“No,” Marlena said. “I believe you can tighten up the measurements alone.”
Emily let out a sigh of relief and started to undo the dress. “Not so fast,” Marlena said, catching her arm. “You have a lot more work to do.”
She snapped her fingers at the seamstresses. “Shoes, if you please,” she said, as Emily changed back into her normal dress. “And sashes.”
Emily groaned inwardly as the seamstresses produced a handful of shoes. The small slippers, at least, were wearable; the high heels and fancy shoes were absurd. She’d never worn high heels on Earth and she had no intention of starting now. It wasn’t as if anyone would notice what she wore on her feet, after all; her dresses all swept the floor as she moved.
“I can wear the slippers,” she said. “But there’s no point in wearing heels.”
Marlena was relentless. “You’ll be fine,” she said, as she picked up the high heels and held them out. “Making yourself look taller is all to the good.”
Emily cursed under her breath, pulled them on and tried to walk. It wasn’t easy; the heels seemed unforgiving. If Sergeant Miles hadn’t made her walk the tightrope several times, she knew she would probably have wobbled around until she toppled over and landed face-first on the ground. How did anyone wear the heels? She gave up eventually, took them off and shook her head firmly.
“I’ll fall over in the middle of the ceremony,” she said, seriously. “Let me stick with the slippers, please, if you won’t let me wear proper shoes.”
“Proper shoes would be most undignified in a wedding,” Marlena said, seriously. “You need to wear something that shows off your wealth.”
“I can cast an illusion over the shoes,” Emily pointed out. She glanced around, half-hoping for something - anything - to distract Marlena from fitting her out. “No one would be able to look through the glamor.”
“They’d know you were hiding something,” Marlena objected.
“I’m not going to be lifting up my dress in the middle of a crowded hall,” Emily said. Her headache hadn’t faded, no matter how often she tried to meditate. “No one is going to see my feet.”
“People have been known to trip over,” Marlena pointed out. “Lady Flynn was quite the talking point for five years after she tumbled over in the middle of the dance floor.”
“And she was probably wearing high heels,” Emily said. She shook her head firmly, despite the growing pain. “I can barely walk in these things, Your Majesty. I’m not going to try to dance in them.”
Marlena gave her a long look. “Even for Alassa?”
“She’d hate me if I fell over in the middle of the ceremony,” Emily said. “I’ll cast an illusion, if you like, but I won’t wear them.”
“Very well,” Marlena said. She picked up a green sash. “As a member of both parties, you will be expected to wear two sashes...”
She went on and on, running through everything from jewelry to hairstyles until Emily’s head was pounding like a drum. It was all she could do not to tell the Queen where to go - or to turn her into something quiet. By the time Lady Barb knocked on the door and called for her, Emily was on the verge of forgetting where she was and just storming out.
“Thank you for coming,” Emily said, as soon as they were out of the door. “My head was about to explode.”
Lady Barb frowned. “Have you been casting spells?”
“...No,” Emily said. She hadn’t used magic very much since they’d left Whitehall, although there hadn’t really been an opportunity. “Shit.”
“Quite,” Lady Barb agreed. “Jade set up a spellchamber in the lower levels, where Zed used to have his lab. Go use it after you speak to him...no, I’ll take you down there now and he can join us.”
Emily blinked. “Jade called for me?”
“He wants a word,” Lady Barb said. “Luckily, very few people know he was interested in you before he started courting Alassa. Do not give anyone any reason to think you and he might still be having a relationship.”
“Alassa would kill me,” Emily said. She shook her head. “Do people have nothing better to talk about than me?”
Lady Barb sniffed, but said nothing as they hurried down the stairs and through a series of complex wards. Someone - probably Jade - had written a warning on the iron doors, using English letters: KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE A TOAD. Emily rolled her eyes as Lady Barb opened the door, revealing a standard spellchamber. She had no idea how much money King Randor had given Jade to set up his workspace, but it was clear Jade had invested well. She could let loose inside the chamber without any risk of damaging the castle.
