Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Nearly dinnertime,” she said. “Are you coming?”

  “I will,” Caleb said. He hesitated. “Emily?”

  Emily looked up. “Yes?”

  Caleb paused, then looked down at the ground. “When do you want to meet again?”

  “I’ve got Martial Magic tomorrow afternoon,” Emily said. She had the odd impression that Caleb wanted to say something else. “I normally wind up aching, so shall we say Friday afternoon? That would give us some time to rebuild the spell mosaics and rewrite the spell.”

  “That would be fine,” Caleb said. “What are you doing on the weekend?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. The correct answer to that was probably studying, but if she knew Alassa, she would probably be dragged out to the gardens or the playing fields. “What about yourself?”

  “I think I may try to get some more wood,” Caleb said. “Master Crun said he couldn’t get it, but Master Tamer should have a new delivery on Friday. I’ll ask him for something harder, something that might stand up better to the abuse we heap on it.”

  “Good thinking,” Emily said.

  She finished packing her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Coming to dinner?”

  “I’ll see you there,” Caleb promised. “I want to take these back to my room before dinner, then look up a few references in the library. I’ve just had a thought.”

  Emily nodded, waved goodbye and walked out of the room. It had been fun, putting the experiment together, even if it hadn’t worked properly. But once they did manage to get it to work, she was sure, it would be very useful. Who knew what she could do if she linked a battery to the spell mosaic?

  Or those poor students who can figure out how to channel magic, but not to cast spells, she thought. This could change their lives.

  “Hey, Emily,” Frieda called as she walked down to the Dining Hall. “What are you doing this evening?”

  “Nothing, yet,” Emily said. She knew she should be going through her textbooks - or trying to decipher more of the spellbook Void had given her for a gift - but she didn’t feel like doing anything. “You?”

  “Come for a walk,” Frieda urged. “It’s a beautiful day out there.”

  Emily smiled. “All right,” she said. “We’ll go for a walk after dinner.”

  Chapter Eleven

  IT HAD BEEN FAR TOO LONG, Emily decided, since she’d simply walked for pleasure. But then, the last person who’d taken her out of Whitehall had been Jade, before he’d gone to study with Master Grey. And it had been snowing when she’d returned to Whitehall for Second Year, a droll reminder that the weather near the castle was always chaotic and completely unpredictable. The hot summer evening might become a raging snowstorm within seconds.

  Frieda chatted happily about her classes in Second Year as they walked up the path, keeping a wary eye out for dangerous animals. Emily hadn’t seen anything more dangerous than a rabbit when she’d been walking with Jade - and certainly nothing more dangerous than the creature wrapped around her wrist - but she knew to stay alert. If they ran into trouble, it might be hours - or days - before anyone realized they were missing.

  “I think it’s going to be a harder year,” Frieda said. “But those books you insisted I read really helped.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Emily said. She’d listed the textbooks she’d read herself, in Second Year, and advised Frieda to read them over the holidays. “Lady Barb won’t be happy if you don’t focus your mind and actually work.”

  Frieda shuddered, theatrically. “You know she told us that the doors would be locked the moment class started? And that anyone who was late would be marked absent for the day?”

  “She did that to us too,” Emily said. “I don’t think she likes being interrupted.”

  “Yeah,” Frieda agreed. She sounded subdued for a long moment. Had she been late on the first day and received a tongue-lashing for it? “But she’s a great teacher.”

  “You’ll learn more than you did in First Year,” Emily said. “Just remember to put your studies before everything else.”

  Frieda looked rebellious, her face flushing. “I’m going to be trying out for the Ken team on Saturday,” she said, insistently. “Alassa said I could.”

  “I have no idea how Alassa manages to keep her grades while she spends two days a week drilling the team,” Emily said, shaking her head. Alassa’s obsession bemused her, but she had to admit it was good for her friend. “Just make sure you don’t let your studies suffer while you’re having fun.”

  Frieda snorted and grabbed Emily’s arm. “I need to ask you something,” she said. “Will you be my adviser?”

  “I don’t think I can be,” Emily said. She hadn’t given the subject any consideration. “They’ll want a staff member, someone who can speak for you, not an older student.”

  “You’d be good at advising me,” Frieda said. “You already do.”

  “It’s not the same,” Emily pointed out. “Lady Barb is old enough to give proper advice, while I’m only two years older than you.”

  Frieda frowned. “Then who do you suggest?”

  “Pick a tutor you respect,” Emily advised. She’d selected Lady Barb because the older woman could be abrasive at times, but she’d always given good advice. “Someone who will help you out, if you need it, and also kick you in the ass if necessary.”

  “Oh,” Frieda said. “And how often did Lady Barb kick you in the ass?”

