Graduation Day (Schooled in Magic Book 14)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Anything I do will have repercussions, she thought, darkly. What happens if I make the White Council scared of me?

  She looked down at her pale hands. It had taken her a while to realize that there were people scared of her, after she’d defeated Shadye. Some of them had even wondered if she was a necromancer herself, even though she’d never shown traces of madness. But then, she was certainly odd by the standards of her new world. Someone who’d grown up the daughter of a powerful sorcerer wouldn’t have considered Frieda a person, let alone befriended her. God knew it had taken months for Alassa to warm up to Imaiqah. They were practically from different worlds.

  There were options, she knew. House Ashworth had a nexus point. No one knew more about tapping them than Emily herself. She knew - she thought she knew - what had happened at Heart’s Eye. It might be possible to shut down the nexus point, at least for a short while. Or ... there were other possibilities. She’d have to find out where House Ashworth was, and then ...

  A handful of ideas ran through her mind. They’d all need to be developed - and some would require Melissa’s cooperation. Or Adana’s, if she could talk the younger girl into helping. That wasn’t certain, not by a long shot. Melissa had been disowned, yet she was still scared of Fulvia. Adana might feel the same way too.

  The dinner bell rang. Emily looked up, surprised. Was it really that late? She stood and picked up the letters, then headed for the door. She’d drop the letters off in the mailing box as she made her way down for dinner. And afterwards, she’d call it an early night. Classes would resume in the morning and she knew she wasn’t ready.

  I’ll try and visit Frieda before going to bed, she told herself. Frieda might just be awake, if she was lucky. And yet, part of her was terrified of what she’d see. It would almost be better if she sat by Frieda’s bed for a while and held her sleeping hand. And then go straight to bed.

  She opened the door, feeling alone. The maids had vanished, leaving the corridor shrouded in darkness. Emily felt almost welcome in the shadows as she slipped the protections back into place, then walked along the corridor. A light was clearly visible from the common room, shining underneath the wooden door. She could hear the sound of music and happy chatter ...

  But it wasn’t for her. She was alone.

  Things will look better in the morning, she told herself. And then you can start planning in earnest.

  Chapter Eight

  “YOU’RE LATE,” PROFESSOR ARMSTRONG SAID, AS Emily hurried into his classroom. “Do you have a good excuse?”

  Emily hesitated. She’d had to run all the way from the infirmary to the wardcrafting classroom, arriving a moment before the door would have been locked. Professor Armstrong wouldn’t have let her in if she’d arrived after the door was locked, as it would have disrupted the class. She would have been marked absent for the day and probably given a punishment essay. Being late repeatedly would have ended with her being kicked from the class.

  “I had to visit the infirmary,” she said, shortly. “It won’t happen again.”

  Professor Armstrong nodded, then pointed to her seat. “Be seated,” he ordered. The door slammed closed with an ominous BANG. “We have a great deal of work to do.”

  Emily sat down next to Cabiria and the Gorgon, grimly aware of eyes glancing at her. She wasn’t known for being late, not like Pandora or Jacqui. But there had been no choice, not when Frieda had awakened only for a few short hours. Emily had barely eaten anything at breakfast before hurrying to the infirmary.

  Cabiria nudged her. “How is she?”

  “Not good,” Emily said. She had no idea what rumors Cabiria had heard. Cabiria was from a magical family too. Emily made a mental note to pick her brains after classes ended for the day. It was quite possible that Cabiria would have some useful ideas. “I think she’ll recover, but ...”

  She gritted her teeth. Frieda had suffered a panic attack, right in front of her. It had been terrifying. Frieda had never been so weak, not even at Mountaintop. Emily had wanted to run, rather than face her friend in such a state. But she’d forced herself to stay, holding Frieda until the panic attack finally subsided. It was looking increasingly unlikely that Frieda would be able to return to classes in time to complete the year.

  She’ll have to retake Third Year, Emily thought. Celadon will have to find a new partner if he wants to complete the year himself.

