Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I’ll stay with you in a spellchamber,” she concluded, “but you have to be careful. Your activities have been noticed.”

  “I don’t care,” Frieda said, defiantly. “This is something we need to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “YOU’RE DOING WELL IN YOUR STUDIES,” Aurelius said, as they met once again in his office. “But are you ready for the exams?”

  Emily sighed. She hadn’t seen Aurelius much over the last couple of weeks. He’d been occupied with the Sixth Year students, according to Nanette. She’d actually been starting to wonder if he’d decided to let her finish her exams before he taught her anything else, but he’d called her into his office a week before the exams were due to begin.

  She gritted her teeth, feeling doom looming over her shoulder. She hated exams. Unlike Whitehall, Mountaintop had three sets of exams for each year, placed at the end of each trimester. If the exams hadn’t been remorselessly practical, she would have wondered if the tutors used them to torture their students rather than check on just how many skills they’d learned over the past few months. As it was, the classes were getting even harder and the tutors were snapping at their students for the slightest hint of misbehavior.

  “I think so,” she said, slowly. “Do these exams count?”

  “Of course they do,” Aurelius said. He sipped his drink thoughtfully. “If you pass, you can move on to the next semester with a clean slate; if you fail, you have to spend the holidays making up for your failures.”

  “I see,” Emily said. “And what happens if I fail completely?”

  “We will be very disappointed in you,” Aurelius said. “And you might have to repeat the year from scratch.”

  Emily sighed. Both Whitehall and Mountaintop placed more of a premium on exams than schools on Earth, but their exams seemed to be much better at gauging a student’s actual progress rather than how much they could memorize for the exams and then forget afterwards. Failing an exam also carried serious consequences; she’d known students forced to repeat entire years at Whitehall. And failing the final sets of exams could be disastrous.

  Aurelius placed his cup on his desk and leaned forward. “There’s a more important reason I called you here today,” he said. “Are you aware that many of our students will be going home for the holidays?”

  “No,” Emily said. Whitehall’s students rarely left the building over the holidays between semesters. “Does that include the Shadows?”

  “I believe that many of them will be going with their Patrons,” Aurelius said. “The point, Lady Emily, is this. Do you want to go home?”

  He meant Void’s Tower, Emily realized after a moment’s shock, rather than Earth. She had her castle in Cockatrice, but it didn’t really feel like home, not compared to Whitehall itself. It was a tempting thought, she had to admit, yet it would also get her out of Mountaintop when the school would be almost empty, allowing her to explore at will. And besides, she didn’t want to leave Frieda alone. Her Shadow had nowhere to go.

  “I would prefer to stay and carry on with my studies,” she said, casting a longing look towards the small library. “A break from classes would let me catch up with my reading.”

  Aurelius smiled. It had to be the right answer.

  “I dare say that can be arranged,” he said. “You’d do well to speak to Nanette about sleeping and eating arrangements over the holidays, but as you’re a Third Year there won’t be too many differences. And some of the tutors will remain in the school too.”

  Emily frowned. The tutors had definitely grown worse over the last few weeks, either because of the exams or the constant prank war in the corridors, no matter what edicts were issued by the administration. Professor Clifton had actually turned up to one class roaring drunk, while Mistress Granite had handed out detentions to her entire class after someone made a very off-color joke and everyone sniggered at the wrong time. Emily suspected the old lady had been rather more than just a little furious with all of them. The detention, which had involved cleaning the floors with toothbrushes, had been ghastly.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, neutrally.

  “I wouldn’t have been glad at your age,” Aurelius said, wryly. “The idea of being constantly watched would have been horrific.”

  He smiled, then sobered. “I shall make arrangements for you to stay over the holidays,” he said. “You will be welcome, of course, to keep using my library. Or the main library.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said.

  “And that leads to a different point,” Aurelius said, slowly. “Did you have to supervise the Shadows in the spellchambers?”

  Emily had been expecting the hammer to fall for weeks. Indeed, she’d been rather surprised when no one had commented on it. Assuming Mountaintop’s students were monitored as closely as Whitehall’s, Aurelius and his staff should have a very good idea what the Shadows were doing and who was supervising them. Emily had honestly started to wonder if their forbearance was actually a tacit form of approval. Their job was to turn out strong magicians, after all.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Your edict did say they couldn’t use the spellchambers without supervision.”

  “It did,” Aurelius agreed. His voice was flat. “But did you consider the problems involved in teaching them different spells?”

  “I thought that I was meant to help my Shadow learn,” Emily said. Verbal fencing had never pleased her, if only because no one came right out and said what they meant. But she suspected she understood what Aurelius was doing. He was trying to pressure her into stopping it without actually ordering her to stop it. “That is precisely what I have been doing.”

  “True, true,” Aurelius agreed. “But it is also upsetting the school’s society.”

  Emily felt her temper start to fray. “Are you saying,” she snapped, “that you actually approve of well-born students picking on common-born students? Because that’s exactly what you had before I started teaching Frieda how to defend herself properly.”

  Aurelius looked awkward, his eyes downcast. He was caught between two different problems, she realized. “Our purpose is to teach the Shadows how to fit into our world,” he told her. “It isn’t so easy if they are already resistant to authority.”

