“Ahebban, ahebban, ahebban, ahebban,” she chanted, trying to press down creeping emotions with each syllable.
Still nothing.
“Ahebban.” The leaves were damp where they touched her palm.“Ahebban!”She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to keep her mind so clear it didn’t longingly picture the directory obliging her.“Ahebban! Ahebban! AHEBBAN!”
Her stomach swooped, something almost electrical sizzled down her right arm and she opened her eyes just in time to see the phone book jerk upward, the leaves turning to dust in her hand. The directory stopped about three feet above the ground and hung there, vibrating with an invisible energy.
“Oh,” she gasped. She tottered backward and fell into a chair. “It’s true—it really istrue.”
Peter roundedthe curve on Main Street just before his driveway, thinking of harvesting leaves for forty-five minutes to round out the two-hour absence he’d promised, when his locket burned hot for the third time since he’d arrived in Ellicott Mills.
He pulled to the side of the road, snatched a leaf from his pocket and cast the identification spell. Blood roared in his ears as he waited for it to form an image.
Miss Harper.
Well—about time.
He let himself into the house by way of the cellar entrance, spelling himself invisible as he went, and crept to the first level. He found her seated in the receiving room—staring at a telephone directory floating near the desk, her lips parted, her eyes wide.
He understood that awestruck feeling. When he blew the state’s examination record out of the water twenty years earlier, the force of his joy and shock had pressed him to his knees.
Miss Harper came back to herself, jumping to her feet. She consulted a book whose title he couldn’t make out but which clearly had the red classified stamp. Then she chanted “gefeallan” until the directory, once again subject to the laws of gravity, thumped to the floor.
He hadn’t absolutely counted on her casting spells—reading classified documents would have been enough—but he wasn’t surprised. Of course she would want to prove to herself that she could do it. The temptation would have been irresistible.
The next step of the plan had been to enter stage left, distressed. Howcouldshe break federal law and disobey his clear instructions, etc. etc.
But he’d designed this trap before he got to know the new Miss Harper. He likedher. He suspected he could trust her, despite her mother and League activism. God help him, he was thinking of just asking for her assistance, rather than once again forcing her hand.
Still, he couldn’t take no for an answer. If the choice he offered was revealed as no choice at all, wouldn’t that be worse?
As he stood at the threshold, trying to decide, Miss Harper began chanting another spell.Awritan. He refocused on her to see what she was copying.
His heart nearly stopped dead.
The top-secret report. A report that surely only a small number of wizards had ever seen. One the administration certainly did not want made public.
Without pausing to think, he dropped the invisibility spell and charged in.
CHAPTER 11
He seemed to come from thin air, coat swirling behind him.
“What thehelldo you think you’re doing?” Blackwell roared.
Beatrix, trying to come up with a plausible explanation that did not involve committing felonies, could manage only a stuttered, “I—I’m?—”
“Do you have any idea what would happen to me if that report got into the wrong hands?Do you?”
She stumbled backward into the desk chair. He slammed his palms on the desk and added: “A government official who allows a top-secret document to be stolen by securing it improperly gets sent to prison. Who do you think they’ll assume yougotthis from? Didn’t you spare a single thought for me?”
She hadn’t. Oh, God.
“I didn’t think I needed to secure things from you,” he said, voice gone quiet. “How wrong I was.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, voice catching.
“Sorry you were caught.”