  Professor Armstrong launched into a long lecture, talking about ward harmonics and how they could be exploited by a skilled wardcrafter. Emily hastily dug her notebook out of her bag and started to take notes, hoping she hadn’t missed anything important. Professor Armstrong expected them to read around the subject, using the library to fill in the gaps ... it was a good teaching method, normally. She would have enjoyed puzzling things out for herself. Now, Emily rather wished he’d just give them the answers on a silver platter. It would have saved her some time.

  “A single ward-line can be warped out of shape by a determined attacker,” Professor Armstrong informed them. “But a secondary ward-line can make such a simple attack impossible. Why might that be so, Jacqui?”

  Jacqui looked up from her notebook. “Because the harmonics are different for each ward-line,” she said. “Anyone who synchronizes with one cannot synchronize with the other.”

  “Very good,” Professor Armstrong said, approvingly. His eyes swept the room, coming to rest on Emily. “And what effect, in mundane terms, might this have?”

  Emily groaned, inwardly. She wasn’t in any fit state to think, let alone give a coherent answer. She felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. But she was already in trouble, just for being late. Professor Armstrong wasn’t a bad teacher - she’d certainly never felt he disliked her - but that wouldn’t stop him penalizing her for disrupting the class or not paying attention.

  “You cannot disguise yourself as two things at once,” she said. She tried to force her tired brain to think of an example. “You cannot pose as a guardsman on the streets and a wealthy merchant at the same time. The two things simply don’t go together.”

  “True,” Professor Armstrong agreed. He gave her a thin smile. “The harmonics of one ward will trigger the other ward. But why can’t we do both at once?”

  He looked at Pandora. “Why not?”

  “Because no magician could produce both sets of harmonics and hold them in place,” Pandora said. “And anyone who could come close to that sort of level could knock the wards down in other ways.”

  “True, although there are often surprises in place to deter people who do resort to brute force,” Professor Armstrong said. “That is why we insist on a warning ward being worked into the outer edge of your protections. You don’t want to accidentally hex your neighbors.”

  Cabiria smirked. “Depends on the neighbors, I suppose.”

  Professor Armstrong gave her a sharp look. “What sort of surprise might one use to deter a brute force attack?”

  Busted, Emily thought.

  “You could conceal a simple transfiguration spell within the inner wards,” Cabiria said, without hesitation. “Anyone who lowered their defenses enough to push against the wards would be zapped into a frog - or a slug - before realizing they were under attack.”

  “It is more customary to use a stunning spell,” Professor Armstrong said. “Anyone capable of breaking down a ward helix will be able to free themselves from a transfiguration.”

  He paused. “That said, you probably don’t want to stun your neighbors either.”

  Emily nodded, remembering the wards she’d sensed in Beneficence. The houses had been so tightly packed, even in the magical districts, that sorcerers had to keep their defenses under tight control. A person who walked down an alleyway would be exposed to the wards without ever setting foot on the magician’s property. And while a magician could do anything to someone foolish enough to break into his house, he couldn’t hex someone just for passing his door.

  Unless it was a door-to-door salesman, Emily thoug
ht, feeling a flicker of amusement. They can be hexed at will.

  “Today, we will be working on establishing two-line wards, with a defensive hex embedded in the second ward,” Professor Armstrong said. “I think we’ll stick with the transfiguration spell, rather than anything else. It won’t do you any real harm.”

  His eyes swept the room. “Put the wards together individually, then your partners can test them,” he added. “I will give a prize to the first student to produce a ward network that defeats his partners.”

  Cabiria smiled. “This should be fun,” she said. “Emily? What do you think?”

  Emily shrugged. She wasn’t in the mood for practical magic, let alone something as finicky and precise as a two-line ward. It was something she needed to master - she wouldn’t always have access to a nexus point, where raw power made up for spellwork weaknesses - but she didn’t think she was in any state to work on it. She’d probably have to spend evenings practising until she got it right.

