“One of my recruits told me that one ofherrecruits broke the rule—the rule about only two people,” Joan said, voice low and urgent. “This woman decided to recruit four.”
She paused, and Ella let out a whooshing breath. “Is that all? That’s not too?—”
“No.” Joan swallowed. “The fourth prospective recruit thinks it’s her duty as a citizen to inform the government.”
Beatrix stared at Joan, too horrified to speak. Ella broke the terrible silence with a question: “I don’t suppose she took a Vow?”
Joan shook her head.
“When did this happen?” Beatrix said, forcing the words out.
“This morning. I called as soon as I found out.”
Joan choked back a sob, and as she tried to compose herself, Ella muttered, “Thank God all the recruiting beyond the first wave happened outside the League.”
“No, that’s just it! That’s the worst part of it all!” Joan grabbed Ella’s arm with one hand and Beatrix’s with the other. “The recruit who broke the rule is a League leader—and her so-called friend is convinced this is a League effort!”
What happened, as far as Joan had been able to piece together, was something Beatrix saw in hindsight that she should have anticipated in a small state with an even smaller pool of highly educated women.
Joan avoided tapping League members. But she couldn’t tell her recruits to do the same without mentioning the League, and they’d asked her not to do that, so she didn’t. As bad luck would have it, one of Joan’s recruits was best friends with the vice president of the Harford County chapter, a woman whose heart was in the right place but whose head was not. Whether the bad prospect she’d tried to recruit had already made good on her threat, the vice president had no idea.
“What are we to do?” Joan said, wringing her hands.
Beatrix nearly followed suit. “Ella?”
“I don’t know!” Ella pressed her fingers to her temples. “We need to sit andthink. There must be a way out of this.”
Beatrix could see only one. “Joan—could you give us a few minutes?”
Joan bit her lip but left the bathroom without protest. Beatrix turned to Ella. “We have to tell him.”
“Who do we—” Ella’s eyes widened in realization. “Ohno—no, no, no.”
“If she’s already made the call, she’s going to expect a wizard. Our only chance is togiveher one.”
Ella’s expression went from defiant to animated in the blink of an eye. “Yeah—yeah!But why stop at one when we can give her two? Wizard Smith”—she pointed to herself—“and Wizard”—she pointed to Beatrix—“Some-Other-Name.”
Beatrix stared at her. “Ella, you’ve managed illusions on your dress. Yourdress. You can’t make us look like wizards!”
“The hell I can’t.” Ella tore the pins from her hair, letting her thick, dark braids fall down her back, and undid the plaits at a rapid clip. “Look for ponytail holders. Try the drawer there. Quick!”
Beatrix searched the drawer, then the shelves, and finally found two tucked in a corner. “Here, but I don’t think?—”
At that point she turned and saw Ella—saw her hair. The color was changing, starting at the roots and flowing down from there, strand by strand, until there was no black left. Silver, glinting in the light in precisely the way a wizard’s did.
“Oh,” she said, more gasp than word. “Oh,Ella. How did you … That’s …”
“This is my real color now. For days you’ve been looking at an illusion and not knowing it, so”—Ella’s lips twisted into a spare smile—“I can do more than just my dress.”
Ella took one of the ponytail holders, made a wizard-like queue of her hair, and frowned at her dress and coat. “But Ihaven’t tried to make a skirt into pants. See what you can do with your hair while I work on that.”
Beatrix’s hair was also genuinely silver, but the color was covered up by the dye spell Peter had cast. If she had the Brown’s Lexicon with her, she could just undo the enchantment. As it was, she had no idea what spell to cast. There was nothing for it but to try it Ella’s way.
Persuasion. All right. She closed her eyes.Oh hair,wouldn’t you like to be silver? You are, you know. Wouldn’t you like to show your true color?
It felt slightly ridiculous. She peeked in the mirror. Brown all the way.
You are silver. Be yourself. Be silver.
