“Please,” Martinelli added, voice so plaintive that Peter felt a pang of guilt—a minor echo of the one that hit when he realized which road he was paving with partially good intentions. “Please come back.”
“Let me have my nervous breakdown where it can’t do international harm.”
Martinelli sighed and took a sip of his coffee.
“Think of it this way.” Peter elbowed him. “They’ll ask you to head the project now that a certain whippersnapper is out of the way.”
“Or they might just pull Franck out of retirement.”
God, no. Martinelli was an excellent scientist but not an innovator. Franck was a genius. Franck would get the job done and probably figure out that someone—a pretty obvious someone—had tried to sabotage the effort.
“Don’t let them walk all over you like that.” Urgency turned his words sharp. “Tell them why you ought to be incharge. Assert yourself, damn it, rather than griping about it after the fact.”
Martinelli winced. “Right. I’m truly sorry I was such a jerk to you those first few weeks.”
“You were the best, most loyal deputy I could have asked for, and you owe me no apologies,” Peter muttered, acid churning in his stomach. If only Martinelli would leave. Better yet, if only he could tell the man everything.
Martinelli finished the rest of his coffee in one gulp and stood, clasping Peter’s arm. “Best of luck with the nose-wiping,” he said, too earnestly for it to be a proper dig.
Peter couldn’t honestly wish him good luck in return. “Take care of yourself,” he said instead.
Martinelli was halfway to his car when he turned and called out: “Oh—better expect a visit from Mercer.”
Mercer—Lt. Gen. Robert Mercer—was the Pentagram’s point man overseeing the work. Of course he would be coming.
“Fair warning,” Martinelli added. “He’s pissed.”
Miss Harper arrivedfifteen minutes early, ruined dress peeking out of a bag and brewer’s guide clutched to her heart, her unremarkable features transformed by the strength of her enthusiasm.
“This was fascinating,” she said, as if he’d given her a rip-roaring novel instead of a dry primer.
He paused mid-step on the way to the worktable as it hit him that she’d used the past tense. “Have youfinishedit?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Harper, that book is nearly four hundred pages long.”
She shrugged. “I make no promises that I’ve memorized it.”
“I should hope not, after a single read,” he said, stealing another glance at her and her rapturous smile.
He’d re-read the guide two weeks earlier in preparation—with none of the joy Miss Harper brought to the exercise—and fully intended to check every step of his brewing against it because he didn’t trust himself. He’d had nine months of basic omnimancer training nearly twenty years ago before he’d been plucked out for the magicist track, which melded spells and science. He feared he would make a substandard brewer.
He wasn’t accustomed to being inadequate. Even worse to be inadequate in front of Miss Harper, who’d been fiendishly hard to stay ahead of in school and enjoyed rubbing his nose in it anytime he’d come in second to her.
“What shall I do?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. They were not, in fact, thirteen. “We’re going to make a modified tincture useful for migraine sufferers—that will cross two requests off the to-do list. Open the guide to the tincture section, find ‘migraines’ and read out the ingredients for the white willow bark recipe.”
She flipped to the right page and read, “Ten ounces dried white willow bark, ten ounces freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, 80-proof vodka.” She looked up, eyes alight with mischief. “You realize that Pastor Hattington, teetotaler, is one of the migraine sufferers. He will beespeciallyappalled.”
“He’ll be mixing a teaspoon of this into his morning juice and won’t be any the wiser. Don’t you dare tell him.”
Her laughter was there and gone, but he could hear it lingering in her “yes, Omnimancer.” This was without a doubt the best mood he’d seen her in since he’d returned.
“We have the bark and vodka—that’s a common base in tinctures,” he said. “But we’ll need a pomegranate from the general store. Does the mayor open at eight?”
“Eight-thirty, but he’s probably there by now. Should I get anything else?”