  “She will get better,” the Gorgon offered, reassuringly. Her snakes moved around her head as she talked. “I’m sure of it.”

  “I hope so,” Emily said. She’d thought she’d seen Frieda at her worst - until now. It was as if a different person wore her friend’s body. “I need to talk to you two this afternoon.”

  “Sure,” Cabiria said. “We’ll be in the library until Lights Out.”

  She shot Emily a dark look. “Why did you have to let yourself be demoted? Jacqui is wasting my time!”

  “Less talking, more working,” Professor Armstrong called, sounding irked. “I want your ward to be testable before the end of the year, please.”

  Emily opened her desk and dug out the wardstone and a handful of tools, making sure to test it before she went to work. The giant crystal seemed stable, but she knew from bitter experience that repeated modifications weakened the internal structure until it collapsed into dust. A number of ward-cracking spells were designed to do just that, she’d been told, although most skilled wardcrafters knew how to block the most obvious angles of attack. It would be embarrassing to put a ward network together, then watch it shatter because the wardstone couldn’t handle the strain.

  “The end of the year,” Cabiria muttered. “I’ll have it up in less than an hour!”

  Emily looked at the wall-mounted clock. The class was supposed to last for three hours, with a small break if the students needed to get a drink or something to eat. Putting together a basic ward wouldn’t take that long. It was getting the two wardlines to work together that would be the real headache. The harmonics that made it impossible for someone to sneak through the defenses - at least without a great deal of skill - also made it hard for the two wards to co-exist.

  And you don’t want the gap between them to be too wide, she thought. She’d once watched a magician sneak through the first set of wards, then stand in the blind spot and adjust his spells before tackling the second set. The defenses hadn’t been able to see him as long as he stayed between them, careful not to risk touching either set of wards. They have to be close enough to ensure there isn’t a blind spot, but separate enough so they don’t start to interfere with each other.

  She cursed under her breath as she forced herself to lock the first wardline into place. It wasn’t much, more of an alarm bell than an active defense, but it still wavered in and out of existence before she fixed it to the wardstone. Her worries made it hard to think clearly, let alone concentrate. The second ward was far more resistant, to the point where she almost gave up before slamming it into position and nailing it down. Hearing Professor Armstrong compliment Jacqui on her wardcrafting didn’t make it any easier.

  “You need to put a hex at the back,” Cabiria reminded her. “Otherwise someone will just knock the wards down, one by one.”

  Emily swallowed a number of angry responses and slowly dismantled enough of the ward network to allow her to insert the hex. Cabiria didn’t deserve to have Emily snapping at her, not when it had been Emily’s mistake. But her touch wasn’t delicate enough and the whole network came apart the moment she pulled too many strands away. The wardstone pulsed a faint red light as the last of the wards vanished into nothingness. She had the sudden furious impression that it was laughing at her.

  Calm yourself, she ordered.

  Frustration welled up as she stared down at the wardstone. She was normally better than this, damn it! Wardcrafting wasn’t easy, but ... she took a deep breath, running through a calming exercise Lady Barb had taught her. Spellcasting could be done in an agitated frame of mind, the older woman had told her, yet stronger spells and enchantments required concentration and focus. A ward put together by someone who wasn’t thinking straight would come apart when its flaws were exposed. And that would be embarrassing. Cabiria and the Gorgon wouldn’t set out to humiliate her, but Professor Armstrong would be happy to point out her failings to the class. It would keep them from making the same mistakes.

  It’s cheaper to learn from someone else’s mistakes than your own, Sergeant Miles had said, years ago. And safer, too.

  She looked over at Caleb. His back was turned to her as he bent over the wardstone, putting the last of his spells into place. She wished, suddenly, that he was next to her, even though she knew it was a bad idea. Their relationship was over. It was ...

  Damn it, she thought.

  “Be ready to start testing your wards,” Professor Armstrong said. “I expect a finished version by the end of class.”

