Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series)

by Christopher Nuttall

  He left the room, followed rapidly by the other councilors.

  Imaiqah cast a privacy ward in the air as soon as the door had closed behind them. “Are you sure that you can get into the castle?”

  “Yes,” Emily said, and prayed that her friend wouldn’t ask for details. “I think I can.”

  “Most of the magicians they have seem to need to use wands,” Imaiqah said. “But the crow-faced magician who took Alassa didn’t need one. Do you think he’s a full-fledged sorcerer?”

  “More experienced than me,” Emily muttered. The bird-magician hadn’t felt as powerful as Void or the grandmaster, but he could easily have been concealing his magic. But then, if he was that powerful, all three of them could have been taken prisoner easily. “And I don’t think he will be holding back the next time.”

  “If he was,” Imaiqah reminded her. “He came very close to killing me.”

  Emily nodded, silently promising herself that the bird-magician was going to pay for that.

  “I could come with you,” Imaiqah offered. “Or surely there must be someone else…?”

  “No one we can call,” Emily admitted. “If we had Jade here…”

  She thought–again–about trying to contact the grandmaster and asking him to pass a message to Void, but it wouldn’t be fair to him. And besides, it would take time for the message to reach her guardian even if the grandmaster forwarded it without hesitation. It was just another reminder that instant communications were very rare in the Allied Lands.

  “You should have accepted his offer,” Imaiqah said. She stuck out her tongue at Emily’s expression. “If he’d been engaged to you, he might well have come with you to Zangaria, just to make sure that a handsome prince didn’t sweep you off your feet.”

  Emily made a threatening gesture with her hand, then giggled.

  “We’d better eat,” she said, as a woman appeared with a large tray of food. “Tonight–victory or death.”

  Or death even if we win, she added, in the privacy of her own mind. There was one way to break through a set of complex wards, but it came with a price. And an automatic death sentence in some parts of the Allied Lands. If they’d worried about what she’d done to Shadye, they’d be completely horrified if they ever found out what Emily had in mind to break into the castle.

  “You’ll win,” Imaiqah said. “I have faith in you.”

  Too many people have faith in me, Emily thought, grimly. When will it stop?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  EMILY HAD ONLY BEEN DIMLY AWARE of the stars on Earth. She’d lived in a city, after all, and even the poorer districts had had enough streetlights to make it hard to see the stars. If there had been a space program worth a damn, maybe she would have been interested, but as it happened she had rarely looked up at the night sky. It had only been after coming to Whitehall that she’d learned how to use the stars to navigate and by then she remembered almost nothing about the stars that shone down on Earth. She had no idea if the constellations that shone above Alexis were anything like the ones visible on her homeworld.

  The thought provided a distraction as she slipped through the streets, relying on stealth and a simple glamor to keep from being noticed. If the stars were similar, did that mean that her new world was actually an alternate Earth? But the continents were completely dissimilar to the continents she remembered from back home, suggesting otherwise. Although…if this were a different world rather than just an alternate timeline, how had humanity even evolved here? Had there been prior contact between Earth and the Allied Lands?

  She’d read all the theoretical books on magic in Whitehall’s library and none of them had even mentioned anything reassembling the many-worlds theory. Emily had always assumed that she was the first interdimensional traveler in Whitehall’s history, if only because she was sure that something would have been recorded if it had been commonplace. And Shadye didn’t seem to have realized that his search for a Child of Destiny might have plucked one from an alternate world.

  But there was no way to know for sure. Professor Locke had told the class–when they’d been working towards their exams–that history became legend very quickly. There were no shortage of stories about what had happened when the Faerie had been at the height of their power, or the early days of the first necromancers, but many of the stories contradicted one another. Emily knew that historians on Earth had faced problems in uncovering what had happened during the Persian invasion of Greece–the first event in western history to have been recorded properly, at least as far as she knew–and they hadn’t had to worry about magic, or completely alien creatures with alien motives. All they’d had had to worry about was the Great King’s understandable reluctance to dwell on his own defeat.

