What if she did and gave herself away to an invisible guard?
What if she ought to forget about the rooms and search for a false wall, hidden trapdoor or equally obscure item?
What if Peter wasn’t here at all, the four days and no-longer-twenty hours ticked away, and …
Five miles.God Almighty, not that.
Finally, exhausted and famished, she paused her search and backtracked to a room full of canned rations. She grabbed a box, realized that of course it did not turn invisible simply because she’d touched it, and had to cast a spell on it because she was too spent for more knitting. She could hardly lug it out, she was so shaky, but she managed to get up the steps and back to Peter’s old office. It seemed the safest place: No one would have a reason to walk in the next morning. But more than that, being there felt … better, somehow.
After she’d secured the room, she fell on the rations. Corned beef had never tasted so good.
Then she curled up under Peter’s desk, feeling him in the very air around her. Like an echo from the past, insubstantial and beyond her grasp. Like a dream.
The lights were off.The fan was on. They had five leaves to their name, a veritable fortune.
Showtime.
Martinelli had to get up first—he had a chance of pulling Peter into the chute but not vice versa, given their respective sizes. Peter gave Martinelli a boost this time and stood bent-backed as his friend hissed a spell at the barrier, fortunately not near a camera. When Martinelli scrambled into the chute, it was both a literal and figurative weight off his shoulders.
His relief lasted all of ten seconds. “I can’t turn around!” Martinelli hissed. “It’s too tight!”
Damnit. Why hadn’t they thought of that?
He looked around, trying to come up with something. His eyes fell on the table.
“Come back down,” he whispered.
After they’d quietly moved the table in place, Peter stood on it and worked his way into the chute first. It was made of slippery metal, but the sides—amazingly—had built-in handholds. That rang a vague bell, as if it should remind him of something, but he came up empty.
Martinelli gave a soft grunt as he worked his way in. “Go, go.”
Neither of them liked leaving the table there. But they had no idea what awaited them up the chute. Better to have three leaves than just one and a table moved back to its original spot.
They went up perhaps fifteen feet, Peter nearly falling onto Martinelli at one point, Martinelli breathing so heavily that the sound echoed around the tight space. Was the climb too much for him? Peter, staring ahead in the dark, suddenlyrealized they were perhaps two feet from the end of the chute. He covered the remaining distance and still couldn’t make out much, but it looked like an empty room lay beyond—perhaps an office. All that separated them from it was a metal grate. He laid his hand on it and thought there might be no spellwork there.
God, he hoped that was right.
“Castonde,” he whispered. “One leaf’ll do. We just need to loosen these screws.”
He pressed himself to one side. Martinelli, voice reedy, performed the spell. Peter pocketed the obliging screws, pulled off the grate and?—
“Shit!”
“What?” Martinelli’s whisper was hoarse. “What is it?”
“Barrier. Could be a low-grade shield.”
For a moment, the only sound was Martinelli’s breathing. The dilemma was obvious: If it was that type of shield, their two remaining leaves could take it down. If it wasn’t …
Martinelli started to wheeze. Peter looked around, worried. “Are you OK?”
“Cla—” Martinelli gasped out. “Claustr?—”
Claustrophobic. Peter grabbed Martinelli’s arm, struck with fear that his friend might faint—fall—die. “Go back down.”
Martinelli, eyes squeezed shut, shook his head. “Can’t.”
“Cast the spell,” Peter said, louder than he’d intended.“Quick.”
