Infinite Regress

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  She rose. “I’ll see you next week,” she added. “And I suggest you try to come as early as possible.”

  Emily nodded, then hurried out of the door and down to the street. Her magic felt odd, now her protections had been torn away; she took a moment to rebuild them before stepping onto the street and glancing around. If anything, there were more people out than before, crowding their way towards the center of town. She puzzled over it for a long moment, then started to walk towards the enchanter and alchemist supply shops. Caleb would be there, if he hadn’t already completed his business. They could go have dinner before heading back to the school.

  She found herself smiling as she turned the corner and headed towards the nearest alchemist shop. It was going to be hard, studying under Mistress Danielle, but she had the feeling that it was going to be rewarding. And, if nothing else, it was a way to evade Gordian’s rules. He’d banned her from learning from Sergeant Miles, but he hadn’t said anything about learning from someone else.

  And I need to learn, she told herself, firmly. There’s no choice.

  Chapter Fifteen

  EMILY STILL FELT QUIETLY OPTIMISTIC THE following morning, when she had breakfast early with Cabiria and Caleb before making her way to the common room near the First Year dorms. It was deserted, save for an oversized white rat in a cage that eyed her through beady black eyes. Emily tested the rat, wondering if it was actually a student who had been transfigured by another student, yet it was just a normal rat. It was unusual for young students to have familiars—she touched the snake-bracelet, wishing there was more time to spend with the Death Viper—but Madame Razz might want them to learn how to take care of a pet before they had a chance to bond with a familiar.

  She took a seat in one of the comfortable armchairs and waited, patiently, for her students to arrive. Lillian and Jasmine entered first, both showing shy smiles as they stepped into the room and saw her. Emily waved them to chairs and nodded politely to Tiega as she entered, feeling a flicker of sympathy for the ugly girl. Behind her, Adana looked irked as she stormed into the room, but she had the wisdom to say nothing. Emily hadn’t minced words when she’d spoken to the younger girl.

  “Julia and Dulcet are on their way,” Adana said, shortly. She seemed to be having problems meeting Emily’s eyes. “They were just delayed at breakfast.”

  Emily leaned forward. “Delayed?”

  “Professor Lombardi wanted to discuss their progress with them,” Adana explained. “I don’t think they’re in trouble.”

  “I certainly hope not,” Emily said. But it was odd. Professor Lombardi wouldn’t normally talk to students on a Saturday. “Take a seat, please.”

  The door opened again, revealing Julia and Dulcet. The former had a wide smile on her face, the latter was expressionless. Emily made a mental note to speak to Julia and Dulcet privately afterwards, then motioned for her charges to take their seats and pull them up around her. She had booked the common room, but she took the precaution of casting a mild locking charm on the door anyway. It would help prevent unnecessary interruptions.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said. She had told them that it wasn’t compulsory, but she had a feeling they thought otherwise. “Before we start, does anyone have any questions or issues they want to raise?”

  Adana held up her hand. There was an angry red mark covering her palm. “Is Professor Lombardi always so... so picky?”

  “He’s seen far too many spells go wrong through carelessness,” Emily said. She’d had her palm rapped a few times during her first two years at Whitehall too. “What did you do?”

  “Left off an endpoint,” Adana said. “He said it would ruin the spell.”

  “He was probably right,” Emily said. “You could have lost the mana before the spell completed its work.”

  She looked from face to face. “Any other questions?”

  Julia held up her hand. “I would like to trade bedrooms with Jasmine,” she said. “She does not have any objection to this.”

  Emily looked at Jasmine. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Jasmine said, quietly. “I would prefer to room with Lillian.”

  “You’ll also be rooming with Dulcet,” Emily said. “Did you ask Madame Razz?”

  “She said we should ask you,” Julia said.