  Emily pushed the thought aside as she reached a position where she could see the castle. It had been darkened, illuminated only by a single glowing ball of light hanging above the gatehouse, but it glowed in her mind’s eye. The wards surrounding the castle were nowhere near as powerful and specific as the wards guarding Whitehall–King Alexis hadn’t had the chance to build on a nexus of power–and in some ways, they were basic. But they were powerful enough to alert the defenders if someone broke in by force.

  The books she’d read about wards had pointed out that the larger the ward, the less it could effectively do. A very small ward could tell the difference between a friend and an enemy; a larger ward couldn’t do anything more complex than keep people out, or simply alert the guards if there was an intruder. Emily had been keyed into the wards when she’d arrived at the castle, along with the princes, but she suspected that the duke would have revoked her permission to come and go as she pleased. If it was the duke–and if he did have that authority. The only person with complete power over the wards was the King.

  But the authority would pass to the duke if the king died, Emily thought, staring up at the castle. Is that why they attacked before Alassa could be Confirmed?

  Carefully, she walked around the castle, studying the rocky mound that held it above the city. She could have climbed up to the walls if the wards hadn’t been there, but scrambling up the walls would have been almost impossible even without the surprises that might have been buried into the stone. Stone could hold magic for years, she knew, and a small team of enchanters could have prepared it for almost anything. A climber might suddenly lose his grip and plummet to his death, or a ladder might slip and fall at entirely the wrong moment. No, the only way up was through the gatehouse–and that would be dangerous. If they were checking everyone who went in and out of the castle…

  But there was no choice.

  She felt the mirror Imaiqah had given her vibrate in her pocket. Emily carefully cast a privacy ward into the air and then pulled the mirror out, wondering if they’d finally made steps towards a magical cell phone network. If only the enchantments lasted longer…Imaiqah’s face appeared in the mirror, looking grim. The fighting would have begun.

  “They’re attacking the soldiers now,” she said, softly. “We haven’t actually tried to kill them, just to trap them.”

  Emily nodded. The duke was supposed to be a skilled commander; he’d suspect that the whole affair was a diversion if his soldiers weren’t actually being killed. But what was he going to do about it? If he abandoned his men, his remaining followers would start wondering if they were going to be abandoned next. Morale would fall like a stone–she hoped. It seemed an unwise thing to base a plan on.

  “Good,” she muttered. “I’ll watch and wait here.”

  She didn’t have long to wait. The sound of the gatehouse opening was clearly audible in the still night air, followed rapidly by hooves as horsemen charged out the gate and down the road. A small army of armored soldiers followed them, carrying whips and swords. Emily couldn’t understand why they were bothering with the whips, until she realized that it would keep civilian casualties down. She would have felt happier about that if it hadn’t proved that someone had decided to try to avoid a massacr
e which might have caused the entire city to revolt.

  But the barons might actually consider that a plus, she thought, wondering just who was behind the whole plot. Destroying most of the city and killing the productive population would cripple the monarchy, no matter who was on the throne.

  “They’re coming,” she muttered, into the mirror. “Good luck.”

  She waited long enough to be reasonably sure that no one else was going to come charging out of the gatehouse and then pulled Alassa’s handkerchief out of her pocket. Her original plan, such as it had been, had involved using Alassa to gain access to the castle; there was no way she could be excluded from the wards, at least as far as Emily knew. But the bird-magician had made that impossible.

