“Enchanted paper,” Elodie reminded him cheerfully.
“This will either work or make the situation immeasurably worse.”
“Well, we having nothing to lose at this point.”
Gabriel frowned, biting his lip. “We should have brought gold artifacts from the Ashmolean.”
“We didn’t have time,” Elodie said. “And I’m sure the other professors will be adding some to the secondary defense.”
In fact, she harbored doubts about whether that defense would prove effective, given that none of the professors were emergency specialists; indeed, their experience of disaster generally involved eight a.m. lectures and the faculty lounge running out of tea.
“Besides,” she said, more in an effort to encourage herself than anything, “using items from Oxford itself might draw the magic into the city, rather than repel it. These papers belong to Hereford, so if Lazaar’s theory about sympathetic attraction is right, they will send the magic back that way, and then momentum should keep it going on to Dôlylleuad.”
“Hm,” Gabriel responded, in lieu of pointing out that Elodie gave a lecture last year rebutting Lazaar’s ideas.
She shrugged, for she’d happily be proven wrong under the circumstances, and moreover journey out to Morocco to shake Professor Lazaar’s hand in a formal apology. After all, if the Hereford artifacts failed, their power would be added to the cascade before it sped into Oxford, absorbing the university’s hoards of thaumaturgic items and racing on down the line to London. People now strolling blithely through that grand city…playing with their children…holding hands with their beloved…were going to be obliterated before they even understood themselves to be in peril.
Her stomach lurched, and she looked instinctively to Gabriel. In that same moment, his gaze rose from the Magna Carta to meet hers. They stared at each other, worry and hope and exhaustion mingling in the narrow space between them. Gabriel’s eyes were all the synonyms for darkness Elodie had come up with these past couple of days. She could feel her own shine bright in turn. Smiling, she bounced her eyebrows.
“We’re all set.”
“Hm,” Gabriel answered, his eyebrows hunching.
They stood, moving several yards aside from the barricade. Each hooked gold-charmed iron around their left ear before turning as one to look along the line.
The smoke over Witney had dispersed into a cerulean haze that stained the sky with fear. Wind rattled the world.
“I owe you an apology,” Elodie said suddenly—out of the blue, as it were.
“Oh?” Gabriel responded, not shifting his gaze from the horizon.
“I didn’t mean what I said on our wedding day.”
He was silent for a few nerve-racking seconds, then he asked with apparent nonchalance, “Your vows?”
Oh God, this was why she shouldn’t be left unsupervised with a conversation! At once, Elodie shook her head. “No! No, not at all. When I said I’d got what I wanted from our deal. I only meant to sympathize with you about losing the house.”
“Oh.” Gabriel blinked, his shoulders relaxing. “I did wonder.”
“You did?” Elodie tried not to frown as she turned to look at him, apocalypse momentarily forgotten. “So why didn’t you just ask, instead of walking away?”
“I was afraid,” he admitted with a slight half shrug. “I didn’t want things between us to end, and I’m—I’m not good at personal discussions. I thought I might ruin everything.” He huffed dryly at how that had turned out.
“Well, I thought Ihadruined everything,” Elodie said, tapping her chest with a little too much fervor and causing a tiny sharp pain to her heart. “And I was too scared to talk to you about it in case I made matters even worse.”
Gabriel looked at her finally, a dark, wry regret in his eyes. “It seems we both could have used some courage,” he said.
Elodie’s pulse leaped, tossing a sardonic laugh from her throat. “Courage or a basic ability to communicate. We could have solved everything withone conversation.”
“Apparently.”
“Well, damn. What is it that people call us, again?”
“You mean ‘geniuses’?” Gabriel suggested.
“Hm,” she said darkly.
“Hm,” he agreed.
