Chapter 31
Making the hiding spot proved less challenging than flying. Beatrix woke in the morning, refreshed and hopeful, but by lunchtime she’d only managed to hover them off the ground, not propel them forward.
Peter thought of a workaround—an invisible cable spanning the room to pull themselves across. But by the time she’d managed to knit one up, she’d hit her limit again. That meant overnighting at least once more before they could attempt an escape. Extra opportunities to be discovered.
As if to underscore that point, Martinelli’s tripwire woke them up after midnight.
They huddled together, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did. Finally, Martinelli put the shield spell back up, checked the room in case someone had teleported invisibly in—no one had, but that was a tense process—and they dropped off into an uneasy sleep.
She lay in the dark the next morning, pinging between grief over Rosemarie and dread that Morse would catch up to them. Then she saw Peter’s eyes were open, his gaze fixed on the wall.
“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured, trying not to wake Martinelli. “I can’t take any more of this. One trial run, and let’s go.”
“You feel ready?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound confident. She was going to have to pull herself into the checkpoint over the head of the guard while he was holding the barrier open, make the cable, then hope that Peter and Martinelli could follow her the next time someone went through the checkpoint.
“Beatrix … how did you get in here in the first place?”
As she hesitated, he said, “Time to explain, don’t you think?”
“OK,” she said heavily. “Fair warning: You won’t like it.”
“Miss Draden was involved, wasn’t she.”
She must have looked as surprised as she felt. His lips twisted into a grim smile, there and gone. “How did she do it?”
“There’s something you need to know first: She transformed her body into a carbon copy of her brother’s. The Frederick you talked to at the party? That was her.”
His eyes went very wide. He opened his mouth to say something, but she leapt in. “Wait—just wait until I’m done.”
When she’d gotten the whole story out—not just how Ella had spirited her in, but what had happened to Ella—she looked to him for a reaction. His eyes were shut, his mouth pressed into a grimace.
“Peter …” She stopped, questions wrestling to get to the front of the line. Do you believe me when I say she’s not a threat? Are you angry I accepted her help? Is it wrong of me to wish you and the woman who almost killed you could live in peace with each other?
Martinelli shifted, groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position. They would have to save it for later.
“Don’t know about you, but I’d rather be caught at the checkpoint than go through another night like that,” Martinelli said.
Peter nodded. “We were just saying we should practice one more time and go for it.”
“Want to eat something first?” Beatrix asked.
“Nope,” Martinelli said. “If I take one more bite of corned beef, I will retch.”
Peter slid out of their hiding place and gave them both a hand down. Out in the lab, she got them floating in record time. It made her feel steadier. “OK, count down five seconds for—”
Her mouth stopped moving. Her face, her arms, her legs, every part of her was stuck. She couldn’t cry out. She couldn’t move. Martinelli opened his mouth, brow furrowed, and then he too went absolutely, horribly still.
Morse.
Morse.
“Beatrix?” Peter said from behind her. “Are you—” Then his voice cut off.
In the terrible silence, as she hung deathly afraid in the air, a hand she could not see gripped her wrist, pulled her to the floor and forced a thick liquid down her throat.
Syrupy and sour vinegar. Sleeping draft.
A huge amount.
The room spun. She thought of her father, overdosing on the same brew, and Rosemarie, killed by the same man.
She thought of her sister, who would never know what had happened to her.
She thought of Peter and that brought her back to herself because she had to do something—she had so much power at hand, and if she could simply harness it, overcome the sleeping draft, take Morse by surprise—
She bore down as everything blurred around her, concentrating on what she needed. Magic rushing through her veins. A cleansing flood. An … an ocean of …
… of …
Wait
please
Peter!
Morse snapped into view below him, a nightmare come to life. Peter, awash in adrenaline and dread, unable to move, watched as Morse pulled him to the ground next to Beatrix. Then—inexplicably—his muscles reverted to working order. He didn’t question why. He leapt at the man.
His fist was an inch from connecting with Morse’s jaw when the wizard stopped him again with that terrible spell.
“Well, well, well.” Morse stepped back, dropping the enchantment. “Humor me, Omnimancer. Cast a spell on me. Whatever you’d like.”
Peter flicked his gaze to Martinelli and Beatrix, both as still as marble. It was down to him. And there was nothing he could do.
“No leaves on you? Here.” Morse held out a handful. “Have some of mine.”