  Emily forced herself to calm down, then went to work. The wardlines were simple, yet they kept flickering in and out of existence as her thoughts failed to quiet them. She gritted her teeth as she shaped the simple transfiguration spell, then pushed it into place behind the second ward. It was rather like a landmine, at least in intent. No sorcerer would shed a tear for an intruder who was killed by his wards. Anyone who got through the wards clearly had bad intentions.

  And it’s all perfectly legal, Emily thought, sourly. No one will come after me for killing Daze.

  She took a step back from the wardstone and eyed it, suspiciously. It pulsed with light, a sinister orange glow that made her feel a little uneasy. And yet, she wasn’t sure why. She looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw she wasn’t the only one with a glowing wardstone. Cirroc didn’t seem to have managed to lock his wards into place.

  “You can test the wards now,” Professor Armstrong said. “If you haven’t managed to produce a stable network, come see me after class. We’ll go through your mistakes then.”

  “I’ll take yours,” Cabiria said, nudging Emily. “The Gorgon can take mine and you can take hers.”

  “Fine,” Emily said.

  She had to fight down a yawn as they swapped tables. Her body was insisting that she needed to sleep - or eat. She hadn’t used that much power, had she? But then, she hadn’t quite recovered from the battering Daze had given her. She considered asking for a leave of absence before dismissing the thought. She couldn’t afford to miss too many classes unless she wanted to repeat the year. And she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to stay at Whitehall, but she wanted to stay on her own terms.

  Which might be difficult, she thought. The idea of just leaving, of just going straight into apprenticeship, was tempting, more tempting than she cared to admit. Gordian won’t let me stay unless I force him.

  The Gorgon’s wardstone was glowing a pale blue when she sat down in front of it, the outer edge of the ward structure clearly visible to her senses. Emily eyed it, feeling a flicker of envy. She had more raw power than the Gorgon, but the Gorgon had a well-deserved reputation for cleverness and precision. It gave her a definite advantage when it came to wardcrafting. She should have been Head Girl, Emily considered. Maybe she wasn’t the most popular student around, but neither was Emily.

  But she’s a gorgon, Emily thought, coldly. And very few people can even look her in the eye.

  She put the thought aside as she reached out with her magic, gently brushing
the edge of the first ward. Breaking it would have been easy - she wouldn’t have to muster that much power - but snapping the first ward would trigger the second. Instead, she pushed her magic against the ward, stroking it until her magic and the ward were humming in harmony. It would think, as long as she was careful, that her magic was part of the ward.

  And you couldn’t get away with this if there was a real mind monitoring the ward, Emily thought, grimly. They’d sense the swell in power ...

  She noticed her mistake, a fraction of a second too late. The Gorgon had put the two wards close together, very close together. And Emily’s power was roughly brushing against the edge of the second ward. Emily bit down a curse as the second ward went active, unleashing the concealed hex. She yanked back her power, discarding the spells she’d used to break through the first ward as she tried to slam a defense into place. It was too late. She squeezed her eyes shut as the world went white, then opened them again. The world suddenly seemed a great deal larger.

  “Oh dear,” the Gorgon said. “Oops.”

  Emily looked down at her hand - her paw. A mouse, she thought, numbly. She turned me into a mouse.

  She squeaked, then focused her mind. The spell was low-power, but slippery. It seemed to dart around her mind, resisting all her attempts to undo it. Thankfully, she had plenty of practice casting counterspells. She managed to break the spell and snapped back into human form, an instant before an explosion shook the room. Pieces of debris fell from the ceiling and crashed to the floor.

  Cabiria giggled, nervously, as everyone stared at where Emily’s wardstone had been. “Uh ... I think you made a mistake.”

  “I would say so,” Professor Armstrong said, tartly. He marched over to them, his eyes cold and hard. “You’re lucky the wards caught the blast before it hurt someone.”

  Emily swallowed. “Sorry ... I ...”

  “So you should be.” Professor Armstrong said. “You can write me an essay on precisely what went wrong - and how to prevent it from happening in the future. And I suggest that you be more careful too.”