can keep up with the requests here nicely.”
“How exactly is she helping you?”
He stepped into this minefield on high alert.
“We brew a lot of medicaments. She assists with chopping and other prep work. The poverty here means that people come to us because they can’t afford to take care of their problems some other way, so I’m asked to be a stand-in doctor, veterinarian and repairman—it’s rewarding,” he said quickly, to get past the what-Beatrix-was-doing part, and realized with a start that he’d just told the truth.
He could do without the matchmaking, but otherwise, he did often enjoy the job.
“Obviously I’m not going to do this long-term,” he added, “but for now, it makes me happy.”
“Mm.” Radcliffe paused. “I understand that your assistant is the sister of Miss Lydia Harper, president of the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic.”
“So I’ve learned,” he said cautiously. “I chose not to hold it against her.”
“Do you want to prohibit magic?”
Peter laughed. “No. It’s a ridiculous proposition.” And also not what Lydia Harper was trying to do, as the magiocracy well knew.
Radcliffe sipped at his coffee. The silence stretched out.
“Look,” Peter said, aiming for exasperated, which was what he would be if he were doing exactly what he said he was, “why don’t you tell me what this is about. Am I not allowed to work for free in my home town with the help of a relation of Lydia Harper’s?”
Radcliffe set his cup down. “We want to ensure that the Army’s former top weapons researcher is not doing any weapons design on the side. For some other party.”
There it was. He looked the man in the eye.
“Then let me put your mind at ease: I’m not doing that, and I have absolutely zero desire to start. As Lt. Gen. Robert Mercer would no doubt explain if you asked him, I left the Army because the work depressed me.”
“That is what he told me you said, yes.”
“But you have concerns?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Radcliffe gave him a bland smile and got to his feet. “Just a routine check. If anyone approaches you to ask about weapons, please get in contact with me.”
He held out a card. Peter took it, smiling blandly back. “If any foreign agents show up in Ellicott Mills, I’ll be shocked, but I’ll let you know right away.”
“It’s not just foreign agents we’re worried about, Omnimancer,” Radcliffe said, walking to the receiving-room door. “Domestic extremists are a threat as well. Discontented individuals. Organized agitators.”
Peter nodded, mind only half on what the FBI agent was saying. Morse never cast a spell. What was he doing out there?
“Agitators such as the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic,” Radcliffe said.
It took a second for this to sink in. Even then, he couldn’t believe what Radcliffe was implying. “What?” he said, staring at him.
“That league is full of radicals who want change. It’s a short journey from there to acts of violence.”
“Mr. Radcliffe, these are women—”
“Never underestimate women,” Radcliffe said quietly.
“Yes, but these are women who are working through the system. I seriously doubt they’d blow anything up! I’d be a lot more worried about antigovernment types than anti-magic ones.”
“Anti-magic is antigovernment,” Radcliffe said. “Good day, Omnimancer.”
Good God.
Still, neither he nor Beatrix had been arrested—it could have been far worse. He followed Radcliffe into the hallway. There he realized why, perhaps, Morse hadn’t cast a single spell.
At one end of the hall was the wizard, arms crossed. At the other was Beatrix, down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor as if it were part of her duties.
Never underestimate women, indeed.
He saw the men out—the snow was just starting, a few flakes falling lazily—and waited on the porch until they teleported away. Back inside, he quickly made sure the house really was empty of wizards save him. He could feel Beatrix’s tension and the weight of the questions she was holding back.
“It’s OK,” he said the second the final room checked out. “Just, ‘Where are you getting your money, and it better not be from terrorists.’”
“Did he believe you?”
“I’d be shocked if he didn’t already snoop into my bank account, so it should be patently obvious that I’m spending my own cash. But what about Morse? Did he do anything? Say anything?”
“Not a word. Just stood there with no expression on his face. He never even took his sunglasses off.” She shivered. “He gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“You and me both.”
Beatrix sighed. “I knew the deteriorating relations with Canada would be a problem. I just knew it.”
“That’s the bizarre thing,” he said, shaking his head. “The FBI agent didn’t so much as mention Canada. He was concerned about the League getting its hands on a weapon.”