“You know the drill,” Lady Barb said. A pair of wards snapped into place as Emily walked forward. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Emily nodded, then cast her first spell. A fireball blasted out of her palm and splashed against the wards, flickering and flaring out of existence. She smiled, remembering Sergeant Miles telling the class why the fireball was the weapon of choice for combat magicians; she braced herself and cast a whole series of hexes, curses and lethal spells in quick succession, hammering the wards as hard as she could. The effort should have drained her, but she felt energized by the sheer power at her command. It was hard to remember, until a fireball expanded rapidly right in front of her, that she was supposed to be careful not to overpower her spells.
She stumbled backwards, hastily shoving the fireball away from her. It slammed into the wards and exploded, releasing a wave of heat that singed her face. Emily cursed, then froze as she heard clapping from behind her. She’d been so lost in her power that she hadn’t heard the door open, let alone sense someone walking into the chamber.
“Emily,” Jade said. “That’s impressive.”
Emily turned, gathering herself as best as she could. Sweat was running down her back, staining her shirt. Jade smiled at her as she stumbled through the wards, breathing heavily; she couldn’t help noticing that he wore a dark suit that looked like an old-style naval uniform, expertly tailored to show off his muscles. His hair, once cropped close to his scalp, had grown out a little.
“Emily,” he said, as she sat down on the stone floor. “Are you all right?”
“Just a little drained,” Emily lied. Her head felt better, now; she’d have to come back to the spellchamber every day or two and just let some of the magic out. “Do you have any water?”
Jade gave her an odd look, but opened one of the desk drawers and produced a large glass of cool water. Emily took it gratefully and drank it quickly, unable to keep from feeling dehydrated. She’d always had headaches in the past when she hadn’t drank enough to keep herself going...
“I was hoping to talk to you before the wedding,” Jade said. He sat down, facing her. “I wanted to apologize.”
Emily blinked. “For what?”
“I didn’t realize Master Grey intended to kill you,” Jade said, grimly. His face twisted in bitter guilt. “I told him far too much.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Emily said.
“I still feel responsible,” Jade said. “He would have killed you without a second thought, Emily, and no one could have touched him for it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Emily said, looking down at the glass in her hands. “You were his apprentice, not his friend or superior. You had no way to know what he was planning...”
“I told him about you,” Jade said. “All the questions he kept asking.”
“And now he’s dead,” Emily said, tiredly. She glanced at her watch. She’d have to make her excuses in the evening and go to bed early. “How do you feel about that?”
“Conflicted,” Jade admitted. “He was my tutor and...and he tried to kill one of my friends.”
“Aloha hasn’t spoken to me since he died,” Emily said. “She had a crush on him.”
Jade snorted. “Do you know how many offers he got from prospective brides?”
“No, and I don’t want to,” Emily said, quickly. She made an effort to change the
subject before the conversation went somewhere she didn’t want it to go. “How are you feeling?”
“Harassed,” Jade said. “Do you know I have three different suits for the ceremony?”
“Poor baby,” Emily needled. “I have more dresses than I care to think about and Alassa has more dresses than her mother wants to think about. Just wait until it’s all over.”
“I’m trying,” Jade said. “I don’t doubt her, but” - he waved a hand in the air - “all of this takes some getting used to. I keep having problems trying to work out which piece of cutlery to use at what time.”
“You’re going to be Prince Consort,” Emily said. “The correct answer is the piece of cutlery you’re using at the time.”
Jade scowled at her. “That isn’t the right answer and you know it.”
“Lady Barb always says you should start from the outside and move in,” Emily said, remembering some of the lessons on etiquette. It still struck her as absurd. On Earth, she’d been lucky to have a knife and fork. “And you’re going to be the highest-ranking male in the kingdom, when Alassa becomes Queen. You get to define what is right.”
