“Long story. But I’m sure they’d smoke me out. With torture, if necessary.”
“Wait! The dreams—you can warn Miss Harper and she can hide?—”
“No.” He took a shuddering breath. “No more linked dreams. The Vows are broken.”
Martinelli looked even more astonished. To stave off a volley of questions about that, Peter quickly added, “We’re married.”
“Before or after you broke the Vows?”
“After.”
Even in the dark, he could make out Martinelli’s sad smile. “So you really do love each other.”
“Yes,” he said, a desperate sound.
Martinelli was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “What about the Vow attempt tonight? Think: Anything happen that could help?”
Peter doubted it, but he cast his mind back. Interlocking circles. Morse bespelled with protective shielding. The leaves going damp in his hand as he tried and tried to?—
“Wait,” he said, heart beating faster. “He gave me three leaves. A Vow can be done with two.”
Martinelli leaned in, head cocked, looking as he always did when Peter was spooling out an idea.
“When he comes back tomorrow, I could slip you two of the leaves he gives me and keep one for appearances, and you could …” Peter trailed off, his excitement cratering. “No, ofcoursenot—you can’t cast a Vow for someone else. God, I’m losing it.”
Martinelli patted his shoulder. “Keep thinking.”
After a long stretch with only bad ideas, Peter finally put words to the one that seemed to be his only choice. A dead man could not be expected to cast a spell. “What’s here that I could kill myself with?”
“Nothing.” Martinelli scowled at him. “Don’t you dare leave me here by myself. You’d only be confirming his suspicions, anyway.”
Peter leaned on Martinelli to keep himself upright. Think.Think.
He jerked awake with a cry some time later. How on earth had he nodded off?
“OK, new plan,” Martinelli whispered, standing up. “I’ll think, you sleep.”
“No, I?—”
“You can’t do a thing in this state. The minute I come up with anything remotely workable, you’ll know.”
With no one to lean on, Peter was forced to lie down. He pressed his nails into his palms to stay awake—Martinelli was not the idea man of their duo, and Beatrix’s life was on the line. But terror and desperation could no longer overcome exhaustion. His eyes slid shut. His jumbled thoughts dissolved into nothing.
She wason a cot in her otherwise empty cell, unable to sleep, when the dark air quivered and popped before her. She jumped to her feet, heart racing. Magic. Teleportation. Someone invisible—someone who surely meant her harm.
“Help!” she bellowed.
A hand she couldn’t see gripped her. Someone muttered the teleportation spell, but it didn’t take and she pulled free.“Help!”she screamed again, then thought of the leaves hidden in the bodice of the ruined dress the police had yet to change her out of. “Someone’s trying to abduct me!” she yelled, feeling around desperately for the concealed pocket, trying to think of a spell. “Can you hearme?”
A guard came running, but the invisible hand clamped on her arm again just as her fingers touched leaves. This time, the kidnapper’s spell worked.
The next instant, Beatrix was blinking in the sudden light of what looked like a sitting room.
“Beatrix, it’sme,” said the invisible wizard.
Except it wasn’t a wizard.
“Ella?” she whispered, barely believing it. She followed that with a different question, fear cutting her off: “Is Lydia—is she …?”