  Emily frowned. She hadn’t realized she had the last say in room assignments. As far as she knew, it was the Year Heads who made those choices. Master Tor had flatly refused to allow her to change rooms, pointing out that she needed to make friends with other students, as well as Alassa and Imaiqah. He’d had a point, she suspected; she just hadn’t been in any state to acknowledge it at the time. And yet she’d always thought the room assignments for a student’s first year at Whitehall were random. She’d never believed that any real thought went into the process.

  She considered it for a long moment. Master Tor might argue that Tiega and Adana needed to learn how to get along—and Jasmine could learn a great deal from both of them. And yet, she couldn’t fault Julia for wanting to room with the other two girls. They were both from magical families. Julia could gain access to magical society through them. But there was a bit of her that simply didn’t like Julia...

  Jasmine would be happier rooming with her friend, she told herself. And no one will seriously object for their first year.

  “Very well,” she said, finally. “Tell Madame Razz that I have agreed you can swap rooms.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t guarantee that you’ll be allowed to share rooms next year,” she added, warningly. “They didn’t let me share with my friends either.”

  Julia smiled. It was a very calculating smile. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Emily said. She looked at Dulcet and frowned, inwardly. Maybe keeping her away from Julia was the best possible thing to do. “Are there any other issues to raise?”

  Jasmine frowned. “Professor Thande is wrong about the use of ragwort,” she said. “My aunt uses it for more than just potion bases...”

  “I wouldn’t tell him that,” Emily said. Professor Thande was far more affable than Professor Lombardi, which had always struck her as worrying because his class was often a great deal more dangerous, but he had his limits. “You’ll be scrubbing cauldrons for the next few weeks.”

  “But he is,” Jasmine insisted. “It can be used for...”

  Emily shook her head, firmly. “Any other issues?”

  There were none. “What I’m going to show you,” she said, “are very basic wards and protective spells. You cast these on yourselves. Unlike the more complex protections, which you will be taught later, these do not draw directly on your magic field and as such need to be renewed every two or three days.”

  She paused. “They also only work once,” she added. “One ward will cope with one prank spell, at the cost of losing the ward. What does that mean?”

  Julia leaned forward, interested. “If you had three wards and someone tried to turn you into a frog four times, they’d get you with the fourth spell,” she said. “Am I right?”

  “More or less,” Emily said. Making protections was second nature to her now, but the new students would need time to cast even one such spell. “It’s generally better to dodge hexes hurled at you by another student. If you are transfigured—or frozen—you will find it a great deal harder to cast the counterspell.”

  “Yeah,” Adana said.

  Tiega shot her a smug look, then shifted uncomfortably. Emily reminded herself to get the notations for the spell she’d used but pressed on.

  “It’s not easy to cast a spell on yourself,” she warned. “However, protections cast by someone else are almost always less reliable. They simply lack the affinity with your magic that one of your own spells would have.”

  She paused. “How many of you can now cast basic spells reliably?”

  Adana, Tiega, Lillian and Jasmine held up their hands. Dulcet and Julia looked unhappy, their gazes shifting down to the floor. Emily was su
rprised—she’d learned to cast fairly quickly—but Professor Lombardi had too many students in his class to give them all the individual attention they needed. She wondered if she should be working with them too, then dismissed the thought. Professor Lombardi would not be pleased if she accidentally taught them something they needed to unlearn.

  She looked at Julia. “What happens when you try to cast?”

  “It doesn’t always work,” Julia said. “I can make it work once, then the second time fails...”

  “You push it too hard,” Adana said. For once, she sounded as if she was genuinely trying to help. “The magic slops everywhere, ruining the spellwork.”

  “That sounds about right,” Emily said. Mistress Irene—and later, Void—had hammered it into her head. “You need to learn to channel the magic through the spellwork.”

  Julia looked frustrated. “It just doesn’t work right!”

  “It will come,” Emily said. “There are exercises you can do, if you speak to Professor Lombardi. He will help you.”

  She looked at the other four students. “This is a basic protection ward,” she said, holding out a sheet of paper. She’d written out the notation last night, then convinced Caleb to check it for her. “See if you can cast it.”