“I wish that were true,” Jade said. “The king says I’m not allowed to hex noblemen I hear insulting me.”
Emily blinked. “They do?”
“I have very sharp ears,” Jade said. “If I turned one of them into a worm...”
“It would be a vast improvement,” Emily said, cutting him off. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with Alassa?”
“Yes,” Jade said.
“Then put up with them,” Emily said. “Besides, they’re secretly relieved she’s marrying you.”
“I doubt it,” Jade said. “They wanted to marry her themselves.”
“But one of them would be the winner and the others would be losers,” Emily countered, remembering Alassa’s arguments. “This way, they’re all losers and there isn’t a great shift in the balance of power.”
She paused. If Alassa died, on the other hand...“I told you about the demon’s warning, didn’t I?”
Jade sighed. “There are limits to how much we can do, Emily,” he said. “We’ve moved the actual ceremony forward, into a private chamber with only a handful of guests, but the king flatly refuses to even consider canceling the formal ceremony in the Great Hall. The king’s hired extra guards and had me installing more wards...”
He ran his hand through his hair. “There are too many problems, Emily. I can’t tighten up the wards covering the whole castle without making it impossible to do much of anything and there are limits to how many other precautions we can take. We can’t strip-search the nobility without them bitching up a storm - and half of them have the right to carry weapons at all times. All we can really do is cover as many of the cracks in our defenses as possible and hope.”
Emily gritted her teeth as the memory flared back to life...
...It is Alassa’s wedding day. Blood stains the altar, her white dress is ripped and torn; in one hand, she holds a wand, in the other a staff. And she stares at Emily with accusation in her eyes...
...And reminded herself, once again, that the demon had shown her a vision of what could happen, not what would happen. But it was maddeningly impossible to know if their actions would avert the vision or bring it to pass. The demon had probably enjoyed the thought of making her fret over the different probabilities, then second-guess herself endlessly. Randor seemed to be taking a more calculated approach to the whole affair.
Jade smiled, rather dryly and changed the subject. “I hear you have a boyfriend now...?”
“You’ll meet him soon,” Emily said. She winced, inwardly. Did Caleb know that Jade had asked her to marry him? She didn’t think so, but their name had been briefly linked at Whitehall. Someone would probably have mentioned it to him. “He’s supposed to be arriving when the formal ceremony begins.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Jade said. He gave her a wink. “Alassa says he makes you happy.”
“He tries,” Emily said. Just how much had Alassa told Jade? “What else did she say?”
“That he likes you, that you have fun together, that you did a project together,” Jade said, softly. “There wasn’t anything else beyond that, I think.”
“Good,” Emily said.
“Well, if he gives you a hard time, just remind him you killed Master Grey,” Jade advised, mischievously. He stuck out his tongue when she glared at him. “I’d offer to thump him for you, but you probably wouldn’t need the help.”
Emily snorted. The aristocracy was very much a male-dominated world, but magical society was far more equal, if only because sorceresses were just as powerful as sorcerers. No one would bat an eyelid if a sorceress used magic to throw an unsuitable husband out of the house - or vice versa, for that matter. The magical families might spend a great deal of time trying to organize marriages that bred for strength and control, but they didn’t consider women to be anything more than bargaining chips. Or men, for that matter.
But Fulvia clearly didn’t care about Melissa’s happiness, Emily thought. Or was Melissa supposed to make the best of it for her family?
“My parents are arriving tomorrow,” Jade said, softly. “I’ve no idea what they’ll make of this.”
Emily stared at him. “They...they haven’t met Alassa?”
“They have, but...but not here,” Jade said. “It’s going to be an awkward dinner, that’s for sure. Are you going to attend?”
“I don’t think I can get out of it,” Emily said.
Jade shot her a sharp look. “No, you can’t,” he said. “Someone has to be there to take the heat off my family.”
“I’ll do my best,” Emily promised. “King Randor is already pouring the heat on me.”
