“But why do you need me to?—”
“I can’t cast here, or Blackwell will know.”
She felt an instant of utter despair. As he told her the spellword and handed her a leaf, she tried to think ofsomething, anything she could cast on him. Or say to change his mind. Or use to warn Peter.
She had nothing—except the uncorked bottle full of a dark, viscous liquid that was a key ingredient in sore-throat brews. She was still clutching it. He hadn’t taken it from her.
With her right hand, she cast the spell to take down the shielding. With her left, she poured out perhaps a third of the bottle behind her back. As he pulled her from the house, she let the rest flow out on the porch, stairs, sidewalk. Even as she did it, she knew it was probably hopeless. Would Peter really see it as a warning? If he was puzzling about her absence in the house when Garrett returned from wherever he was about to take her …
Garrett pulled her into the forest with an iron grip on her arm. It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other.
A practically incoherentMr. Sederey met him in the driveway. “Here—Omnimancer—here!”
Miss Sederey was in the kitchen, arms in water in the sink, moaning as her mother supported her. Her legs buckled as they moved her to the living room sofa. “Oh, it hurts, ithurts,” she cried.
No wonder. Her arms were bright red from her wrists to her elbows. Fixable, but terrible until that point. He cast cooling, healing and numbing spells in quick succession.
“Better?” he said, kneeling beside the couch.
She slumped over, eyes fluttering shut.
“Lillian!” Mrs. Sederey clutched at her husband. “My God, she’s dead!”
His stomach gave a horrible swoop even though he was sure that wasn’t the case. He grabbed her wrist and found a steady pulse. “No, no, just fainted.”
Mrs. Sederey looked faint herself. Mr. Sederey led her to a chair.
“As soon as she comes to, she should feel much better.” Peter swallowed hard to combat an unexpected, rising queasiness. He’d seen worse burns and hadn’t reacted like this before. “The spellwork needs to be repeated once per minute for five minutes to really set in. The healing won’t be immediate—the skin will still be raw—but it will take a good deal of the edge off the pain.”
The house was dead silent as the minutes ticked by. Once he cast the final round, he pulled the aloe from his coat and squeezed a generous dollop on one of her arms.
Miss Sederey sat bolt upright with the surprised laughter of someone unexpectedly tickled. Quick as a wink, her expression shifted to a grimace. She moaned. She cried.
He stared at her. Then he grabbed a leaf and cast the diagnostic spell.
Green. Both arms glowed green, perfectly healthy, which they couldn’t be at this point if she’d truly burned herself. In fact, the skin was still an angry red below the glowing spell. What had she done to make herself look as if she’d been burned? What on earth had she beenthinking?
“Miss Sederey,” he said, “have you forgotten our discussion?”
She continued to groan, but it sounded thin. Her cheeks were now as red as her fake burn.
“The spell I just cast shows nothing at all wrong with your arms,” he said, glaring at her. “Can you think why that would be?”
Her eyes widened. Her groaning stopped.
“Shall I share my theory with your parents?” he said, turning toward her father and mother, who looked thoroughly befuddled.
“No!” She didn’t sound nearly as upset as he’d expected. She sounded angry. “That’s not why, Omnimancer. Honestly—you’re not the only wizard in the world!”
His heart lurched. “What?”
“You’re—you’re not the only man, I mean,” she stuttered.
“Did another wizard ask you to do this?” His voice shook.
“No!” she said. “I burned myself, and you’ve healed me! That’s what happened! I haven’t talked to any wizards!”
He cast one more spell on her arms—an illusion countercharm—and the awful burn vanished.
