Chapter 15 #2
Tomorrow, then. She wasn’t taking a chance in this condition.
But as she prepared ingredients for a chronic-cough syrup, one that blessedly needed just two spells to see it through, she tried to guess who had asked for the vitamin drink.
No one had mentioned any such need during the onslaught nine days prior.
Blackwell had written the brew on the list himself, squeezed between allergy relief for half-a-dozen suffering farmers and the cough syrup for fourteen-year-old Danny Taverson, so he obviously thought it was too important to wait until the first round of requests was filled.
She finished the syrup brewing without any evident mishap, squeaking by on her last spell with a three-moon measurement.
Then she packed everything up, tucked her shoes and stockings in her bag for the walk home through the forest and rushed for the front door—just a bit too late.
In walked Blackwell, his deep blue coat flaring dramatically around him.
“Done?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her heart beat so loudly she could hardly hear herself over it.
“Come with me, please.”
He led the way back to the brewing room, crossed “Remediate flood damage in courthouse basement” off the to-do list—so that was where he’d gone—and turned to inspect her work. “How was your spell strength?”
Not trusting her voice, she pointed to the instructions he’d left. She’d added notes about the spells for each brew. The best one—the first she’d made—would last seven moon cycles. It was downhill from there.
“That will do,” he said.
As he cast the incantation over each concoction that would show whether it had been made properly, she told herself she didn’t care about the results.
In fact, she hoped she had done poorly. He’d ordered her to work to the best of her abilities, so she could do nothing less, but if her best wasn’t good enough—if he needed to step in to do the work himself—maybe he wouldn’t have time to destroy.
Maybe—maybe—he would let her go, the terms of the contract still binding but quiescent.
One by one, all her brews turned a dark green.
“Very good,” Blackwell said.
She didn’t know what was more distressing: that she’d succeeded, or that his words sent a thrill up her spine that felt almost like the rush of magic. Despite everything, a deep-seated part of her wanted to do this work and do it well.
He looked over her notes again, frowning. “Why didn’t you make the vitamin brew?”
“I didn’t want to ruin it.” She leaned against the wall to take some of the strain off her back and legs. “I’ll prepare it tomorrow morning when I’m not so drained.”
His gaze shifted from the paper to her. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she said, throwing the word at him like a knife. He didn’t get to do this to her and then inquire solicitously about her health.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“No!”
“Really—”
“I like the woods,” she put in quickly before he could turn it into an order, and tried to change the subject. “Who is the vitamin brew for?”
“Anna, Evan and Tommy Clark. The seven-year-old with the earache problem and her younger siblings.”
She frowned, wondering what the children had in common with famished sailors, and then the answer came to her like a wallop to the head. The Clarks didn’t have enough money for a doctor. They probably didn’t have enough for other necessities as well.
“You think they’re malnourished,” she said.
“Almost certainly.”
“Will this help?”
“It should.”
Her anger and fear ebbed slightly. An unusual sort of terrorist, Omnimancer Blackwell.
“Mrs. Clark didn’t ask for that, did she.” Beatrix looked him in the eye for the first time that day. “She couldn’t have known such a thing existed.”
“No child should have to go hungry,” he muttered.
It sounded like the voice of experience. Guilt pricked at her—why hadn’t she noticed? Why hadn’t she shared her lunches with him at school rather than haring off during the break to read books in the glen and imagine herself at Hazelhurst?
“If you’re certain you want to walk home, you’re free to go,” he said, breaking the charged silence. “Hand me whatever leaves you have left in your pockets, please.”
As she obeyed his nominal request, he narrowed his eyes, frowning. “Hang on.” She flinched involuntarily into the wall as he put out a hand and plucked two hairs from her head that had slipped out of her bun.
They were silver.
“Wizards usually save their first magic-tinted hair.” He stepped back, allowing her to breathe again. “I’m afraid you can’t.”
He pulled out a leaf and murmured a spell. The offending specimens went scorched-black before disappearing altogether, as if he’d burned them.
“You can’t just cast a spell to turn them back to their original color?” she asked, wanting to avoid having them plucked from her scalp one by one. Wanting even more to avoid having his hands in her hair.
