Too late to figure out a knitting workaround—it would take hours, if not days. She watched the agent pick up his possessions and pass through the archway into the rest of the building, the vice president take his turn with Morse—Morse eyeing the guards as if they might be a threat—and the other agent step in, and she still had no idea what to do.
Ella, hand in front of her mouth, muttered, “Stay?”
No,no.Beatrix looked one more time at the setup and boosted herself onto Ella’s back, trying to hold on without choking her.
“All right, sir, step forward,” one of the guards said.
Ella managed to do so, though Beatrix could tell it was a struggle to walk naturally. When they stopped at the conveyor belt, Beatrix scrambled onto it, Ella going into a fairly realistic coughing fit that covered up the noise. Beatrix stood with her feet on the static metal lip on either side of the moving belt, wanting to gasp air but making herself sip it instead.
“So I empty my pockets? Leaves, too?” Ella asked.
“Yes, sir, but leaves go in this bag, not the conveyor—you’ll get them back on the way out. Could I see your ID first?”
As Ella complied, she said, with just the barest hint of a waver, “Fascinating contraption! What is it?”
“X-ray machine, sir. Just got it.”
“Golly, what they won’t think of next.”
The belt rolled through a red-lit tunnel perhaps eighteen inches long, encased in metal that reached all the way to the ceiling. Beatrix watched Ella’s wallet go through, followed by a watch, which stopped in the tunnel with ading—a dull white amid the red. Maybe there was an “X-ray” in there, but it was also a spell detector. The military must have decided they could keep its existence a secret this way and catch any hidden wizards with the invisibility reversal spell, floor and pat-down.
The typic was midway through with the latter, and Beatrix readied herself. The moment he was done, she would need to get onto Ella’s back again.
But when he finished, he was standing between them.
“All right, sir, you’re good to go. Retrieve your belongings and we’ll let you through.”
“Uh,” Ella said, obviously trying to think of a reason to get around him to the side of the conveyor belt where her belongings no longer were.
The radio transceivers attached to both guards’ belts crackled. “Hurry up in there—we want to start the tour,” said a voice made tinny by the technology.
“Sending him through in a moment,” the typic said, still in the way. “Go ahead, sir.”
As Ella moved forward with a grim air, Beatrix did the only thing she could think of—stepped gingerly forward on the metal lips until she reached the tunnel. She couldn’t go through because she’d trigger the belt to start moving. She couldn’t go over because it connected to the ceiling. The only way to the other side was around, but the tunnel’s metal casing protruded beyond the lip, leaving nothing to walk on.
“Does everyone go through this or just the visitors?” Ella asked as Beatrix reached for the other side of the casing.
“Everyone, sir—heading inandout. Security is paramount here.”
Beatrix stretched out her right foot and hooked it around the other side. While Ella checked her wallet as if wanting to assure herself that her ID was in there, Beatrix inched herbody over, lost her grip on the slippery casing and fell half a foot before catching herself.
“We’ll keep your watch here with your leaves and you can retrieve it on the way out, sir,” the wizard guard said as Beatrix scooched herself back up, awash in adrenaline.
“Oh? Why?”
“Just a precaution, sir.”
Ella gave a chuckle that was one notch shy of manic. “Think I’m trying to smuggle something in, eh?”
“Oh, no, sir! It’s just the procedure.”
The wizard touched his shield-disrupter to the barrier, opening a hole in it to clear the way into the main building. “There you go, sir.”
Seconds were all she had left. As Ella hung back, saying something about the excellent security, Beatrix surged forward, heart pumping so fast it felt as if it alone propelled her. She fell on her hands and knees on the other side of the conveyor belt with an audiblethunkof kneecap against metal that might have given up the game if the guards’ transceivers hadn’t crackled again.
“Send himthrough,” the irritated voice ordered.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
