“But they did end,” she said. “And while I’m glad we’re still friends, I can’t handle you being overprotective. Or jealous.”
Caleb scowled. “I’m not jealous!”
Emily tried to give him a reassuring look. It didn’t work.
“Tell me,” she said, instead. “Would you want me to have veto power over your next girlfriend? Or your wife?”
“That’s different,” Caleb said.
Emily met his eyes. “How?”
He looked back at her, taking long breaths to calm himself. “I’m not jealous about you and someone else getting together. I’m concerned about you being hurt!”
“And what would you like me to say,” Emily asked, “if you got together with someone I didn’t like?”
She felt torn between understanding and annoyance. Caleb had barely met Cat ... come to think of it, she wasn’t sure they’d met at all. Caleb had been at Alassa’s wedding, so they might have met ... it was possible. But Cat had to remind Caleb of Casper, his bully of an older brother. There were some similarities, Emily had to admit. But Cat had never let himself wallow in despondency and bitterness.
“I’d expect you to tell me,” Caleb said. “Really.”
“Really,” Emily repeated.
She met his eyes. “He’s asked me out to dinner, not to share his bed or marry him. We’re just friends, right now. And I don’t know if it can or will go any further. I don’t think he can hurt me and if he does, it will be my stupid fault.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for someone else acting poorly,” Caleb said. “Be careful, all right?”
Emily shrugged. She’d meant mental harm, not physical harm. Cat was strong enough to best her in a hand-to-hand fight, but she had enough magic to even the odds. She’d held back when they’d sparred too. If Cat tried to hurt her, she could at least give a good account of herself. And she wasn’t going to let him get to her if he made cracks about her weight or something else that didn’t really matter to her ...
She sighed. If she’d kept her mouth shut ...
“I’ll be very careful,” she promised, plotting revenge. Perhaps she could put a hex in Jacqui’s bed or something equally nasty. Or ... or something. “Thank you for caring.”
Caleb looked down at the floor. “You’re welcome.”
He grinned, suddenly. “And if you do have concerns about my future wife, tell me before I get married, okay?”
Emily giggled. Caleb was his family’s heir now. The combination of money, power and ties to a powerful magical family would prove an irresistible combination. She was surprised Caleb hadn’t already found another girlfriend. The cold calculation some of the girls had shown, when it came to getting married, never ceased to amaze and horrify her. Caleb was a prize catch.
They talk about men as if they were stud bulls, Emily thought. Alassa and Imaiqah had talked about men with a frankness Emily had always found a little terrifying. And I suppose men talk about us as though we’re breeding cows.
“I will,” she promised. “Just don’t go out with Jacqui.”
“I won’t,” Caleb promised. He paused. “The rumor has already gone around the school.”
Emily groaned. “Why am I not surprised?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I’M SORRY ABOUT THE RUMORS,” CAT said, as they walked out of the school. “How did they get started?”
“I told the wrong person,” Emily said, crossly. “And that person told everyone else.”
She gritted her teeth in annoyance. The rumors had already mutated, of course. By now, she was practically engaged to Cat and they were just waiting for the end of term before having the formal ceremony. And Cat and Caleb had fought a formal duel for her hand. And ... she glared as they headed down the driveway towards the edge of the wards. The fact that none of the rumors were even remotely true hadn’t stopped them from spreading.
“A careless mistake.” Cat winked at her. “Don’t do it again.”
Emily nodded, shortly. She supposed she deserved some teasing. “Did anyone give you a hard time?”
“Jade told me he’d do something unspeakably horrid to me if I hurt you,” Cat said. “But he told me that before the rumors started flying, so ... he thinks of you as a little sister, you know?”
“He was very good to me when I started in Martial Magic,” Emily recalled. “I would have flunked out without him.”
“You were trying, at least,” Cat said. “I’ve met a few people who weren’t trying. I never knew why they were even in the class. Most of them got kicked out pretty quickly.”
He stopped as they passed the edge of the wards. “I’d say Jade’s still very protective of you,” he added. “Or is that his wife’s influence?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said.
It wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. She’d shared her first kiss with Jade. She’d have felt weird about it if she hadn’t known that Alassa already knew ... that she’d known a long time before she started to court Jade. But then, Alassa had always been ruthlessly pragmatic when it came to sex and marriage. And she’d been lucky. She might well have wound up married to a much older man, just to keep the kingdom going. Instead, she’d lucked into a love-match. It did happen ...
“Hold my hand,” Cat said. “I’ll teleport us down to Dragon’s Den.”
Emily reached out and took his hand. It felt warm against her bare skin. And yet, his skin was hard, cracked and broken in a dozen places. It was true of almost everyone, she reminded herself. Hard physical labor left its scars. The only person she knew who had unmarked skin was Alassa, and she’d lived a life of luxury before she’d been sent to Whitehall. And she’d been practically designed to be inhumanly beautiful.
She closed her eyes as the magic blossomed into existence, feeling the ground lurch under her feet. Cat was good, she noted. Her teleports were nowhere near as smooth. She opened her eyes a second later and looked around, trying to get her bearings. Cat had teleported her into the park at the heart of Dragon’s Den. She could see a line of shops and eating places in the distance, small crowds of people thronging around them. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the two magicians who had just arrived.
