She darted off the path that direction. As some of the noise resolved into words—can’tanddon’tandoh God—she realized he was in agony and she was running into a disaster with no leaves at hand.
Whoever was torturing him said nothing. An image of the ever-silent Wizard Morse burst to mind—could she possibly catch him by surprise? They seemed to be just ahead, perhaps down a slope. She grabbed a fallen branch as solidas a baseball bat, crept to a tree growing along the edge and peeked around it.
In the center of a small clearing about six feet below lay Peter—flat on his back, arms and legs splayed. Demarcation stones circled him, dark against the thin layer of snow on the ground.
She looked for Morse, the torturer, and saw herself instead.
Her shock was so total that for a few seconds she flatly refused to believe her own eyes. The figure wore her face, her hair, her coat. Then her doppelganger’s mouth opened and Ella’s voice came out.
“You’re in no position to lecture me about morality, Omnimancer,” she said.
What was Elladoing?
Beatrix was on the verge of rushing down the hill to intervene when she caught sight of it—the stone device Peter had once showed her in a dream, thin base flaring into a basin etched with terrible runes. And it all became dreadfully clear.
Somehow, Ella had found out about the weapon. She intended to use it with Peter as fuel. He would die. And if his hypothesis about the weapon was right, he would trigger the largest explosion yet with a death toll of unimaginable scope.
She slumped against the tree she was hiding behind as the horror of the situation threatened to overcome her. Why was this happening? Where was the payload stone? What could shedo?
The memory of Peter almost dying in his cellar stole the breath from her lungs:This could be the day. Thiswillbe the day?—
No, no,no. She gulped air, tightened her grip on the branch and crept down the slope toward Ella, now bending over Peter.
“Please,” he said, his body so unnaturally still that something magical had to be keeping it that way,“pleasedon’t do this! Just killme. Me, not all those people!”
Ella said nothing. As Beatrix reached the bottom of the slope, five yards from them, he added, “I beg of you, think about the consequences!”
“Says the wizard who made the weapon,” Ella muttered. Three yards away.
“I wish to God I hadn’t made it,” he said—and in that moment, seconds before Beatrix was close enough to strike, a twig cracked under her boot and Ella spun around.
“Stay there,” Ella warned, raising a hand.
Beatrix, still clutching the branch, locked eyes with her.“What are youdoing?”
“She’s going to blow up D.C.!” Peter’s voice shook. “She put the payload stone near the Capitol building! Beatrix, she’s the?—”
“No, you don’t get to tell her,” Ella shouted.“Iwill tell her,” and when Beatrix tried to use that bit of distraction to close the gap between them, she found herself yanked six feet off the ground.
“Frederick Draden isn’t my ex-fiancé,” Ella said. “He’s my brother.”
Beatrix, dizzy from the sudden levitation, was too astonished for words.
“I wanted to tell you,” Ella said, looking up at her with what appeared to be anguish, “but how could you ever trust me again? You thought I was the spy last yearwithoutknowing who my father is.”
“Ella—”
“So it should have been before, but I’m going to tell you everything now. Everything. Will you listen?”
Beatrix nodded. Talking meant Ella wasn’t setting off the weapon, and there was hope she never would.
Ella screwed up her face in concentration, and then itwasher face again, not Beatrix’s. The brown hair darkened like someone flicking a switch, the bun disappearing next, Ella’s encircling braid reappearing.
It was so quiet that Beatrix could hear Peter’s breath catching at the sight. Even with leaves and spellwords, wizards couldn’t do what Ella had just accomplished.
“I’ve got a protection spell on now,” she said. “Just for the record. So don’t try to attack me, just—just listen.” Ella began to pace. “My birth name is Marbella Draden, but I will never be that girl again. I’m Ella Knight. Iam. I renounce my father. I renounce everything he stands for.”
“But how did you know about the weapon?” Beatrix asked. “If your father didn’t tell you, then how?”
