Too late.
Gulping air, Beatrix took out the demarcation stones, two in one palm, two in the other, and laid them in each corner of the bathroom. Joan stared at these lesser-known symbols of magic use, evidently confused. Then she looked up to see Ella assuming a spellcasting position with a pair of oak leaves in hand—magically preserved, as green as the day they were picked—and sucked in a breath.
“Lang read leoht,” Ella said. The leaves puffed to vapor in her hand.
Red light washed over the bathroom and everything in it. No spots of white appeared—no spells were cast here before, at least not recently. That, at least, was a relief.
Joan sagged against the sink. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” She pressed her hands over her eyes. “Oh myGod.”
Ella reversed the spell, soundproofed the bathroom and returned the stones to Beatrix. Only then did Joan manage another word.
“How many—how many women are doing magic?”
“Just three that we know of,” Beatrix said. “The two of us and Rosemarie—not Lydia.”
“We’re protecting her,” Ella said. “The wizards are trying to kill her.”
“What?”Joan jerked forward, eyes on Beatrix. “What do you mean?”
Beatrix couldn’t answer. Her lungs burned. She tried not to listen as Ella explained, but the memory of that night surged at her anyway. The massive crane arm cracking, falling, her sister directly below. Her own horror as she watched, helpless, from hundreds of feet away. Teleporting there without having any idea how and pushing Lydia out of the way.
She’d expected more attempts. They all had. But more than two months had passed since Lydia barely escaped death, right after winning the election for national president of the League. Two months. What were the wizards planning?
Every morning, Beatrix woke more on edge than before. Every morning, she thought:This could be the day.If she didn’tdosomething, she would be driven insane by degrees.
The room went silent. Ella had finished.
Joan straightened to her full height. “So you want me to help protect Lydia.”
“It would be excellent to have another person who could,” Ella said, “but that’s not why we’re telling you.”
“We want to teach you magic,” Beatrix said, leaning in, keeping her voice down, “and have you teach other women. Then those women would teachmorewomen ad infinitum. Joan—we want to start an underground movement.”
“Oh,” Joan said, very quietly.
Ella stepped closer, the three of them forming a tight triangle. “Nearly every woman can do magic, or at leastthat’s the conclusion the wizards reached in tests decades ago. If we make it so tens of thousands of women actuallyaredoing magic?—”
“My God, that would change everything,” Joan said, almost to herself. She looked at them, eyes widening. “We could run forCongress.”
Beatrix nodded. “The Twenty-fifth Amendment saysmagic users, not wizards—‘only magic users may be elected to national office.’ We could kick the wizards out whether it’s repealed or not.”
Joan considered her. “You don’t think Lydia will succeed?”
“She’s put herself in danger. Terrible danger.” Beatrix closed her eyes for a second and got herself under control. “This is Plan B—give the magiocracy a far bigger problem to contend with so they stop focusing on her altogether.”
“Ah,” Joan said, nodding.
“But you must understand, what we’re proposing is highly illegal,” Beatrix murmured. “Even attempting to cast spells, if you’re not a wizard, is a felony. So is teaching magic to anyone who isn’t selected for one of the wizardry academies. I don’t think they’d arrest many thousands of women stepping forward at once, but a handful operating in secret? No question.”
Joan winced.
“We won’t think any less of you if you decide the risk is too high,” Beatrix added.
Joan glanced at Ella, then back at her. “Could you … give me a moment?”
They did. Beatrix sat on the edge of Joan’s couch, waiting, unable to talk to Ella for fear of bugs, trying to ignore the thought jittering in her head:What have you done.
The idea seemed so good in the safety of her house. Yes, we must, Ella had said, all strategy and enthusiasm. But they could end up undermining all of Lydia’s hard work. They might even irrevocably harm her, never mind the Vow they’d both taken. For all its implacable force when it kicked in, how could it predict the future?