  Adana didn’t look impressed. Emily rather suspected she’d already mastered the ward. Her family would have wanted her to have some protections when she went to Whitehall. And yet, whatever protections she knew hadn’t protected her from Tiega’s spell. It had to be very—very—powerful for her age. Her anger had probably given the spell additional power.

  “I can do this,” Adana said. “It’s useless.”

  “You have to learn to walk before you can run,” Emily said, firmly. “Now, try and cast it.”

  She passed copies of the paper to Julia and Dulcet. “Try and cast it yourselves,” she ordered, calmly. “See how you do.”

  Julia nodded and cast the spell. The ward sparkled with power, then came apart in a shower of sparks. Emily scowled. Too much power, definitely too much power. She could remember some of the exercises Void had taught her, but she didn’t dare teach those to Julia without Professor Lombardi’s blessing. She’d have to have a word with him. There were so many students in his classes that Julia might just have fallen by the wayside.

  “Try again, with less power,” she said, gently. “Dulcet?”

  Dulcet cast the spell. The ward shimmered for a long moment, then settled down. Emily reached out with her senses and smiled, openly, as she sensed the ward protecting the younger girl. It wouldn’t last longer than a day, she suspected, but it was definitely a step forward. Dulcet gave her a shy smile in return. She looked as though she couldn’t believe her own success.

  “Lucky,” Julia sneered.

  “Be quiet,” Emily snapped.

  She took a breath to calm herself, then nodded to Julia. “Try and cast the spell again.”

  Julia obeyed. This time, the ward shimmered into existence and stayed there. Emily tested it lightly, then nodded in approval. Julia looked relieved, despite herself. Being the last to master the ward—the very basic ward—had clearly embarrassed her. Emily would have been more sympathetic if Julia hadn’t clearly been trying to put Dulcet down.

  “Very good,” she said. The other four had all cast the ward easily. “Now, a handful of basic spells...”

  She ran through five different prank spells, ranging from the freeze spell to a basic transfiguration spell. They’d find more—many more—in the library, including ones she had no intention of showing to anyone. Meddling with a person’s body was bad enough, but messing with their minds was far worse. If it were up to her, such spells would be added permanently to the forbidden list, with dire punishments for anyone who dared break the rules. Convincing someone they were a dog was only funny as long as it happened to someone else.

  “I need to point my finger at someone to freeze them,” Adana said, thoughtfully. She’d frozen Jasmine almost as soon as she’d learned the spell. “Why can’t I cast it without pointing?”

  “Because the pointing finger tells the spell where to go,” Emily said. It was a little more complex than that, but it would do for the moment. Advanced magical theory would be covered in Third Year. “Without it, the spell might freeze you instead.”

  She unfroze Jasmine, then ducked as Jasmine hurled a transfiguration spell towards Adana and missed. It struck the wall and splashed off, harmlessly. Adana snorted rudely, then threw a spell of her own at Tiega. The girl let out a yelp as her body morphed into a tiny statuette. Emily couldn’t help feeling a chill run down her spine, even though she’d grown accustomed to magic after four years in Whitehall. People could be changed into inanimate objects and just abandoned, unless they managed to muster the skill to turn themselves back to normal. And no one would ever find them...

  Unless they knew what to look for, Emily thought, as she undid the spell. But even then it would be chancy.

  “That will do, for the moment,” she said. “Remember what I said the last time we were all together. If you do something that keeps one of your fellows from attending class, you will regret it.”

  Adana gave Tiega a smirk. Emily resisted—barely—the urge to roll her eyes. Clearly, the trauma of being transfigured and then locked in a cupboard hadn’t lasted. She sighed out loud, giving the younger girl a warning look. It might be better to separate Adana and Tiega, instead of swapping Jasmine and Julia, but she didn’t think she could order them to change rooms. She’d have to check the rules, just to be sure.

