Ella snorted. “Oh yes, it was all in our heads. Our empty, feminine heads.”
“He came back several times to get information. I wouldn’t give him any?—”
“Couldn’t,” Rosemarie said.
Meg managed a passable glare. “Well, Iwouldn’thave. He tried one more time today. Then he said they were done with me, and my tuition would not be covered next semester.”
Ella shook her head and turned to Rosemarie. “Well, I salute you—it turns out you were right about why we got a visit. Just not about the source of the leak.”
“Apologies for that,” Rosemarie said. “Iamglad it wasn’t you. You’d be far more formidable.”
Meg crossed her arms, the very picture of a petulant child. “May I go?”
“Please,” said Beatrix, whose panic attack had progressed to nausea.
She opened the front door, not looking forward to the drive back. Neither, it appeared, was the traitor.
“I’ll walk,” Meg said, and left without another word.
Beatrix stumbled back into the kitchen. She would try Peter again—he would answer, and then she would know he was fine and, by process of elimination, that she wasn’t.
On the tenth ring, she dropped the telephone and ran for the car.
Everything hurt.Head. Gut. Lungs. He tried to take shallow breaths, but the more oxygen-starved he got, the harder it became not to gasp.
So many ways he could have avoided this death. Not casting the protection spell. Casting it while still at the Harpers’ house, before he’d degenerated to freshman-level boneheadedness. Sayingabsolutely notwhen Beatrix asked for his help, that evening before the League conference. Asking forherhelp at that moment of truth in the receiving room, rather than subverting her will to his.
Not experimenting with animals.
Not working on the weapon.
Not focusing on fuel innovation for his dissertation.
Not agreeing to be trained as a wizard.
Now he would never be able to undo the disaster he’d set in motion. But his death would at least serve one useful purpose. Beatrix would be free. Would she mourn him at all?
Then came a sound so astonishing he thought at first he’d imagined it: banging on the front door.
“Help!” he bellowed, wasting huge gulps of oxygen. “Cellar!HELP!”
He managed a few more yells, each weaker than the last. Too much carbon dioxide. Out of time. Darkness crept around the edges of his vision.
The cellar door opened. Beatrix, framed in the moonlight.
So he’d progressed to hallucinations.
“Peter!” Her voice quavered convincingly enough as she rushed to him. “What happened?”
“Stuck,” he rasped. “Running ... out of ...”
“Air,” she said, sounding breathless herself. She reached for him and hit the barrier. “OK—OK, I can fix this,” she said, producing leaves with shaking hands.
He wanted to explain to her—assuming she really was there—that she couldn’t fix this, no one could. He wanted her to understand that when he died, it would not be her fault. But he was past the point of words.
Beatrix angledherself just so and shouted,“Fordest!”But then she remembered: It took a lot of time to cut throughbeorganwhen Peter had demonstrated in the hotel. Three minutes.
He was gasping, twitching, turning a washed-out shade of blue.