  Emily hesitated, looking down at the bloodstained cloth. Blood Magic was dangerous–as she, more than anyone else, had good reason to know. She’d been warned, right at the start of her time in Whitehall, to make sure that she took good care of her blood, if only to prevent someone from using it against her. And all of her precautions hadn’t been good enough to prevent Shadye from using a tiny sample of her blood to control Emily. If it hadn’t been for Sergeant Harkin…

  She pushed the thought aside. After the Battle of Whitehall, she’d used her access to the library to find and read two of the books on Blood Magic, both heavily restricted and charmed to the point that she was surprised that she hadn’t been caught. Reading restricted books was grounds for more than a simple thrashing, they’d been warned. The wrong kind of book, read without permission, could lead to expulsion–or worse. But she hadn’t really had a choice. She needed to know as much as she could before someone else tried Shadye’s trick, with more success. Shadye had wanted a subordinate as much as he had wanted a slave. The next necromancer might simply want her dead.

  “If this goes wrong, or even if it works,” she muttered, very quietly, “Alassa may never want to see me again. And if it saves her life, I will accept that as the price for my decision.”

  In a way, Blood Magic was very like necromancy, close enough that Emily had wondered if one automatically led to the other. But she’d heard of Blood Magic users who were not necromancers…Blood Magic didn’t impose immediate costs, unlike necromancer, but using it involved crossing a moral barrier. If one could work through a person’s blood, gaining some measure of power over them, it was a small step to make the decision to kill for power.

  Carefully, she reached out with her mind, feeling the hints of magic surrounding Alassa’s blood. Even without the Royal Bloodline, or any spells to preserve it, it could be years before blood lost its potency as a magical tool. Skin barely lasted seconds, hair couldn’t be relied upon for anything…but blood lasted years. The only thing that seemed to remain potent forever were bones, yet they created their own problems. None of the books she’d read had suggested that using bones for ritual magic was a good idea.

  She could feel the faint link leading off towards the castle, to wherever they were keeping Alassa. Most Blood Magic users would reach out along the link and try to influence the person at the far end, but Emily had something else in mind. Alassa’s personality, the core that made her what she was, lay over the bloodstain like a curtain. And it was suddenly very easy to draw that curtain over Emily herself. The wards would simply mistake Emily for Alassa…

  …Or so she hoped.

  If the wards had been smarter, like the wards at Whitehall, they might have noticed that the same person was in two different places at once. Emily knew that it was a gamble, all the more so if there was another warden, apart from King Randor himself. A mind supervising the wards would make detection almost certain. But she’d gone too far to back out now. Bracing herself, pulling an additional glamor over her form, she started to walk up towards the castle.

  The buildings outside the castle were dark and cold, almost completely abandoned. Emily couldn’t blame the occupants; they’d either been taken into the castle as honored guests–hostages, in other words–or had decided to suddenly move out to the edge of the inner city. Paren had told her that it had added to the confusion, making it harder for the duke’s men to track the council and their followers. Emily felt an odd spurt of pain as she caught sight of where the Assembly building had stood. It was now nothing more than a pile of burned-out ruins.

  They can rebuild, she thought, grimly. And the next one will be stronger.

  She felt the wards brushing against her as she approached the gatehouse. Whitehall’s wards would have repelled her, or frozen her in her tracks, if she hadn’t had permission to enter the building. Here…what could they do? The wards might only be able to alert the guards, which would be bad enough. Emily would have to fight or run, losing the advantage of surprise. She clenched her teeth as the wards grew stronger, poking at the illusion covering her. And, a moment later, the wards seemed to fade away. It took her a long second to realize that she had just walked through without harm.

  The main gatehouse was closed and barred, unsurprisingly. It was only opened to allow large numbers of troops or guests to pass in or out without impediment. Instead, she headed towards the smaller door and braced herself as two guards stepped out of nowhere, glaring at her. Emily prayed silently that the glamor would hold as they studied her, then waved her through into the outer courtyard. The combination of a safe passage through the wards and a compulsion woven into the glamor, suggesting that she was someone in authority, had worked.

  In daylight, the courtyard had been bustling with life, but in darkness it was as still and quiet as the grave. Emily slipped across it, keeping to the shadows, and found one of the main entrances into the castle. It was unguarded, she realized in surprise as she stepped inside. She’d expected to have to use the glamor again…inside, half of the lights seemed to have been allowed to burn out, without replenishment. It didn’t slow Emily down any longer than it took to cast a night-vision spell over herself.