Cat must have dampened down the flash too, she thought. That sort of fine control was unusual, not least because it wasn’t strictly necessary. She was torn between being impressed and irked that he’d taken such a risk. It wasn’t that dangerous, as long as the spellcaster was careful, but it was unnecessary. He was showing off.
She looked up at him. “Who taught you to teleport?”
“Master Storm,” Cat said. “He made me practice again and again until I had it down pat.”
“Ouch,” Emily said. She hadn’t let go of his hand. “That must have been fun.”
“It was fun once I figured out how to make it work,” Cat said. “Before then ... it was no fun at all.”
Emily nodded. She’d studied teleporting at Mountaintop - and then Void had finished her training - and Cat was right. It hadn’t been fun at all. There were so many variables that a single mistake could put someone a thousand miles from their intended destination, if they were lucky. The better spells were designed to prevent the caster from teleporting into a mountainside or high into the air, but they weren’t perfect. They certainly found it hard to tell the difference between a safe place to land and somewhere five miles in the air.
And the magicians who tried to teleport to the moon never came back, she reminded herself, grimly. Did they die because there was nothing to breathe or because the spells didn’t take a number of variables into account?
Night fell slowly as they made their way towards the restaurants. Emily eyed the crowds, keeping one hand on her pouch. It was unusual to see so many people out after dark, although Dragon’s Den had always been more sophisticated than the average farming community or small village. The darkness held all sorts of terrors, some of which were even real. In the countryside, away from large settlements, it
was a brave or stupid man who’d go out after dark. Everyone knew that things lurked in the shadows.
Cat led her up to a small cafe. “I found this place last week,” he said, as they walked through the door. “It’s quiet - and it’s supposed to be good.”
Emily looked around the room as the waitress led them towards a table in the far corner. The cafe - she couldn’t help thinking of it as a cantina - was very quiet, so quiet she was sure the owner had erected silencing wards. A handful of other customers sat at their tables, eating quietly. She reached out with her senses and nodded to herself. The owners had definitely cast a number of odd wards to guarantee peace and quiet.
“Pick whatever you want,” Cat said. He waved a hand at the menu. “I’m paying.”
“Thanks,” Emily said.
She glanced at the short list of options, raising her eyebrows when she saw the prices. There weren’t many people who could afford to eat at the cantina regularly, not in Dragon’s Den. And yet ... she smiled as she saw pizzas and burgers listed on the menu, along with a handful of more mundane dishes. Who would have thought the craze would spread into what was clearly an upper-class restaurant?
“I’ll have the game pie,” Cat said, passing the menu to the waitress. “Emily?”
“I’ll have pizza, please,” Emily said. “And water to drink.”
The waitress sashayed away. Emily watched her go, then looked at Cat. She wasn’t sure what to say. Talking with Caleb had never been that hard, if only because they’d had shared interests as well as a joint project. But Cat? What did she say to Cat?
She met his eyes. “What happened in Farrakhan? I mean, after I left?”
“We spent a lot of time cleaning up the mess,” Cat said. “They wouldn’t let us go near Heart’s Eye, for some reason, but everywhere else ... we hunted down roaming bands of orcs and ran patrols up to the edge of the Blighted Lands.”
Emily frowned. “Heart’s Eye?”
“They never told us why we couldn’t go near the school,” Cat said. “They just made us sweep the city for orcs before abandoning it to fortune hunters. None of us apprentices knew precisely what happened in Heart’s Eye, beyond the necromancer being killed.”
They didn’t want to tell you that I control the wards, Emily thought. Master Highland had excellent reason to keep that secret, at least until he and his fellows could come to terms with her. That would convince others to try to dicker with me.
“They probably didn’t want you anywhere near the nexus point,” she said, instead. “It was quite volatile.”
Cat gave her an odd look. “I’m not sure there is a safe distance when a nexus point goes mad. Why do I have the feeling there’s something missing from the story?”
“I have no idea,” Emily said, wryly. “What else happened in Farrakhan?”
“The locals enslaved a number of orcs,” Cat said. “The king was saying it would be good for everyone, including the orcs themselves, but ... I wasn’t so sure. Not that anyone cared about my opinion, of course. Half the army was sent home in the first month, after the fighting was over. We had to hang a number of men for outrages in the first week alone.”
Emily nodded. “And the rest of the army?”
“Patrolling the Desert of Death,” Cat said. “No one’s quite sure how Dua Kepala managed to get an army, even an army of orcs, across the desert, so the locals are a little paranoid. It doesn’t help that most of the peasants who live on the edge of the desert are trying to get away, no matter how tightly they’re tied to the land. Their ability to grow crops is still very limited.”
“Ouch,” Emily said. The steady collapse of the local ecosystem should have been halted, when she’d reignited the nexus point, but it would be a long time before the locals saw any relief. She didn’t blame the farmers for wanting to leave, not when months of backbreaking labor could be wiped away in an instant. “I hope the king is being merciful.”
Cat rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”
“Stupid question,” Emily said. She grinned at him. “How was the rest of your apprenticeship?”
