“You don’t have to,” he said. “You can Vow to Miss Harper.”
She wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse.
“All right?” Blackwell looked at all of them in turn. “OK. Miss Harper, if you’ll take care of the contracts, I’ll fetch a pomegranate.”
He cast the invisibility spell again—a wizard in Baltimore was only slightly less remarkable than one in Ellicott Mills—and slipped out. As soon as the door clicked shut, Ella put a hand on Beatrix’s arm. “What did he make you Vow?”
Beatrix snorted. “I can’t very well tell you, can I? Ask him.”
“Oh, I will.”
She didn’t doubt it, given Ella’s grim look. What would it take to induce him to tell the truth, though?
“Can you at least explain why you’re confident we’ll be able to spellcast?” Ella said.
“I—” Beatrix began, and that was as far as she got.
“Sorry.” Ella patted her on the back as the coughing set in. “Let’s get that wizard to loosen the reins a bit, or I’ll forever be making you choke.”
Beatrix had just finished copying out the last of the three contracts when the door opened—seemingly by itself—and Blackwell reappeared. He held a pomegranate quarter.
“How did you find one so quickly?” she asked.
“Lifted it from the kitchen. Figured I might as well add a misdemeanor to my running list of charges.”
Thank youseemed so wholly inadequate that she ended up saying nothing at all.
Blackwell handed over his demarcation stones and she kneeled to create interlocking circles, the symbol setting off her fight-or-flight reflexes. She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths, and opened them to find Ella waiting nearby. Contract in hand. Practically vibrating with anticipation.
“I’ll go first,” Ella said. “Step into one circle, eat the pips, cast the spellword?”
“Spell, then pips,” Blackwell said. “The incantation isIc gehate.”
Ella practiced the phrase. Then she jumped—jumped!—into the closest circle. “Shall we?”
Blackwell handed leaves to Ella and held out the pips to Beatrix as she stepped, feet leaden, into the other circle. Their fingers brushed as she took them, touching off a reaction down her arm and spine that felt almost like casting a spell.
No one said anything for a charged moment. Then he launched into a near-replica of the lesson he’d given her, four weeks and a lifetime ago—arm positions and mental discipline and exactly how to hold the leaf. She shivered. Shehadn’t doneanyof that on the Schoen lot. She’d simply ... traveled.
Ella drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. She put out her hand.“Ic gehate!”
The contract glowed. Someone gasped.
Beatrix gave the pips to her, mechanically, and watched as she swallowed them with unmistakable joy.
“Oh dearLord,” Ella said, throwing her arms around Beatrix. “This is better than architecture.”
“Please forgive me,” Beatrix murmured. “For—” She paused.For depriving you of some self-determination? For making you risk a prison sentence? For moving things along without really explaining the consequences?Finally she settled on, “For not believing in you enough.”
“Forgiven. Forgotten. I can’twaitto cast another spell.”
Rosemarie went through the motions with considerably less enthusiasm. She needed three tries to get the incantation to take, enough time for Beatrix to recall with a nauseating twist to her stomach that not every woman in the long-ago field tests had managed spellcasting, and ate the pomegranate pips with a grimness that seemed more fitting for the occasion than Ella’s reaction.
“Your turn,” Rosemarie said to Meg, stepping out.
Meg, still sitting in the oversized chair, didn’t move. Beatrix realized she hadn’t heard their treasurer say an intelligible word since the attack.
“Meg?” she said. “Are you all right?”
