“I overheard you talking about it. In November, that day we went together to his house on a weekend. I told you I would let myself out, and then I cast an invisibility spell onmyself so I could see what he did when he thought no one but you was around.”
Beatrix closed her eyes for a long moment. She remembered that day. That was when Peter told her his fear that a wizard would be the most powerful, disastrous fuel of all.
“This morning,” Ella continued, “I drugged your tea.” Beatrix gasped. Peter’s sigh suggested he was not nearly so surprised. “I’m sorry,” Ella said to her, “I saw no way around it. Ayayak root—it puts people into a highly suggestible state, but only once, because your body quickly builds up a resistance.”
Beatrix tried to figure out where to begin with this. She settled on, “How did you get this stuff? How did you even know about it?”
“I went through Garrett’s pockets for his reds and found this, too.”
Beatrix shivered. Garrett had the drug in his pocket? How often had he used it, and for what purposes?
“And I think you can guess how I learned about it: I overheard my lovely father talking about it once.” Ella gave a bitter shake of the head. “I knew your situation was bad, but I thought we could get him to leave”—she gestured at Peter—“and that would help. But then I discover you’re not safe from him anywhere. He could be rotting in prison, andstillhe’d invade your dreams.”
“It’s notlikethat!” Peter remained stock-still, only his eyes turned their direction. “Beatrix, she thinks I’m—that I’m?—”
“I swear to you, he’s not raping me,” Beatrix said urgently. “There’s much less self-control in dreams. I want him, and so I sleep with him. It’s as simple as that. I wish I’d told you, but—God forgive me—I didn’t want you to know that my resolve was lacking.”
“Beatrix,” Ella said, “this is what they do. They make you think you’re complicit.”
“Hedoesn’t?—”
“That’s what happened to me,” Ella said. “That’s what my brother did.”
Beatrix stared down at her, horrorstruck.
“He started when I was twelve and he was fifteen.” Ella’s voice was flat. “He crept into my room while I was sleeping and gave me curare so I couldn’t move, and cast a silencing spell on the room so no one would hear, and then he touched me. ‘You liked it,’ he said. ‘You came, and you’re dirty, and youwantit.’”
“Oh,God,” Peter said, eyes wide with dismay.
“Shut up!” Ella screamed. “You’re just like him! And he kept coming back, night after night, with his paralyzing tincture and his spell he could barely manage to cast, and I couldn’t tell anyone because he’d convinced me I was to blame! Then he got me pregnant and almostkilledme with a pennyroyal brew. And that’s when I told my parents what was happening, lying in the hospital bed I told them, and my father—myfather—said we weren’t to talk about it because we didn’t want my darling brother to get into any trouble, now did we?”
Ella broke off, putting a shaking hand to her mouth.
“My God, Ella, let me down.” Beatrix tossed the branch away. “Let me down,please—I can’t just float here looking at you while you’re telling me this.”
Ella shook her head. She resumed pacing. “No. Not yet.”
That felt ominous—if not to her, then to Peter, because her stomach twisted. She had to knit herself free somehow. And keep Ella talking.
“Did—did no one help you?” Beatrix asked, identifying the spot where Ella’s magic was holding her up, roughly between her shoulder blades. “Not even your mother?”
Ella’s face softened. “She did help. Once she knew, she sent me to my grandmother’s for summer and winter vacations to get me away from Frederick when he was home from the academy. But the summer I turned eighteen, my father insisted I stay at home because he was campaigning and wanted the whole family at hand for appearances.”
Listening and concentrating on freeing herself did not go well together, but she was trying. “What happened?”
“The other wizard proposed to me. I was infatuated with him, but honestly, I was so desperate to get away that I would have said yes regardless. Then I heard him and my brother talking about me …” Ella’s whole body was shaking. “Heknew. He knew what Frederick had done, or at least some of it, and they werelaughingabout it.”
“Oh, Ella,” Beatrix said, the words coming out as barely more than a whisper.
“He didn’t care a whit about me. He just wanted to marry the daughter of the likely next vice president. And my father wanted me to marry the son of a rising star in the Senate. Hesaid he would disown me if I didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do, and—” Ella broke off with a sob, but pulled herself together. “My mother helped me apply for a teaching grant. And I escaped.”
Before Beatrix could think of what to say to this, Ella pushed on. “And that’s why I killed Garrett.”
It was not, by this point, a major surprise. But Beatrix’s voice still cracked as she said, “Why?”
“He was trying to force you to marry him.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s evil. What he was doing was evil.”
Beatrix stopped attempting to dislodge herself, feeling terrible. Most of this had been about her—Ella’s attempt to do something for her. If only she’d told Ella more about Peter so the differences between him and Frederick would have been apparent. If only she hadn’t disclosed Garrett’s marriage demand, because she wasn’t going to marry him anyway. If only she’d pressed a little harder when Ella avoided questions about her past, discovered the pain there and helped her.
