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is
allowed to the challenger!" he shouted.
    "It is only a peppermint,"
Rosato said, louder this time.
    "Fetch the item." Gathmann
gestured at one of the Briganti Enforcers helping with the vote
collection. He handed his slips of paper to another man wearing the
four-color striped Briganti sash and strode down the center aisle
to do as told.
    Cranshaw slammed his hand
down on the stone table, as if to crush the helpless candy. He
bumped the goblet holding Elinor's potion--she didn't think by
accident.
    The crystal fell to the
floor and shattered into a million pieces, splattering muddy green
potion across the grey flagstones. Elinor cried out, jumping and
stretching in a futile attempt to catch it.
    "You did that
deliberately!" Rosato accused over the rising tide of exclamation
and shouting.
    "It was an accident."
Cranshaw smirked. "If she is so foolish to place her potion in a
breakable cup--"
    " Silence! " The roar of Gathmann's voice
and more, the magic in it, brought all discussion, argument, even
random coughing to a halt. Elinor didn't think she could even hear
the sound of rain dripping off the roof.
    "You, Briganti--" The
Prussian pointed at the man who'd been sent for the peppermint.
"What have you found?"
    The Briganti officer had to
pry the crushed candy from Cranshaw's grip. He turned the pieces
over in his palm. "It's a peppermint, sir," he called back.
"Nothing more." He turned it over to another Briganti walking by
with a sheaf of votes, indicating that he should take it to
Gathmann on his dais.
    The Enforcer--Elinor
thought she recognized him from the Waterloo Station battle--folded
his arms and scowled at the four at the table. It was probably good
that he stayed close.
    Rosato handed the man a
peppermint. He tried to speak, but Gathmann hadn't let up on his
imposition of silence. Dr. Rosato turned to the dais and gestured
an appeal to speak, but he didn't wait for permission. With
gestures, he asked the Briganti to give the peppermint to Elinor,
pointing at the goblet and making a face and mock spitting to
demonstrate its nasty taste, talking silently away as he waved his
hands.
    "And if she is going to die
from it," he was saying, as his voice suddenly returned, "she would
die already. But look, she does not die."
    Cranshaw waved his hand at
the dais, requesting permission to speak. Gathmann waved back,
granting it.
    "This challenge is
forfeit," the wizard's magister called out. "There is no potion
from the challenger."
    "Because he spilled it
deliberately!" Rosato shouted. "He dashed it to the floor because
he was afraid to drink it!"
    "Why should I not fear what
that sly creature might have done--?"
    Gathmann cut both men off,
imposing silence on them again. There on the dais, half the room
away, Harry got up from his magister's chair and approached the
Prussian alchemist. They exchanged a few words, then Harry drew a
silver flask from his inner coat pocket.
    "I thought Nigel Cranshaw
might do something like this," Harry said, "when Miss Tavis decided
to use crystal instead o' metal for her cup to avoid accusations of
alchemic interference. The spell recipe she used makes up a whole
pot full o' potion. So I brought another tot. In case."
    He raised the flask higher.
"This is silver. Spelled to be completely magic null. Our judge
'ere can verify that. An' the rest o' you wizards can verify it's
the same potion as was in the glass Nigel broke." Harry handed the
flask to Gathmann.
    "Null," the Prussian
pronounced and handed it to Sir William. Gathmann waved the gavel,
erasing his silence spell, and Elinor took a deep breath. The spell
made her feel half-choked.
    "It seems the Conclave
president has learned a new trick since last summer," Dr. Rosato
murmured to Elinor. "He could not do this in Paris. It was a very
noisy Conclave assembly."
    Elinor shushed him. She did
not want to be silenced again and she wanted to watch the
wizards.
    Sir William opened the
flask and sniffed. "It is the same." He gave it to one