“But ...” she said to his back as he walked out.
He knew her hours at Croft’s store were eight to four-thirty, and it was now twenty minutes until six. He didn’t have a choice but to work like a maniac, and so—by extension—neither did she. At leastshewould be getting paid for it.
“Do you have anything to write on?” he asked as she trailed into the room, wiping her hands on her ruined skirt.
“No.” She managed to convey quite a bit of emotion in that one syllable.
He plucked a new oak leaf from his coat and watched for her reaction as he cast his spell. His ultimate success or failure depended largely on her true opinion of magic remaining unchanged from their childhood, when—he was almost certain—she’d disguised herself as a boy to take the magical-ability test.
The leaf disintegrated between his thumb and forefinger, re-emerging as a long, parchment-thin piece of paper. Miss Harper’s expression gave nothing away.
With a sigh, he handed her the paper and a pen fished from another pocket.
“All right,” he said, opening up cabinet doors to reveal the several hundred bottles of ingredients an omnimancerneeded for brewing requests. “It’s alphabetical; that’s a mercy.”
He made quick work of half the contents. Once fresh, they were now clearly ruined, and Miss Harper scribbled furiously to keep up with his rapid-fire recitation of items he would need to purchase. But every liquid or dried spice—from the anise seed to the zedoary oil—needed to be opened, sniffed, held up to the light and in some cases tasted. By the time they finished, it was past seven o’clock.
“I reallymustgo.” There was a strangled quality to her voice, as if she were holding back what she really wanted to say. She struck him as one provocation away from stabbing him with his own pen. “My sister expected me home two hours ago.”
“Ah, yes, the famous Lydia Harper.” He plucked the list—and the pen—from her hands. “I hope she won’t disown you for—how did she put it? ‘Helping to oil the gears of the machinery that steamrolls over typics’?”
“I’m not so much oiling the gears as being ground under them,” she said, gesturing at her ruined clothing.
He pulled a pair of leaves from his pocket, heart accelerating. “Shall I fix that for you?”
“No! Don’t cast magic on me.”
Well … shit.
He tucked the leaves back with shaking fingers. He’d miscalculated, then. Again. Not as badly as the last time, granted, but the stakes were far too high for more errors.
“Do you have a moral objection, Miss Harper?” He kept his voice steady, as if the answer hardly mattered. “I supposeyou must, considering the tenets of the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic. Fire and brimstone await me, or so I hear.”
“You can’t possibly be aware of my sister without also realizing that not everyone in our organization has the same concerns,” she said, eyes burning with an anger that didn’t match the cool contempt in her voice.
“And yours are ...?”
“I object to the idea that only the few who can wield magic are qualified to run this country.” The words were quiet. The emotion in them was not. “I object to men pointing to magic as a reason to discriminate against women, even though ninety-eight percent of them can’t perform a lick of it, either.”
Yes.Yes.
“And I very much object to being forced to work for you as punishment for backtalk,” she said, hands once again clenched into fists.
He laughed, lightheaded with hope and fatigue. “That’s not why I’m doing it.”
“Oh? Why, then?”
“Because you’re an excellent employee, Miss Harper. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight. And yes,” he added before she could protest, “Iamaware tomorrow is a Saturday.”
CHAPTER 3
Half the leadership of the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic, Maryland chapter, stared at Beatrix as she walked into her dining room. The other half would undoubtedly have followed suit, had they not lived too far away to attend a meeting in Ellicott Mills on a Friday evening.
Her sister jumped from her seat at the head of their table. “What on earth happened? Are you all right?”
“We have a new town omnimancer,” Beatrix said.
She was forced to raise her voice over the resulting furor to add, “And he’s pressed me into service as his assistant.”