“Possibly, but then you’d have the remnants of magic around you constantly. Should someone discover that, it would look suspicious. You’re not likely to develop more than a few silver hairs a week—I promise you won’t lose many.”
“But traces of spellwork disappear within minutes,” Beatrix said, parroting the encyclopedia she’d read on the fateful day she’d cast her first spell.
“I thought so, too. It turns out that someone has developed a new spell to pick up on those traces for much longer.”
Her heartbeat revved from excitement this time, not fear. “How long?”
“Days, possibly weeks.”
He could determine once and for all if Garrett cast spells in her house.
If there were enchantments, then they would know why the wizard was really in town.
If there weren’t—well, perhaps Garrett was being straight with her.
Perhaps she could trust him to a certain extent.
Perhaps (oh please God) she could help him stop Blackwell before something or someone was destroyed, and extract herself from this nightmare.
“I want you to cast this spell in my house,” she said—quickly, before she could think of reasons not to go through with it.
“What? Why?”
“Cast the spell in my house or you will harm my sister, her efforts with the Women’s League for—”
“All right, all right,” he said, putting up his hands, stopping her before she could call on his Vow. “I’ll do it. But first explain to me why you believe you have traces of magic in your house.”
She intended to say, “Because we have a leak in the organization, and I want to make sure it’s not a magical one.” That wasn’t a lie. But different words tumbled automatically from her mouth, the absolute truth extracted by his demand.
“A wizard visited yesterday.”
Damn, damn, damn.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Who was it?”
“He said his name is Theo Garrett.”
“Tall, aquiline nose, about our age?”
“Yes,” she said. “You know him?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He crossed his arms. “Tell me what he said.”
The words rushed out: “He asked me why I was working for you, why you wanted me to work for you, what you have me do. He said you were handling a sensitive project for the Army, and they want to know why you quit. He asked if I’ve seen you work on anything that didn’t appear to be omnimancy, and he asked me to keep an eye out for ‘anything untoward.’”
She gasped for breath, miserable. So much for Garrett’s element of surprise. But Blackwell did not seem astonished by these revelations. Either he already knew the Army was investigating—that could be why a general showed up last week—or he’d expected they would come after him.
“I suppose I don’t need to ask why you neglected to mention this of your own volition,” Blackwell said, a bitter twist to the words.
“No,” she said between deep breaths. “You don’t.”
“Tell me what you said to him. All of it.”
“You’re making me work for you against my will.
I primarily assist you with brewing. I’ve never seen you do anything that’s not related to omnimancing.
I wish I could tell him something of use but I can’t.
” She tried to stop there, but the magic opened her mouth, moved her tongue and pressed the rest out.
“And I would give him information to help put you in prison, if I could.”
“Ah,” he said—a soft, dangerous sound. She thought of the fordēst spell and shivered convulsively. “Well, Miss Harper, I have things I need to accomplish first, so please don’t rush.”
When he pulled three oak leaves from his coat, it was all she could do not to turn and run. But she had no illusions that she could get far—he could bring her to a halt with a single word—and she preferred to keep what was left of her self-respect.
“I believe Wizard Garrett is in town today,” Blackwell said. “I’ll come with you as promised, but I’d rather he not know I’ve left the house empty. Heoloe,” he murmured, and faded into nothing.
Had he transported himself to her house? There’d been no popping sound …
“Omnimancer?”
She put out a hand, a reflex action—and invisible fingers brushed against hers. “Here.”
Disconcerting. Very disconcerting.
“After you,” he said.
As they walked down his expansive lawn, he murmured, “Why do you believe Wizard Garrett is a threat to your sister and the League?”
“The last time I took a wizard at face value ...”
Perhaps it was just the wind, but she thought she heard him sigh.
She stepped into the forest, tense muscles loosening as she took her first breath of mossy air. This place was the one constant in a life that seemed always to be taking unexpected turns, usually for the worse, and she intended to walk home in it without once thinking of the wizard behind her.
“Why, Miss Harper,” said an entirely different wizard—tall, dark-eyed and aquiline-nosed. “Fancy meeting you here.”