  Lillian muttered something under her breath. Tiega whirled around, one hand raised in a casting pose. “Enough,” Emily said, sharply. “Lillian, you can apologize for that or you can go see the Warden. Which one do you choose?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lillian said, shortly. “I...”

  “Good,” Emily said. She hoped Lillian would have the sense not to pick a fight when Emily wasn’t around. It wasn’t as if any of the other mentors would discourage Tiega from doing something unpleasant to Lillian. They’d consider it a suitable lesson. “Tiega, stay behind with me. The rest of you can go enjoy the rest of your day.”

  She waited until the others had departed before turning to Tiega. “Try not to make her late for class.”

  Tiega shrugged, listlessly. “Who cares?”

  “You might, if you are sent to the Warden for the same offense,” Emily pointed out. “He will not be gentle.”

  “He wasn’t gentle,” Tiega said. She rubbed her forehead. “Would anyone care if she missed class?”

  “If she missed it on her own, everyone would consider it her fault,” Emily said. Whitehall believed that if a student didn’t want to learn, they didn’t have to learn. They’d fail their exams and get absolutely no sympathy at all. “But if you make her late, it will be your fault.”

  “It always is,” Tiega said. She rose and started to pace the room. “Everything is always my fault.”

  “Not always,” Emily said. She cleared her throat. “I want you to teach me the spell you used on Adana.”

  “I don’t know how to write it out,” Tiega said. “My mother hammered it into my head and made me cast it over and over again until I could do it on demand.”

  “And you don’t know how to alter it,” Emily guessed. Tiega nodded, shortly. “I wonder... cast the spell on me.”

  Tiega stared. “Are you mad?”

  “No,” Emily said. She’d rebuilt her protections after visiting Mistress Danielle. “Cast the spell on me, now.”

  The younger girl hesitated, perhaps remembering Emily’s warnings about starting fights with older students, then lifted her hand and cast the spell. It was powerful, Emily realized as it struck her protections, powerful enough to be a problem for a student two or three years older than Tiega. And yet, it was also a very blunt spell. There was little hope of using it as anything other than a hammer, rather than a scalpel. It would have blasted through the basic wards she’d taught her charges, but it c
ouldn’t worm its way through her more advanced protections. She studied it for a long moment, then pushed it away from her wards. It crackled out of existence a moment later.

  “Mother said it would be enough protection for a while,” Tiega said.

  “She was right,” Emily confirmed. No wonder Adana hadn’t been able to block or reverse the spell. “It’s a very powerful piece of work.”

  She frowned as a thought struck her. “Can you undo it?”

  “Mother always said I should never try to unravel it without taking its victim to her,” Tiega said. “But I think I can undo it.”

  “Don’t use it again,” Emily said. She thought better of it a moment later. “Don’t use it unless your life is in very real danger.”

  Tiega looked unhappy. “Why...?”

  Emily sighed. “When I was your age,” she said, “I cast two spells simultaneously and mangled them together. The result almost killed... almost killed the target. I would have become a murderer, simply through carelessness. At the very least, I would have been expelled from Whitehall and handed over to her family for judgement.”

  “They would have killed you,” Tiega breathed.

  “Probably,” Emily said. King Randor, staring absolute disaster in the face, would not have been merciful to the silly little girl who’d killed his daughter and sole heir. The very idea was absurd. “You need to be careful casting spells you don’t understand.”

  She dismissed Tiega, then sat back in the chair to gather her thoughts. Julia and Dulcet would require more training; the other four, at least, were well on the way. She just hoped she hadn’t unleashed a nightmare on the school. It was easy to imagine the four of them hexing their fellow students relentlessly until their victims learned how to fight back.

  The door opened. Caleb stepped in. “Finished?”

  “Yeah,” Emily said. She made a show of glancing at her watch. “There’re still at least two hours before lunch.”

  “Then we may as well make the most of it,” Caleb said. He held out a hand to help her to her feet. “Tomorrow, your real work starts.”