“Yes, but there are other downsides,” Blackwell said. “Most importantly, the spell must be cast without error so it settlesonMiss Harper rather than as a bubble around her. Abeorgan-protected subject can breathe normally when it’s on their skin, but if it’s, say, half an inch around them, they’ll rapidly run out of air.”
Lydia winced. Beatrix shivered.
“And that’s not all.” He set the remains of the pomegranate on the tile floor of the bathroom. “Miss Knight, would you cast the spell?”
Ella managed it as quickly as her first two. Blackwell picked the fruit up and handed it to her.
“Oh!” She stared at it in dismay. “Well—crud. You canfeelthe spell. It’s like a metal casing.”
She passed it to Rosemarie, who grimaced and handed it to Lydia.
“If anyone so much as brushed up against me, it would be obvious something was wrong,” she said. “I couldn’t shake a single hand. I’d have to run from hugs.”
Blackwell nodded. “And watch what happens when you aim spells at it.”
He set the fruit back on the tile, extracted leaves and murmured an incantation under his breath. It clanged as it hit, and the protective enchantment went visible under the strain—a barely-there pearlescent sheen with an impossible-to-miss scorch mark where his spell pummeled Ella’s.
Ella and Rosemarie both said something, but their words were background noise. All Beatrix could concentrate on was the distinctive sound Blackwell’s spell made as it ate away the protection. A sound like french fries in oil.
“What are you casting?” she said, voice reedy.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Nothing I’m going to teach you.”
“Omnimancer—”
“No,Miss Harper.”
Eventually, Ella’s spell gave way.Boom.
Fordest. He’d castfordest.
“There’s a protective spell you can’t feel, that’s not visible when struck and that won’t asphyxiate you if you do it wrong,” he said, tapping the pomegranate, which he’davoided damaging. “That’sscield—I cast it on you as you were running for the car. But it’s far less effective. It should protect you from something like a car crash, or even a bullet, but it certainly won’t stop a powerful spell. So use it at your own risk. Watch and see.”
He cast the weaker protection on the fruit. Beatrix wanted to follow Meg’s lead and lie on the other bed, pressing her face into the pillow. He’d been so invaluable in the last few hours—companionable, even—that she’d forgotten about his daily explosions. About the dread of not knowing, but knowing it couldn’t be anything good.
They’d thrown in their lot with an enigma. Perhaps they all stood in opposition to the government, but she and Lydia and the rest of the League weren’t traitors. They weren’t terrorists.
She had no confidence whatsoever that she could say the same of Blackwell.
Once again he murmured the attack spell.Splatwent the pomegranate all over the tile.
“See?” Blackwell looked down at the blood-red mess. “Risky.”
CHAPTER 27
When Peter was confident that Misses Knight and Dane could cast the protection spells reliably—and that he had recovered from touching Miss Harper—he set them practicing and turned to face his assistant. She stood with her back against the wall. She looked as if she wanted to press right through to the other side, to be anywhere but there.
“Let me see to your hair,” he said.
“Going to pull it all out?”
“Of course not,” he said, stung by the edge to her words. “Under the circumstances, we’ll have to risk a spell.”
She sat on the edge of the empty bed, removing first her hat and then the pins holding her hair up. It cascaded over her shoulders, glinting. Any young wizard would killfor that look. It had taken him a year to get all his hair to turn silver,a year of incremental changes, and that shift had come quicker than most.
Howhad she done it?
She didn’t know. So he asked an easier question. “Have you ever been to Merlin’s? The wizard-run salon in Georgetown,” he added, seeing her blank look—which quickly changed to incredulous.