  “Often enough,” Emily said. She looked down at the muddy ground. “I...she was the one urging me to make the best of working with Master Grey.”

  Frieda cocked her head to one side. “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” she said. “Zed hated you when you came to Mountaintop, but by the time you left I think he loved you.”

  “I doubt it,” Emily said. She’d made Zed Mountaintop’s MageMaster, knowing him to be the best of a bad set of choices. Later, she’d learned that while he’d settled into his role, he wasn’t entirely happy about it. “Maybe he respected me, a little, but I don’t think he liked me.”

  “He would have found nastier work for you if he hadn’t liked you,” Frieda said. “I used to spend hours cleaning cauldrons for him.”

  Emily winced. Mountaintop had treated Frieda - and the other common-born magicians - as slaves, to all intents and purposes. Frieda had been lucky, very lucky, to be assigned to Emily, who’d helped her and taught her how to use magic properly. The others hadn’t been so lucky. She hoped Zed would reform the Shadow system, but in truth she knew the matter was out of her hands.

  “I think the Administrator probably told him to behave himself, or else,” Emily said, looking down at the bangle on her wrist. Aurelius - the snake’s namesake - had been trying to seduce her, to convince her to join his side. He wouldn’t have found it any easier if Zed had used his classes as an excuse to humiliate or injure her. “I’m still nervous.”

  Frieda elbowed her. “You’ve survived two necromancers,” she said. “I’m sure you can survive Master Grey.”

  “I hope so,” Emily said. She was due to meet him tomorrow for the first lesson and, despite her newfound resolve, she still felt an unpleasant sensation in her chest. It felt worse than the first time she’d gone to Martial Magic, with threats from Aloha and a dozen other students ringing in her ears. “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “I suppose,” Frieda said. “Have you thought about asking Jade for advice?”

  “I wrote to him,” Emily said. Jade was in Zangaria, settling into his role as Court Wizard and getting to know his future father-in-law. “I won’t hear back for at least a week.”

  “Use the chat parchment,” Frieda suggested. “He’ll reply instantly.”

  “Everyone else will see it too,” Emily said. Aloha had been working on ways to make it more secure, but the only way to keep a conversation private between her and Jade was to make two entirely new parchments, bonded to their blood. “I’d prefer to keep it private.”

  She sighed, inwardly. E
ven if they had had a private piece of parchment, what could Jade tell her that she didn’t already know? Master Grey was tough - and very harsh with his apprentices, although they all went on to shining careers. It would be months of torment, even if she emerged stronger at the end. Jade would probably tell her to listen, do what Master Grey said, and learn.

  “Maybe that would be a bad idea,” Frieda teased. “Who knows what Alassa would make of it?”

  “I can show her the letter,” Emily said, feeling her cheeks heat. What would Alassa say if Emily was having private conversations with her fiancé? “That wouldn’t be true of a chat parchment.”

  “You and Jade would have made an awful couple,” Frieda said. “I think it would have ended badly.”

  Emily gave her a sharp look. “And how would you know that?”

  Frieda gazed back, mischievous light sparkling in her eyes. “I don’t need to jump off a cliff or try to levitate myself in the air to know it would be a bad idea,” she said. “You’re a studious girl and he’s a very physical man. He’d get on better with Alassa.”

  “He is getting on better with Alassa,” Emily said. “They’re going to get married next year, remember? Imaiqah will be Maid of Honor.”

  “That should have been you,” Frieda said. “You’re the most important noblewoman in Zangaria.”

  Emily shook her head. “I got into one mess by not checking it out carefully before agreeing,” she said. It had been careless, as Lady Barb - and Master Grey - had pointed out, several times. “I’m not going to go through that again.”

  “But it still should be you,” Frieda insisted. She ran her hand through her dark hair. “Won’t some people see it as Alassa insulting you?”

  “Probably,” Emily said. “I was asked.”

  She shook her head, again. She’d looked up the duties of a Maid of Honor in a Royal Wedding and discovered they were nightmarish. If she’d taken the job, she would have been expected to chaperone Alassa, organize the bridesmaids, plan the bachelorette party - it had a fancy name, but it was basically a bachelorette party - and try to keep various aristocrats from killing each other before the wedding was over. Imaiqah, at least, was much more diplomatic than either Alassa or Emily herself. And, as a close personal friend of the Princess, she would have more clout than her formal title suggested.

  “Seems a little unfair,” Frieda observed. “It should be you.”

  “No, thank you,” Emily said. “It would be a white elephant of a reward.”

  Frieda blinked. “A white elephant?”

  Emily explained as they turned and slowly headed back towards Whitehall, the sun starting to set over the distant mountains. “There was a ruler, a very long way away, in a place where white elephants were sacred,” she said. “Anyone who owned one had to take care of it, as much care as a magician would take of his familiar, but couldn’t get any work out of it. The idea was to cripple the finances of anyone the ruler didn’t like, by making them expend time and money caring for a useless creature.”

