What was wrong with her?
They had to crouch behind the chair for a few more minutes, variations of these thoughts jigging through her head, before Miss Sadler stepped into the powder room near the front door.
“Time to go,” Ella whispered, pressing at her back.
Beatrix crawled out and tiptoed past the powder room, still shaky with the shock of how close she had come to—she didn’t want to even think the word. Then she remembered the trouble with the front door. She stopped with her hand on the handle.
Ella poked her in the back with increasing vigor, but they were too close to the powder room for explanations.
The toilet flushed. She wrenched open the loud door, pulled Ella out, pressed it closed behind them and—clinging to Ella’s arm so they wouldn’t lose each other—walked away as quickly as possible on the icy sidewalk while hysterical self-recriminations buzzed in her head.
“Oh my God,” Ella whispered.
That summed up the entire escapade.
Ella made a sound like a swallowed laugh. “She kissed mycup.”
Beatrix tried not to sob. She could have killed Miss Sadler. No, not killed, murdered. She was panicked and hadn’t specifically intended her any harm, but what good would that have done? Was it only a few weeks ago that she’d told Peter she knew where the line between good and evil lay, and he didn’t?
Hell and damnation, what waswrongwith her?
“I mean, I thought our disguises were good, but I didn’t think they werethatgood,” Ella whispered. After a moment with no response, she added: “Beatrix—are you all right?”
This wasn’t something she could explain. Not out in the open, certainly. Probably not even in their soundproofed R&D room. What would Ella think of her?
“Shaken up,” Beatrix whispered as they climbed into the car. “I’ll—I’ll be OK.”
“Hang on, you can’t drive while invisible. I’ve got it.” A pause. A rustling sound, like leaves coming out of a pocket.“Sweotolung!”
Beatrix caught herself snapping into focus in the rearview mirror—though not exactly herself because she still wore the masculine face Ella had given her. “You can put us back to normal … right?”
“Yes,” Ella said, but she sounded tired, and when she said “there you are” a while later, still invisible herself, exhaustion tinged her voice. “The hardest part was making your hair look like your shade of brown again. I think”—she gave a jaw-cracking yawn—“I think I’d better stop there for now.”
“Rest while I drive.”
“What I’d really like to do is—is”—Ella yawned again—“eat.”
No wonder. It was after eight and they’d never had dinner. Just cake, in Ella’s case. Beatrix started the car. “We’ll get something on the way.”
Shortly afterward, soft snoring sounds came from the passenger seat.
Beatrix swung through the city, bought sandwiches at a corner store and stopped at Joan’s. She helped Ella, still invisible and half-asleep, into the apartment and left her on the couch while she and Joan closeted themselves in the bathroom.
“Very close,” Joan said, shaking her head after hearing the summary version of what had happened. “How did you stay calm through all that?”
“I didn’t. My heart still feels as if it might burst from the stress.”
Joan sighed. “Should I pass down the word to stop?”
Beatrix hesitated. It would be so much easier if they did. No longer would she have it hanging over her, this potential disaster in the making. This lie to Peter that felt like a physical presence between them.
This could be the day.
She took a deep breath. “No. Emergency averted. We’ll just need to be more careful. Pass down the word not to recruit League members—say it’s too risky, given … given the attention on the League and some of its members’ feelings about magic.”
She thought Joan might object. Most people would, given the scare they’d just had. But Joan nodded. “I’ll do that.”
CHAPTER 13