  “I’m sure you could still teach them if you treated them decently,” Emily said, wondering if she was about to get into real trouble and not quite caring. “They’re living, breathing people, sir, not slaves or animals. Or is it just easier to come down on the Shadows than the students who bully them?”

  She took an angry breath. “I don’t like bullies, sir,” she added. “And bullying is a very bad habit. Those students you allow to bully, those students who think that bullying is acceptable, will eventually pick on someone much bigger than themselves. And then they will die.”

  Aurelius scowled. “You do realize that you could be held accountable for their behavior?”

  Emily’s temper snapped. “And who will be held accountable for the bully’s behavior?”

  She recalled Sergeant Miles talking, once, about Sergeant Harkin, at the funeral they’d held for him after Shadye had attacked Whitehall. There was a fine line, he’d said, between forcing a student to grow stronger through adversity and outright bullying. It helped when the student had volunteered to be turned into a soldier, or a combat magician, but the line could still be crossed quite by accident. Emily had learned through adversity, through Alassa’s attempts to bully her, yet she’d had more self-confidence than Frieda in her First Year. And, given how beaten down she’d been at the time, that was quite worrying.

  “This isn’t forcing them to learn to defend themselves,” she said. “They don’t even have the training to know where to start defending themselves. I had to teach them.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Aurelius said. “You do realize that you could be held accountable for their behavior?”

  Emily glared at him. “If that’s the price of doing the right thing,” sh
e said, eying the cane hanging from the wall, “I will gladly pay it.”

  “Your father would be proud,” Aurelius said. There was a quiet amusement in his voice that puzzled her. Whose side was he actually on? “But I would advise you to be careful. You already have one pack of enemies on the other side of the mountains. I don’t think you need any more.”

  Emily shrugged. Her innovations had earned her enemies throughout the Allied Lands, she knew, starting with guildsmen whose livelihoods had been upset by her work. The whole concept of enemies had been an abstract concept to her until she’d arrived in the Nameless World and made some deeply personal enemies. Zed probably spent days considering how best he could poison her, for one; many of the others were dead. She found it hard to care about new ones.

  She toyed with the bracelet on her wrist, thoughtfully. In one sense, Aurelius was right; she didn’t need more enemies. But on the other... she’d enjoyed teaching, more than she’d expected. She wasn’t about to give it up for her own safety.

  Aurelius gave her an odd smile. “I see you will not be dissuaded,” he said. “Very well.”

  He settled back in his chair, sipping his drink.

  Emily felt perplexed. Just whose side was he on? She’d been nerving herself up for punishment, either the cane or a thoroughly unpleasant detention, but he seemed to have dismissed the matter completely. Why?

  She forced herself to sit back and sip her drink, waiting to see what he said next. It was quite possible he was merely trying to manipulate her into giving up without pressuring her... or that he secretly approved of what she was doing and wasn’t actually planning to do anything effective to stop her. If he genuinely wanted more capable magicians...

  She forced herself to relax, then watched him. She’d long since mastered the art of watching someone without making it obvious–her stepfather had forced her to learn–although she suspected he knew she was watching him. His face seemed to twitch between amusement, irritation and an odd desperation that made no sense at all. Why would he be desperate? He could remove Emily from Mountaintop any time he liked. Or he could try to find a way to force her to stop teaching the Shadows...

  “Emily,” Aurelius said slowly, “how do you know about how girls grow up?”

  Emily blinked in surprise, thrown by the sudden change in subject. “I am a girl,” she pointed out, puzzled. “I’ve lived through it.”

  “I suppose you would have done,” Aurelius said, sardonically. His voice softened, but there was a hint of something else, something anxious, in his tone. “I meant... how did you know about girls having problems with coming to terms with the changes in their bodies?”

  “I had problems,” Emily said. “I think all girls have problems.”

  She had a nasty feeling she’d made a terrible mistake. The Allied Lands wasn’t big on acknowledging any kind of mental disorder. And some of what she’d said was known on Earth, but not in the Allied Lands. Hell, it was quite possible that anorexia and body-image problems were First World issues. She’d certainly never heard of any girls from older times suffering from such issues... and they’d often had better excuses. The threat of being married off as soon as they developed their periods would have been enough to deter any of them from wanting to grow up.

  Aurelius studied her for a long moment. “What makes you think that all girls have such problems?”

  “Our bodies change more than male bodies,” Emily said. She couldn’t recall hearing of any boys suffering from anorexia. They’d always seemed more eager to grow into adulthood than girls. “We bleed, we suffer mood swings, we grow breasts and start preparing for childbirth... how many boys go through that, sir?”

  She felt herself flushing and looked down at the ground. There was, as far as she could tell, no physical difference between a person born on Earth and a person born on the Nameless World. Alassa had some modifications worked into her genetic code–the Royal Bloodline–but she was still human. Logically, they should have the same problems–or at least the same potential for problems.

  “None of us,” Aurelius said, flatly. His voice went completely emotionless. “How do you overcome it?”

  “You can’t,” Emily said. “I think you just have to endure. Knowledge helps.”

