“I don’t believe you,” Morse said.
God, what did he know? “I’m telling you the?—”
“Three days.”
Morse left, not adding “or else,” not needing to bring up the specter of what he would do to Beatrix. What was so important about three days, Peter couldn’t begin to guess, but what would befall Beatrix if he didn’t follow Morse’s order was all too clear.
CHAPTER 28
“Ready,” Martinelli murmured.
Peter scrambled up Martinelli’s back and stood gingerly on his shoulders in the dark, bracing himself on the wall. It was cool to the touch, the spellwork on it prickling his fingertips. He reached up for the spot that during dinner he’d noticed was shimmering in a slightly different way than the rest of the wall andvoila—no wall there, only magic. He ran his hand against the area, trying to figure out how large it was.
Martinelli’s legs buckled. Peter hastily got down. “OK?”
Martinelli nodded, then said under his breath as they retreated to the cots and the whisper-obscuring fan, “You’re heavier than you look. Well?”
“Definitely something there. Larger than an air vent. I think it’s a laundry or garbage chute.”
“Big enough?”
“Yeah.” Peter was slimmer than Martinelli, but he was certain they both could crawl through—if they could unwork the spell there, a meshlike pattern clearly intended to let air in while keeping prisoners from getting out. “There’s something in the way, but it feels like that metal replacement spell. You know, the one Gregorian was working on a while back but could never make as strong as steel.”
Martinelli rubbed his chin. “Two leaves ought to be enough to remove it, don’t you think?”
He nodded. That was the trouble—they only had one. How were they going to get their hands on another?
They sat in silence for a moment. Then Martinelli said, “You saw Mae?”
Peter gave a start. He’d told Martinelli that Mae thought he was dead, but that was arguably the second-most important revelation about her.
“Yes,” he said, “and she loves you. She deeply regrets leaving.”
Martinelli closed his eyes. He took several ragged breaths. “We’re getting out of here if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Any ideas about acquiring that other leaf?” Peter said. “Short of making Morse think he needs to give me another test, because I doubt my heart would survive a second one.”
“Well, we’ve got to steal it, don’t we? Not from Morse,” Martinelli added quickly, seeing Peter’s expression. “The other guy. Red Coat.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“That’s where my bright idea taps out. Your turn, whippersnapper.”
Peter stifled a groan. Steal a leaf without tipping off the wizard—or the cameras—that they’d done it. In two days or less. Sure. Simplicity itself.
“Ready,”Ella murmured.
Beatrix took a deep breath—deeper than she normally could, because instead of a corset, she was wearing a man’s undershirt with three red leaves sewn into the front. Instead of heels and a dress, she had on men’s boots, trousers and a shirt. Ella had procured them for her because trying to move around noiselessly in women’s attire was a fool’s errand.
Now the clothing she wore was as invisible as the rest of her. She grabbed Ella’s arm. “Ready.”
On the fifth try, Ella’s spell caught and they teleported out of her apartment, winking back into solidity in front of the checkpoint outside the vice president’s official residence.
“Hello, Wizard Anderson,” Ella said in her Frederick voice (or was that now her actual voice?) to the guard sitting inside the first magical barrier. It was a largely see-through bubble of a spell, glinting in the sun and big enough for perhaps half a dozen people to stand in at one time.
“Afternoon, sir!” Anderson said.
He detached a device about the size and shape of an oversized flashlight from his hip and touched it to the barrier. A hole in the shielding large enough to walkthrough promptly opened up. It was an impressive magical innovation that Beatrix could not properly admire because she had to focus on matching Ella step for step as they walked through.
