Martinelli grinned. “Aphids. Give me first crack at ’em—I’ll get it this time.”
He did, too. He whooped, and Peter said, “I’ll make a half-decent omnimancer of you yet,” followed by several creativeinsults from Martinelli, and they finished up the rest of the fields, laughing as they went.
“Thank you,” Mr. Kirkland said in his quiet way, shaking both their hands. “I sure do appreciate it, Omnimancer, Wizard Martinelli. I tried everything else, and nothing worked.”
Aglow in the warmth of doing a good deed, the two of them retraced their steps back to the main road.
“Ho there, Omnimancer!”
Peter looked in the direction of the call and saw Mr. Sederey leaning over the property-line fence.
“Could I impose upon you to give my calf a look?” the man said.
Peter headed for him. “Anything wrong?”
“I don’tthinkso, but—well, I’d feel better if you glanced at him.”
“All right.”
Peter scaled the fence, grinning as Martinelli followed, huffing and quietly cursing, having probably never done it before in his life. They tramped through the snow to the barn.
The calf was the picture of health. Peter cast the diagnostic spell on it, just to humor Mr. Sederey, and the animal glowed green.
“That’s a load off my mind,” the farmer said. “Now, let me give you some lunch.”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary?—”
“We so enjoyed your company last weekend, the both of you,” Mr. Sederey said. “Please stay.”
How could they say no to that?
So they walked to the farmhouse and stamped the snow off their boots, Peter inhaling the lovely smells of pot roast and potatoes.
An instant later, Miss Sederey was at his side, beaming at him. “Hello, Omnimancer! I’m soawfullyglad you’re here!”
Before he could formulate a response to that excessive enthusiasm, she’d slipped her hand around his arm and led him to the table. From her seat right next to him, she proceeded to single-mindedly smile and dimple and chatter at him. How veryinterestingit must be, wizardry. Howexcitingthat he’d worked at the Pentagram. Hownoblethat he came home to help his town.
Ohno.
He hadn’t thought anything of the faked ankle injury because he was sure that had been arranged by Beatrix. And it had barely registered when Miss Sederey stopped by Thursday afternoon to tell him how much better she felt, thank youeverso much, Omnimancer, because his mind had been full of electronic bugs and Garrett.
The girl was interested in him. Or, more likely, given that she hardly knew him, interested in his status as an unmarried wizard.
He caught Martinelli’s eye, widening both his own.Help.Martinelli raised his eyebrows in a what-did-you-expect sort of way and said, “Miss Sederey, would you like to hear about the Wizardry Academies?”
“Oh,” she said, her face showing her dilemma. Martinelli was the wrong wizard—already married and older to boot. But there was no polite way out of it. “Yes, please.”
Martinelli went into great and amusing detail, from the crazy spell-enhanced football games to the instructor who marooned his fourteen-year-old charges on an island and made final grades dependent upon getting off.
Miss Sederey nodded and giggled, but the first question she got in edgewise was aimed at Peter. “Did the two of you go to the same academy?”
“Bless you, no,” Martinelli said. “I went to Los Angeles. He went toArlington.”
He then expounded on how the Los Angeles academy was in every way superior to Arlington, making Peter laugh, and followed that up with a treatise on the oddity of attending wizardry college and graduate school in the same place you studied basic spells and geometry. And in that way they got through lunch.
“The things I do for you,” Martinelli said in a mock put-upon way as they walked home.
Peter elbowed him. “Youenjoyedthat.”
