Chapter 26
The sound of Morse leaving snapped Peter out of the blank-stare stage of his shock. He ran forward, almost tripping in his haste, and threw his arms around Martinelli.
“I’d say I’m glad to see you,” Martinelli said, patting his back a bit awkwardly, “but given the circumstances …”
“I thought you were dead,” Peter whispered.
Martinelli pulled back, mouth open. Then he shook his head slightly—a warning in his eyes—and said, “I’m grumpy and exhausted, so let’s go to sleep, OK? Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Right,” Peter said, wondering if there were cameras hidden here. Then he glanced around and saw them, one affixed to each wall, pointed down at them.
No need to keep surveillance under wraps if your targets were prisoners.
There was now a second cot—Morse must have spelled one up before leaving. Peter slumped on it as Martinelli switched a rickety fan on and the light off, throwing the windowless room into utter darkness.
A shuffling of feet. A soft oomph as Martinelli sat down next to him. “I don’t think the equipment can pick up whispers, especially near this noisy fan,” Martinelli said close to his ear. “Now, what do you mean, ‘dead’?”
“They told Mae there’d been a work accident. No remains.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
“They told me they’d tell her I was on a highly sensitive overseas assignment with no ability to contact anyone! They said they’d let me go when I finished!”
“I don’t think they’re letting either of us go. Not alive, anyway.” Peter put a shaking hand to his forehead, thinking of Beatrix.
“But all they’d need to shut us up is to put us under Vows, for God’s sake! I’d take one just to get the heck out of here. Why are they doing this?”
Why are they doing this: the question Peter had asked himself at least a hundred times already.
He grasped his friend’s shoulder. “They killed Lydia Harper—Beatrix’s sister. They killed her and framed me.”
His eyes had adjusted to the dark sufficiently to see a suggestion of Martinelli’s horrified, confused expression. “What? When?”
“Today—or yesterday, depending on what time it is. They tried to get me to come back voluntarily a couple months ago and I wouldn’t. So now they’ve forced my hand.”
“Jesus. This is far worse than I thought.”
Peter wrapped his arms around himself, wishing that were the full extent of the bad news.
“What happened?” Martinelli asked.
He was about to explain—but no, what if this was Marbella Draden in another expert disguise?
“What did you give me the first time we met?” he asked.
“What?”
“Tell me. What did you hand me?”
“My CV.” Martinelli’s lips quirked. “Including citations to my less-than-impressive runic research as an undergrad, just to push it to ten pages.”
“How did you introduce me to Mae for the first time?”
“How did I introduce you? Give me a break, that was years ago.” He frowned. “Wait, I think I actually remember. ‘This is the guy I’ve been complaining about,’ or something like that.”
Peter nodded. “And what’s your name for me? Besides ‘boss’?”
“Whippersnapper,” Martinelli murmured without hesitation.
Peter had to swallow hard at the sound of that well-worn, charming insult. He’d thought he would never hear it again.
“God, I missed you,” he whispered.
Martinelli smiled, clapping him on the shoulder. Then he said, “Now please tell me what the hell is going on.”
Peter recounted the last day, starting to shake as the memories he’d been trying to hold at bay swamped him.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Martinelli put an arm around him, saying nothing, just listening.
The words kept coming until almost everything was out, including his botched Vow and Morse’s accusation.
Then he leaned in, whispering as quietly as he could: “He’s right. I can’t cast anymore.”
Martinelli pulled back. “How—”
But Peter put up a hand to stop the question.
The answer was far too dangerous. “The point,” he whispered, “is that he thinks Beatrix has been spellcasting for me. He’s going to make me try again in the morning, and if I can’t do it …
” He grasped Martinelli’s arm for support. “He said he’d kill her.”
Martinelli stared at him, mouth open.
Peter pressed a hand to his throbbing head. “What on earth can I do?”
“I …” Martinelli swallowed. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure something out.”
Peter rocked back and forth, overcome. There was no way out. He’d sentenced Beatrix to death. (How many people knew what Morse did to spellcasting women and the men who taught them? Surely not many—not Garrett, even. Good God, what was the rationale behind it?)
“Hey,” Martinelli hissed, grabbing his arm. “Hold it together! Think—we always end up with a better idea when we’re both working on it.”
That was true. With a herculean effort, Peter shoved his thoughts away from the nearly certain disaster and toward the possibility, however slim, of averting it.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Any way to escape now that there’s two of us?” he murmured. “Air ducts we could reach if one of us stands on the other’s shoulders, maybe?”