“It was ... better,” Cat said.
He started a long and involved story about himself and two other apprentices who’d been pushed into a contest to determine which of them would be tested first, before earning their mastery. Emily listened with interest, even though she was unsure how much of the story was actually real. She could understand tests to determine which of the apprentices was the most capable, but an egg-and-spoon race? That had to be a joke.
Unless it’s meant to test their coordination, she thought, as the food arrived. It isn’t as simple as it looks.
She felt her mouth begin to water as the waitress walked away. The pizza looked heavenly, a far cry from the cheap junk she’d bought in fast food chains or heated up from frozen in the oven. The shape was different too - oval rather than round - but it was covered in tomato sauce, melted cheese and chunks of baked chicken. She cut a slice and smiled in delight as she bit into it. The flavor was heavenly.
“I’m not sure I believe half of your story,” she said, when she’d eaten enough to satisfy the hunger pangs. Cat seemed capable of eating and talking at the same time, much to her private amusement. “Did they really make you walk on your hands for an hour?”
“It’s all true,” Cat assured her. “I was told it built character.”
“And gave the masters a good laugh at the same time,” Emily said. She cut herself another piece of pizza and nibbled it slowly. “How was your test?”
“I passed,” Cat said. “And Master Storm told me I’d done well.”
He smiled. “But tell me ... what is happening with the Head Girl?”
“I was very lax, apparently,” Emily said, deadpan. She refused to be thrown by the change in subject. “And she’s trying to compensate.”
“That’s not uncommon,” Cat said. “We had a captain who was brought in to clean up a company after it mutinied against the last captain. He had to be pretty tough to knock the soldiers into shape without triggering off a second mutiny - or getting a knife in the ribs. But she does seem to be overdoing it.”
“No one wants to cooperate with her,” Emily said. “How would you deal with it?”
Cat snorted. “I’d have done my best not to get into that sort of mess in the first place. There comes a time when someone just runs out of credibility, no matter how hard they try to learn from their mistakes. And while everyone may say you were a poor Head Girl, you weren’t that bad. I dare say most students quietly respected you.”
“If there had been an election, I would have lost,” Emily said. “I’m not that popular.”
She rolled her eyes at the thought. She’d known a handful of Sixth Years when she’d been a firstie, but only because she’d shared a class with them. Just about every other student below Fifth Year wouldn’t have known much, if anything, about the Sixth Years. Come to think of it, she might be the only Sixth Year every firstie had heard of. Maybe she would have won through name recognition, if nothing else. But the students didn’t get a vote.
“You’re not that unpopular either,” Cat pointed out. “That counts for more than you might think.”
Emily shrugged. “You never answered my question. What would you do?”
Cat grinned. “The best thing I could do would be to resign, effective immediately. Cutting my losses isn’t particularly elegant, and my pride would take a mortal blow, but it would be the best thing I could do. I don’t think I could have climbed out of such a pit, after digging it for myself.
“But if I couldn’t make myself do that, I’d be caught in a bind. If I refuse to change, sooner or later something is going to happen that the tutors cannot ignore; if I change, my enemies would take it as a sign of weakness. And you know what weakness invites.”
“Attack,” Emily said.
They ate slowly, chatting about school and their plans for the future. Emily was amused to discover that Cat was seriously considering tak
ing Jade up on his offer of a place in Zangaria, even though it would alter the dynamics between the two friends. Cat lifted his eyebrows when she told him she had an apprenticeship offer already, an unconditional one. She could tell he was genuinely surprised.
“You should take it and go,” Cat said. “It’s pointless treating you as a common student, especially now. Making you Head Girl really didn’t do you any favors.”
Emily frowned. “I know. But why do you feel that way?”
“Most students would love to have Head Girl on their resumes,” Cat reminded her. “But you already have three dead necromancers to your credit. At best, being Head Girl is meaningless; at worst, you’d end up with egg on your face.”
“Which is what did happen,” Emily said, ruefully.
“More or less,” Cat said. “You had little to gain and much to lose.”
He grinned. “Of course, there are limits to just how much can be blamed on you. I’d say Jacqui is reaching them right now. She can’t keep using you as an excuse for much longer.”
“I know,” Emily said.
“She dug herself a hole,” Cat added. “It won’t be long before the sides cave in and bury her.”
He looked down at his empty plate, then looked wistfully at the remains of her pizza. “It was pretty good, don’t you think?”
“It was a pleasant change,” Emily agreed, as she passed him the leftovers. She’d enjoyed eating with her friends, away from Whitehall. “And it’s always nice to try something new.”
“My parents would disagree,” Cat told her. “They always think about the past.”
He finished the pizza, then paid and tipped the waitress. Emily left a second tip under the plate before following him outside. It was dark, only a handful of lanterns and magic lights pushing back the darkness. There were fewer people on the streets, mostly older students or tradesmen. And a handful of women Emily was fairly sure were prostitutes. She’d overheard enough conversations in Martial Magic to know that most of the male students had visited brothels in the town, even though it was frowned upon. But then, men had always had more sexual freedom than women.
Graduation Day (Schooled in Magic Book 14) Page 26