  But they did think that the council was involved in plotting resistance, she thought, as she headed onwards. Maybe they intended to make it harder for their forces if they stormed the castle.

  She froze as she heard voices ahead of her, then leaned into the shadows and used another glamor to hide herself. Four people walked down the corridor and past her, one of them recognizable as Alassa’s maid. She didn’t recognize the other three, but from their garb she guessed that they were servants. It puzzled her why they’d been allowed to stay in the castle, before she guessed that they were still under obedience spells. As long as they didn’t realize that King Randor and his daughter were prisoners, they would obey the duke without question. He was the King’s official heir–and Alassa’s regent–as the Confirmation had never been completed.

  Emily slipped out of the shadows and reached the servant’s staircase. It was nowhere near as ornate as the main staircases intended for the Royal Family, but it allowed them to move around the castle without actually being seen by important people. Their quarters were on the fourth floor, if Emily recalled correctly, isolated from the rest of the castle by a handful of wards. The Royal Family didn’t want to have anything to do with their servants when they weren’t actually working.

  Servants are invisible, Emily thought wryly, as she stepped out of the staircase on the fourth floor. It was a matter of seconds to find a maid’s closet and borrow a robe suitable for a young housemaid, someone who cleaned the halls, dusted the tapestries and generally remained unnoticed in the background. Emily was surprised to discover that the outfit was actually quite flattering, although in hindsight she should have expected it. Every ruler the country had had since its formation out of the ashes of the Empire had been male.

  Smiling inwardly, Emily reached the end of the corridor…and then stopped as she felt the bloodstained handkerchief jerk in her hand. Pausing, she closed her eyes and concentrated…and gasped in surprise as she realized that there seemed to be two princesses at the far end. That was impossible…Alassa didn’t have a sister and even if she did, the link wouldn�
��t have reached the other girl. For a moment, Emily wondered if she was seeing the Blood Magic reflected back at her, before realizing that was unlikely too. Surely, she would have seen it the moment she’d sensed Alassa’s presence on the other end of the link.

  Controlling her breath, she concentrated again…and realized that one of the princesses was moving, head down towards the Court Wizard’s lab. Emily hesitated, then made the decision to find out just what the Court Wizard was doing. Besides, it might be the real Alassa, being taken to a ghastly fate. Returning the handkerchief to her pocket, Emily walked out of the servants quarters and headed down towards the lab. A pair of young guardsmen leered at her as she passed, but did nothing to stop her. Emily kept her eyes on the ground and ignored their lewd gazes as they tracked her until she turned the corner.

  There were more guards on the lower levels, but they ignored the housemaid, apart from one who tried to pinch her bum. His superior reprimanded him and motioned impatiently for Emily to hurry onwards, which she did. It took all of her determination not to smile until she was safely away from them; the duke must have picked noblemen to serve in his army. They never paid attention to the servants. God alone knew how many spies in history had posed as nothing more interesting than janitors or maids.

  But then, they thought that she was under an obedience spell. Resistance was not only futile, but inconceivable. Why not let the servants try to clean up the mess?

  She stopped as she reached the lab and glanced into the room. It had been devastated; the glass devices and test tubes Zed had been so proud of had been smashed, their remains left on the stone floor. The stench of hundreds of chemicals mixing together without restraint rose up to her nose as she stared at the destroyed workroom. It was easy to imagine Zed fighting to prevent outsiders from breaking into his private lab…

  And then she heard someone ahead of her, in one of the rooms Zed hadn’t shown her when she’d visited. Bracing herself, Emily crept forward and peeked through the door. The bird-magician stood there, his back to her, working on a vial of blood that he’d placed above a glowing fire stick. Emily gasped as she realized that he had to have taken the blood from Alassa. And now he was preparing to use it to take permanent control of the crown princess and future queen…