Miss Hennessey bit her lip again, frowning. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Omnimancer, I don’t remember. All the appearing and disappearing was a lot more attention-grabbing.”
Peter could think of just one reason a wizard would trek in the snow outside Ellicott Mills, only to teleport away. The man knew or strongly suspected that any spells he cast in town would not go unnoticed—and this was the workaround.
He saw Miss Hennessey off, ran to his bedroom, snipped bits of the hair in one of his lockets—his silver, Beatrix’s brown, Miss Knight’s black and Miss Dane’s gray—and put them in a cobbled-together makeshift locket that would be the third around his neck. He rushed to the cellar to collect leaves from his too-small pile. And then he drove a wide circuit around town, five miles outside it at least, to bury yet another set of demarcation stones.
He came home gripped with the vise-tight feeling of time running out. He had to find a defense against Project 96. Hehadto. He worked in the attic, fueled by desperation and meeting with as much success as most desperate men do.
At nine o’clock that night, the new locket—and only the new locket—burned hot. Garrett’s face stared back at himin the swirling-leaf pattern of the identification spell. Garrett, who surely knew that Beatrix did not work on Sundays. What,whatwas this about?
“We’ll haveto be even more careful,” Beatrix said, face solemn. She lay next to him in bed, clothes on. Neither of them had any urge to stick it to the magiocracy this time.
“I’m not sure what we can do that we’re not already doing.”
“Other than not breaking the law, of course?”
She was joking. Her eyes crinkled, her lips quirked. But he gripped her hand, feeling the full censure of the message she hadn’t meant to convey. “Should we stop?”
She pulled back. “I didn’t mean?—”
“I know, but you’re not wrong. We could go back to making the brews together, all spells cast by me.”
“For a few days?”
“For good.”
“Peter, you need that time for R&D.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look back at her. “I’m getting nowhere.”
So he told her what he’d held back for weeks—how he’d tried and tried to create a magically infused tool that could sense the payload stone and set off an alarm. But there seemed to be nothing about the stone to be sensed. Even if he could do it, a country would need many, many thousands of the sensors, each one with a small enough radius so theauthorities could quickly narrow down where the payload stone was. And eventhen, it would take several minutes to destroy the stone, ringed with protection spells as it was. A stone could be smuggled in and set off faster than a city could deal with it.
She sighed. “I shouldn’t have suggested it. I’ve sent you down a pointless rabbit hole.”
“No, I still think it’s the best angle of attack. But I’m coming up short.” It was a moment before he could choke out the whole truth: “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can figure out a defense.”
She took his hand. “You can. Iknowyou, Peter Blackwell.”
Something about her vote of confidence made him feel better and worse in equal measure. Then she said, “Don’t make this decision based on what you think you can and cannot do,” and she was right, he knew it. They should make the decision based on the chance of discovery.
He ran their security measures through his head, looking for weak spots, as she lay in his arms. He didn’t see how a wizard could pierce them without setting off his charm and Beatrix’s. They just needed to be consistently, absolutely careful.
“Perhaps we should keep on going,” he said finally. “What do you think?”
“Yes.” With a vehemence that surprised him, she added: “Some things are so vital theymustbe done.”
“Speaking of which …” he said with a sigh.
Out they went into the lovely, unreal spring morning. Beatrix stared intently at the grassy expanse onto which she wanted to teleport, like every other dreamside night for the past week and a half. And like every other dreamside night for the past week and a half, she couldn’t manage it. She finally let out a frustrated scream, disappeared from where she stood and reappeared on the grass, but when he followed her there, she shook her head.
“Rearranged the world again,” she said. “I couldn’t take it any longer. I can’t do it and I hate not being able to!”
“You’ll get there,” he said, slipping his hand into hers. “Youcando it.”
She nodded, but he could see in her eyes that she didn’t truly believe it. And he didn’t truly believe he could develop a defense against his weapon. They had more faith in each other than they did in themselves.
On Monday,he let Beatrix in, reset the spell, checked every square inch of the house with an even higher level of care than usual, and stayed in the attic all day and late into the night, trying to live up to her belief in him. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday—each was a nearly carbon copy: He never left the house, he never let his guard down, he never allowed himself to think for more than a moment that he would fail.
Early Sunday morning, slumped in the kitchen, he thought of nothing but. Explosions killing tens ofthousands—hundreds of thousands. Death he designed. Death that could come anywhere, anytime.
