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“Not guilty.”
“On what grounds?”
“I thought that the way this court worked was that you had to have the grounds to charge me. We’ve had that in our law longer than it’s been the law of the land. After all, we’ve suffered too much from witch hunts to conduct them on ourselves. I don’t need grounds for anything. You have to present the grounds for the charges, and I must admit that I’m extremely curious to hear what you’ve come up with.” Owen sounded almost cocky, like Idris on one of his more annoying days. Merlin was fighting so hard not to smile that he ended up looking very stern indeed.
“That is true, Rudolph,” a woman at the opposite end of the table from Merlin said. “Surely you had evidence before you had Mr. Palmer arrested.”
“But we can ask you questions as part of these proceedings,” Rudolph said.
From the way Owen’s shoulders shifted, I got the feeling that he would have crossed his arms in front of his chest if his wrists hadn’t been bound behind his back. He did lean his weight onto one leg and cross the other in front of him, in a fair approximation of the way he might casually lean against a wall. “Then ask me a question.”
Ethan made a strangled noise, and I couldn’t help but glance at him. He looked like he had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting, “Objection!” My experience with the ordinary legal system was limited to jury duty a couple of times back home and watching the occasional episode of Law and Order, but even I could tell that there was something funny about the way this hearing was going. The low rumble of murmurs from the audience verified this.
Rudolph let the crowd mutter for quite some time, possibly because he couldn’t think of a good question to ask. After a couple of minutes, he banged his staff on the floor to demand silence. Merlin caught Owen’s eyes and held them, then leaned forward and said, “I have a question for Mr. Palmer.”
“Yes, Mr. Mervyn,” Rudolph said, sounding rather relieved.
“Mr. Palmer, have you ever used unauthorized magic?” Merlin asked.
I was fairly certain that this was part of whatever Merlin had planned, and that Owen was somehow in on it. Owen’s head snapped toward Merlin like he was shocked, but his posture looked far too relaxed. Someone whose mentor was questioning him about a crime should have been a lot more tense. He should have looked like he was barely holding himself back from jumping at the man.
Gloria, on the other hand, went tense enough for both of them. “What does he mean by this?” she whispered, and she moved as though she was about to go after Merlin, herself.
“I think Merlin’s up to something, and Owen knows what it is,” I said. “Look at him.” She stared at Owen’s back for a moment, then turned ever so slightly back toward me, one eyebrow quirked upward.
Ramsay’s reaction was even more interesting. He actually twitched, probably from being torn between impulses. If Merlin went on the attack against Owen, it could undermine his attempt to make Merlin look like he was out of it, but if Ramsay came to Owen’s defense, that ruined his chances of setting Owen up to take the fall for killing Merlin.
“Could you be more specific?” Owen asked.
“You have used questionable magic in my presence. I don’t know that it is strictly illegal, but I suspect that is because no one believed it could be done, and therefore it hasn’t been included in the magical code of conduct. You have interfered with time itself.”
That set the crowd going again. If this was part of a plan, I thought they were heading into risky territory, since Owen had interfered with time, and I knew it made Merlin intensely uncomfortable when he did it.
“Nonsense! No one can do that,” the youngest-looking member of the Council said.
“I have seen him do it,” Merlin insisted.
Rudolph glared down at Owen. “Can you do it?”
Owen stared back up at him, and he must have given a glare worthy of Gloria, since Rudolph pressed himself against the back of his chair, like he was moving as far as he could from Owen without getting up and fleeing. “You mean you can’t?” Owen asked.
“Of course I can’t! It’s impossible.” Rudolph addressed the other wizards on the Council. “Can any of you?”
They all shook their heads. I got the feeling that claiming the ability to do that time-stopping thing was the magical equivalent of a nonmagical person claiming the ability to fly or see the future.
“Would you like me to demonstrate?” Owen asked, sounding too innocent for this to be good. If any of the Council members, aside from Merlin, had known him at all, they would have known better than to let this go any further. They’d have dismissed the trumped-up charges, issued an apology, and let him go. But they played right into Merlin’s plan. At least, what I assumed was Merlin’s plan.
“The wards on the circle make a demonstration impossible,” Merlin said. “There is a reason we prevent the use of magic by prisoners.”
“The wards on the circle would have to be altered for a demonstration, but we do have other security measures in place,” another Council member said.
“It would definitively prove that he is capable of everything for which he stands accused,” Merlin said, as though he was being talked around to the idea.
I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing out loud. They were seriously going to let Owen stop time in the room for everyone but himself? That was like the prison guard handing the keys to an inmate and wandering off. But they didn’t seem to believe it could be done.
Rudolph stood and held his staff over his head. There was a shift in the sense of magic in the room, and then he said, “Now, Mr. Palmer, if you would demonstrate.”
“I’ll need my hands free,” Owen said. After a nod from Rudolph, the guard next to Owen touched the silver cord around Owen’s wrists, and it vanished. Owen rubbed his wrists, then said, “Okay, here’s how the spell goes.” He knelt and put a hand to the ground before whispering a few words.
