Peter said nothing. The thought of his last six months there, and at the test facility in New Mexico, choked off any response he could have given.
“And out here,” Martinelli said, “you get to save animals instead of sacrificing them.”
They crested the hill in silence, Martinelli’s tan DeSoto coming into view—the reason Peter had had no advance warning of the arrival. Spellcasting detection charms did not detect wizards driving sedans into Ellicott Mills.
“I can put you up for the night if you’d rather not drive back. Or give me two reds”—Peter held out a hand for the leaves he knew Martinelli would not cough up—“and I’ll teleport you and your car home. Like an actual wizard.”
“I now have to do all the teleporting to and around the test site, I’ll have you know. Themiseriesyour scurrilous desertion has brought upon me.” He grinned. “I like to drive, and it’s only six o’clock, so no need to give me a bed—but thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Martinelli clasped his arm, got into the car and turned the key in the ignition. And Peter made himself ask the question.
“Are you chief weapons developer these days? Is it official?”
Martinelli rolled his eyes. “They’re still considering their options, the philistines. You know how the Army is. Turns out Franck’s quite ill, so their options aren’t that impressive”—Peter’s heart leapt at that, and then he immediately felt bad for taking pleasure in poor old Franck’s bad health—“but they’re hyper-focused on other leadership changes at the moment. Did you know that Mercer retires next week?”
News to him. Probably not good news. Lt. Gen. Mercer had seemed at least a bit uncomfortable about the turn the weapon had taken.
“Who’s the new overseer?” he asked, trying to project unconcern.
Martinelli shrugged. “Some buddy of the vice president’s.”
Peter hadn’t seriously thought the Army would come to its collective senses about the weapon, but he must have been unconsciously hoping, because his stomach sank. The vice president was a hawk’s hawk.
“I listened to you, you know,” Martinelli said. “I asserted myself. I gave them a dozen reasons it should be me replacing you.”
It wasn’t possible for his stomach to sink further, so it writhed instead. He should have told Martinelli to get out of that nightmare. Instead, he’d practically ordered the man to dig himself in deeper because Martinelli wasn’t clever enough to uncover what he, Peter, had done.
It was a betrayal. No way around it.
“Good luck,” he croaked.
He watched Martinelli wind down the long driveway and disappear around the curve. His state of mind was such that when he finally noticed that his stomach was zipping with something other than wretchedness, he knew immediately that what he felt wasn’t his emotion.
Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, Beatrix was a mass of nervous excitement.
He really,reallyhoped that didn’t mean what he thought it meant.
Joan grinned backat them as the results of the last spell on their to-do list prickled their skin like a sudden chill.
“It worked?” she asked. “The bathroom’s protected?”
“It worked,” Beatrix said, all but the tiniest remnants of her earlier tension gone. “You’re really good at this.”
Joan’s high-wattage smile faded a bit, and she sat on the closed toilet seat. “I’m exhausted. Does that get better with practice?”
Ella gave Beatrix a look that needed no translation.Tell her. Tell her that spells—leaves and words and body positioning—were difficult because they were the wrong way to go about it. That women could bend magic differently—more powerfully than wizards.
But that was thepromiseof the method Beatrix had stumbled onto. She’d tapped it twice under tryingcircumstances, to amazing effect. She’d had dramatically less impressive results since then, and Ella’s weren’t much better so far. They’d hoped to skip spells altogether with Plan B, negating the unfortunate need for leaves in the dead of winter. But it was clear now that the magic they’d codenamed “knitting” (“women’s work,” Ella had cackled) wouldn’t be ready for a while. And they couldn’t afford to wait.
“Beatrix?” Joan said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, breathing deeply, pushing the building panic down. “Sorry. This will always be taxing, but it does get easier with practice.”
Joan nodded. “OK. So now I—what, find other women to teach, women I trust, and tell them to do the same?”
“Only people who aren’t part of the League,” Ella said. “And don’t say anything to make them think this has some connection to the group. Also, no one should tell the people they’re recruiting who recruited them.”