They were trapped and Morse had seen Beatrix perform magic. Not just any magic—knitting.
“No?” Morse wore a look of grim satisfaction. “As I thought.”
Peter, putting himself between Morse and Beatrix, realized as he did so that her eyes were dull and unfocused. Was she—had Morse—?
Again, the wizard cast one of those eerie, silent spells in his direction. Again, he froze in place—except not quite all the way this time. He could still move his head, mouth, tongue. “What have you done to her?”
“Sleeping draft,” Morse said. “When it wears off, I’m going to kill her. In front of you. Very … very … very slowly.”
Peter stared at him in speechless horror.
“I will put on her the spell I’ve just cast on you,” Morse went on—softly, relentlessly. “You will hear every cry, every scream, every hateful word she says as she turns on you. And they always do. The wives and mistresses always do. They know whose fault it really is.”
He could hear the shaky sound of his own breathing in the few seconds of silence that followed. Morse leaned in and murmured into his ear, “I can make it go on for days.”
What could he do? God Almighty, what?
“Or,” Morse said, stepping back, “I will give her an overdose of the sleeping draft. A peaceful death. No agony. No screams.” He crossed his arms. “It’s entirely up to you.”
Peter knew what Morse meant. There was only one thing the man needed from him.
But he asked anyway, voice reedy. “How so?”
“You will write down the fix for the problem with Project 96. The problem I have every reason to think you caused before you left here.” Morse paused. “Decide now, Omnimancer: Will you give me what I want?”
“Yes,” he choked out. “But why? Why do you kill women who use magic?”
He didn’t expect an answer. Morse surprised him. “Because they’re a massive threat.”
“To what?”
“The entire system.” Morse dropped the spell holding Peter and gave him a pen and pad of paper. “Do it. Quickly, before I change my mind.”
Peter wrote feverishly, sketching diagrams in several places, and finished in under ten minutes.
“I will test this shortly,” Morse said, not taking it from his hands, “so for your wife’s sake, think carefully about whether you’ve written the correct instructions.”
It wasn’t possible for Peter’s heart to sink further, but it gave a good attempt at it. “You have another transmitter.”
“Yes. I think ahead.”
Peter handed over the instructions, knowing he was giving Morse what Draden needed to execute his plan. The fix wouldn’t take more than an hour. If the vice president’s cronies still wanted to set the weapon off the following day, nothing would stop them.
Morse checked Peter for leaves using the same method as before, stripping the clothes off him, except this time not bothering to put him under a restraining spell—what threat did he pose, after all? It was Martinelli’s turn next; Peter averted his gaze. Then the man turned to Beatrix.
“No,” Peter growled. The word burst out automatically. It really couldn’t compare to the fact that Morse would soon kill her, but no, no, no.
“I’ll leave her underthings on,” Morse said in his usual emotionless way.
As he inspected her coat, shirt and pants, Beatrix stood, head lolling, in a man’s undershirt.
Peter put his coat around her shoulders and took her limp hand, remembering what she’d said about corsets the morning after their wedding.
A shining moment of happiness when he’d thought their lives together would be measured in decades instead of weeks.
Beatrix’s clothes slithered back on, popping his coat off into his hands. He turned and saw Morse wriggle his fingers at Martinelli, making the man’s hand jerk out and grasp his arm. He did the same to Beatrix, and Peter knew Morse was about to take them all away—perhaps separate them.
“How did you realize we were here?” he asked to delay that moment. To have even a few more seconds with his hand in Beatrix’s. “How did you get in?”
Morse smiled—an unsettling sight. “I found your tripwire yesterday evening.”
“But you can’t have teleported in then.”
“No, I came in this morning.”
“We had a shield around the room.”
“I removed it through a crack in the door.”
“You would have set off the tripwire!”
Morse’s smile widened. “I teleported around it first.”
“Fuck.”
“You’re clever, Omnimancer,” Morse said, “but not as clever as you think.”
The second after that knife-plunge of an assessment, he pulled them all into a jump. They landed outside a room that proved to be the one Peter and Martinelli had so recently escaped. Red Coat, slouching in a chair by the table, clattered to his feet.
Morse pushed Peter to the floor. Beatrix joined him a second later, collapsing on him as the wizard released the marionette spell. Martinelli sat on his other side, trembling.
“Stay here. Do not take your eyes off them,” Morse told Red Coat. “I presume you can handle that?”
“Y-yes. Yes, sir.”