Martinelli’s mouth twisted. “Room’s magically sealed. You can feel the spellwork if you touch the walls. Can’t undo it because I’m not allowed any leaves—they get someone else to cast for me when work requires a spell. Oh, also, the tele-vision camera monitoring is round the clock.”
“You’re sure? Even overnight?”
“Yeah, I’ve tested it by yelling out complaints at various hours. ‘I’m cold,’ ‘I’m starving,’ ‘I need a headache pill.’ They always bring me something pretty quickly.”
“Where are we? The test site?”
“Pretty sure we’re somewhere else. They did something to me so I couldn’t move or talk and carted me out the checkpoint in a body bag.”
Peter shuddered.
“They relocated me a couple times, and everything’s been equally nondescript,” Martinelli added. “No earthly idea where we are, sorry.”
Peter supposed he should have realized immediately that they weren’t in the New Mexico complex.
Morse had teleported into a hallway with him—to get into the test site, you had to go through that checkpoint.
The guards did have a device that could open a hole in the anti-teleportation shielding around the place, but only if operated from inside the checkpoint.
Anyone trying to use a “can opener” elsewhere in the complex would set off alarms. And the device didn’t work at all from the outside.
After another pause, Martinelli said, “What if you pretend to be nonresponsive? Looks like you got roughed up—it’s entirely believable.”
Peter almost snorted at the thought. “I’ve already been in one coma this year. I don’t think they’d believe another.”
“What? What happened?”
“Long story. But I’m sure they’d smoke me out. With torture, if necessary.”
“Wait! The dreams—you can warn Miss Harper and she can hide—”
“No.” He took a shuddering breath. “No more linked dreams. The Vows are broken.”
Martinelli looked even more astonished. To stave off a volley of questions about that, Peter quickly added, “We’re married.”
“Before or after you broke the Vows?”
“After.”
Even in the dark, he could make out Martinelli’s sad smile. “So you really do love each other.”
“Yes,” he said, a desperate sound.
Martinelli was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “What about the Vow attempt tonight? Think: Anything happen that could help?”
Peter doubted it, but he cast his mind back. Interlocking circles. Morse bespelled with protective shielding. The leaves going damp in his hand as he tried and tried to—
“Wait,” he said, heart beating faster. “He gave me three leaves. A Vow can be done with two.”
Martinelli leaned in, head cocked, looking as he always did when Peter was spooling out an idea.
“When he comes back tomorrow, I could slip you two of the leaves he gives me and keep one for appearances, and you could …” Peter trailed off, his excitement cratering. “No, of course not—you can’t cast a Vow for someone else. God, I’m losing it.”
Martinelli patted his shoulder. “Keep thinking.”
After a long stretch with only bad ideas, Peter finally put words to the one that seemed to be his only choice. A dead man could not be expected to cast a spell. “What’s here that I could kill myself with?”
“Nothing.” Martinelli scowled at him. “Don’t you dare leave me here by myself. You’d only be confirming his suspicions, anyway.”
Peter leaned on Martinelli to keep himself upright. Think. Think.
He jerked awake with a cry some time later. How on earth had he nodded off?
“OK, new plan,” Martinelli whispered, standing up. “I’ll think, you sleep.”
“No, I—”
“You can’t do a thing in this state. The minute I come up with anything remotely workable, you’ll know.”
With no one to lean on, Peter was forced to lie down.
He pressed his nails into his palms to stay awake—Martinelli was not the idea man of their duo, and Beatrix’s life was on the line.
But terror and desperation could no longer overcome exhaustion.
His eyes slid shut. His jumbled thoughts dissolved into nothing.
She was on a cot in her otherwise empty cell, unable to sleep, when the dark air quivered and popped before her. She jumped to her feet, heart racing. Magic. Teleportation. Someone invisible—someone who surely meant her harm.
“Help!” she bellowed.
A hand she couldn’t see gripped her. Someone muttered the teleportation spell, but it didn’t take and she pulled free.
“Help!” she screamed again, then thought of the leaves hidden in the bodice of the ruined dress the police had yet to change her out of.
“Someone’s trying to abduct me!” she yelled, feeling around desperately for the concealed pocket, trying to think of a spell. “Can you hear me?”
A guard came running, but the invisible hand clamped on her arm again just as her fingers touched leaves. This time, the kidnapper’s spell worked.
The next instant, Beatrix was blinking in the sudden light of what looked like a sitting room.
“Beatrix, it’s me,” said the invisible wizard.
Except it wasn’t a wizard.