“He’s got quite a few problems to solve,” Jade said. “Do you realize that someone has been using magic to hide seditious activities?”
“No,” Emily said. “What do you mean?”
“The Royal Guard arrested a couple of printers last week,” Jade said. “They were printing leaflets about the high cost of the wedding, about how the money collected from the public by taxation and enforced loans could better be spent elsewhere. I interrogated both of them myself, Emily, but I couldn’t get anything from either of them. Their minds were charmed to resist interrogation. I don’t think they could have told me anything if they’d wanted to.”
“You could have compelled them,” Emily said.
“It didn’t work,” Jade said. “The charm they used was good. Anything covered underneath it was very well protected. If I’d used more forceful measures their brains would have melted into mush. I think it might have been a variant on an oath of secrecy, but mundanes can’t normally swear oaths. They simply couldn’t share what they knew, no matter how we tried to convince them to talk, without the right passwords.”
“Which you didn’t have,” Emily said.
“Which we didn’t have,” Jade confirmed. “I checked the magical community here, but it isn’t very big. There certainly doesn’t seem to be anyone capable of devising such a charm, let alone using it. And that worries me.”
Emily nodded, slowly. She suspected the printers had a point - the cost of the wedding was already astronomical - but she understood why Jade would be worried. Someone who could cast such a charm and make it work more or less indefinitely would be very dangerous, all the more so as they were clearly opposed to the king or working for someone who was. A baron, perhaps; he’d be sure to have the resources to pay for a first-class sorcerer. And an excellent motive to try to kill Alassa.
“If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask,” she said. “And if it gets me away from the preparations...”
Jade gave her an evil look. “I’d prefer not to be skinned alive by the queen,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with it.”
“I hate you,” Emily said, without heat. She rose, gently. “Can I use the spellchamber again tomorrow?”
&nbs
p; “If you must,” Jade said. He paused. “Do you really need it?”
Emily hesitated. Jade had seen her casting dozens of spells. And he knew where her limits had been, two years ago. Now...
“Yes, I do,” she said. “And please don’t ask any questions.”
“As you wish,” Jade said. She wondered if he was jealous. If she’d been kicked to a higher level now, how powerful would she be at twenty-five? “Just...try to make sure you don’t let anyone else in here. I’m trying to make sure that only magicians can pass through the wards.”
Emily cocked her head as he rose. “How powerful is King Randor?”
“Good question,” Jade said. “And if you happen to learn the answer, please let me know.”
Chapter Fourteen
“YOU KNOW,” IMAIQAH MUTTERED, USING A WARD to hide her words, “I’ve been to more lively funerals.”
Emily couldn’t disagree. The dining hall was packed - she’d counted over two thousand guests crammed into the chamber - but there was almost no conversation, certainly not at the high table. Jade’s father sat next to King Randor; his mother sat next to Queen Marlena, their expressions suggesting they would sooner be somewhere - anywhere - else. The non-too-covert stares of the aristocracy, clearly trying to work out where the parents of the Prince Consort stood in the hierarchy, probably didn’t make them feel comfortable. Emily had always hated being stared at, even before she’d come to Whitehall. She understood precisely how the older couple felt.
“They’re feeling as if they don’t belong,” she muttered back. “Didn’t you have the same problem?”
Imaiqah nodded, reluctantly. “My father isn’t really accepted by the older aristocracy,” she agreed. “His grandchildren, on the other hand...”
Emily nodded, tightly. Imaiqah’s position was odd, to say the least; she was the younger daughter of a newly-ennobled aristocrat, but she was both a magician and a close personal friend of the Crown Princess. It was easy to imagine aristocrats holding their noses while ordering their sons to court her, or trying to open discussions with her father about a formal betrothal. The hell of it was that, a few years ago, it would have been a perfect opportunity for his family. Now...Imaiqah could aim higher, if she wished.
Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8) Page 14