  She sighed. Her mother had never taught her about how her body would change as she grew older. If she hadn’t been taught some information at school–and picked up even more from books and the Internet–she might have had some problems when she started puberty. And then her stepfather had started looking at her. Perhaps, if she’d had the option, she would have chosen to try to starve herself too. But she’d been dancing on the verge of starvation for far too long in any case.

  “Your father didn’t look for a cure?” Aurelius said. “Or something to help you survive?”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed in sudden understanding. He was talking about helping a child magician survive puberty. If Void had managed to discover a way to do just that, she realized in horror, and kept it to himself, the remainder of the magical community would be furious. How many children had been condemned to death because they’d grown into their teens, doomed by their own powers? But Void hadn’t found anything, she knew all too well. Emily had survived reaching her teens because she’d had no powers at the time.

  “I didn’t develop magic until I was sixteen,” Emily said, quietly. “I don’t think my father did anything to prevent it.”

  “You had a standard education,” Aurelius said. His voice was still flat. “I can tell you didn’t develop powers as a child.”

  He paused. “But your father didn’t develop anything?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Emily said, which was perfectly true. But somehow she couldn’t really see Void raising a child. “I certainly don’t think he did anything to me.”

  Something clicked in her mind. “The girl in the crystal,” she said. “Whose child is she?”

  Aurelius’s face darkened in sudden anger. “Get out,” he snapped. Magic flared around him as he lost control of his powers. “Now!”

  Emily stared at him, suddenly feeling very slow and stupid. The girl was Aurelius’s child, she had to be. And she’d taunted him with the prospect of something that would save her life. She would have happily slapped herself if she could take back the last few minutes of their conversation. The waves of magic spiralling around him were getting worse... Emily started to stand up, only to freeze when she sensed the full force of his presence for the first time. He was a terrifyingly powerful magician.

  The Grandmaster might be a match for him, she thought, feeling like a rabbit looking up at a hawk, knowing that it might drop out of the sky at any moment, claws extended. I...

  Aurelius glared at her. “Get out,” he repeated. “Now!”

  He made a gesture with his hand. Emily suddenly found herself flying through the air, then out the door and into the lobby, where she was unceremoniously dropped on the stone floor. She picked herself up off the floor, just in time to hear something smash against the wall inside his office before the door slammed shut.

  Shaking, she leaned against the wall and waited for her heart to stop racing. It took her long moments to become aware of her sweat-soaked body again.

  Idiot, she told herself, as she struggled to stand upright. You utter idiot!

  Somehow, she managed to force herself to walk out into the darkened corridor. She was shaking so badly it took her several tries to generate a light globe; once she had, she followed it back to Raven Hall.

  I’ve never seen Aurelius that furious, she thought as she stumbled through the corridors. He’ll probably refuse to talk to me again.

  And how could she blame him if he ordered her to go back to Whitehall after the exams?

  You should have more concern for other people’s feelings, a voice nagged at her. Or didn’t you realize that King Randor isn’t exactly a normal father?

  Emily stumbled into the hall and staggered towards her bed. Nanette was sitting on her bed, reading a
book; her eyes went wide when she saw Emily. She opened her mouth to say something, but Emily shook her head and erected privacy wards around her bed before the Head Girl could say a word. Frieda was, thankfully, sleeping–and snoring lightly. Emily pulled off her dress and fell into bed without bothering to don a nightgown. She felt too tired to do anything but sleep.

  The following morning, Nanette cornered Emily and dragged her into her office.

  “What happened?” She snapped. “And don’t give me any nonsense about being punished.”

  “I said something stupid,” Emily confessed. In hindsight, she couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. “And he threw me out of his office.”

  “You appear to have survived,” Nanette said, dryly. “Clearly, it was something unconnected to the school, or you’d be in detention right now. But you survived.”

  Emily swallowed. “What should I do?”

  Nanette shrugged. “I suggest you write him a note apologizing for whatever you said,” she suggested. “Don’t make any flamboyant gestures, I think; just write a simple apology and let him make the next move.”

  Emily nodded, slowly. “Is that what etiquette advises?”

  “Usually,” Nanette said. She frowned, meeting Emily’s eyes. “What did you say to him?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you,” Emily said. She had a feeling Aurelius would kill her for real if the news got out. “It’s... personal.”

  “Then definitely write him a note, then stay out of his way until he calls you,” Nanette said. “And don’t tell anyone else, even your Shadow. Whatever you said had to be pretty bad.”

  Emily nodded. “It was,” she said. Guilt nagged at her mind, mocking her. “And I feel like a bitch.”

  “Maybe you should,” Nanette said, without sympathy. “Go eat breakfast, then write him that note. Or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  AURELIUS SAID NOTHING TO HER THAT day, even after she’d sent him the note. Nor did he say anything as the week rolled on and exams began. Emily couldn’t help feeling distracted by worry and guilt, even as she walked into the first examination room and saw Mistress Granite eying her with a gimlet eye and an utterly unforgiving expression. She would have sooner walked through Blackhall stark naked, without her magic, than endure the oppressive silence. If Nanette hadn’t advised her to keep her distance, she would have gone to Aurelius and apologized in person.