  Frieda giggled. “You mean like when King Randor visits his noblemen?”

  “Same basic principle,” Emily agreed. The poor nobleman would have to spend frantically to keep ahead of the king’s demands, no matter how unstated. She would have found it amusing, if she hadn’t known the money was extracted from the commoners. “Force someone to waste resources on entertaining the king, rather than plotting.”

  Frieda considered it. “I don’t understand,” she said, finally. “Why couldn’t they pass the elephant to someone else?”

  “It was a gift from the king,” Emily pointed out. “How would you feel if I took something you gave me and passed it to Alassa?”

  “Hurt,” Frieda admitted. “But if it was something you couldn’t use, and she could...”

  Emily nodded in understanding as Frieda’s voice trailed off. Frieda had grown up in the Cairngorms, where families were so poor that having knives and forks would be considered luxurious. The idea of someone being able to keep something for herself was absurd. Private possessions were almost non-existent. Hell, they even buried the dead nude, knowing that clothes were wasted in the ground. If something was useless to Emily, Frieda’s family would think nothing of her passing it to Alassa, even if it had been a gift.

  But Frieda came here, to a place of abundance, Emily thought. She could give me a gift and expect me to keep it.

  She dismissed the thought as they reached the door, where a prefect was standing on guard and watching the sun sinking in the distance. “Welcome home,” he grunted. “You’d better get upstairs before Lights Out. I hear the tutors are on the prowl.”

  “They probably are,” Emily said. The prefect wore a Fifth Year robe; he’d presumably known Caleb, before his accident. She didn’t know him at all. “It’s the second night back for half the school.”

  “Yeah,” Frieda agreed. “Everyone will be trying to sneak out of bed.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. Sneaking through the darkened school was an old tradition at Whitehall - and Mountaintop, somewhat to her surprise. She’d always had the impression that it was tacitly encouraged, if only to help the students to stretch their minds and discover some of the school’s many secrets. Unfortunately, harsh punishment for anyone caught out of bed was also an old tradition. Alassa had managed to get the three of them in trouble, more than once, when they’d gone exploring at night.

  And I bet Frieda will get herself into trouble too, she thought, although she had a feeling that catching Frieda would be difficult. The former Shadow had a knack for remaining quiet and still, or lurking in the darkness to avoid detection. She won’t lose the opportunity to explore the school.

  “Come on,” she said, as she led the way into the school. “We’d better get into bed before the lights start to dim.”

  Frieda nodded, following Emily up the stairs towards the Second Year dorms. Emily sighed inwardly as they passed the portrait of her someone had hung in the corridor - it looked rather more like Alassa than her, if Alassa had dyed her hair and worn a somewhat indecent dress - and stopped as she realized there was a second portrait. This one showed her standing in front of a throne, magic crackling around her and a cold expression on her face. If her name hadn’t been written at the bottom, along with a signature she couldn’t decipher, she would have thought it was meant to be someone else.

  “I think the artist never actually saw you,” Frieda said, holding one hand in front of her face to hide a smile.

  “Clearly not,” Emily muttered. The second painting showed her wearing a red dress, with hair shading to red...maybe the painter had read a description of Melissa instead. It didn’t look that much like Melissa either, but at least the hair and dress color matched. “Why do they keep hanging them up here?”

  “You’re famous,” Frieda said. “There’s a whole set of portraits of famous graduates in the North Corridor. Mistress Irene had me cleaning them once for a detention.”

  “I won’t ask what you did to deserve it,” Emily said. “They weren’t all of me, were they?”

  “No,” Frieda said. “I think one of them was of the Grandmaster, but the others were strangers.”

  They reached the entrance to the Second Year dorms. Madame Razz was standing outside, a nasty expression on her face, as the remaining stragglers filtered through the doors and into the corridor. Emily waved goodbye to Frieda as she ran towards the entrance, and turned and hurried up the stairs to the next level. The lights started to dim sharply, reminding her that she really should be in bed - or, at least, in her bedroom. She reached the top of the stairs, and stopped. Alassa was standing outside the door, looking grim.

  “I’m meant to make a note of everyone who gets back late, after the lights go out,” she said, as she saw Emily. “Get inside before I have to write your name.”

  “Ouch,” Emily said. She hurried through the door, then stopped. “What happens if you catch any of us?”

  “I have to give the list to the House Mother,” A
lassa said. “Madame Beauregard is known to be strict. After that, I have to patrol the corridors for twenty minutes, rounding up strays.”

  Emily winced in sympathy. “Remember to be diplomatic,” she said. What could Alassa do if she caught someone from one of the upper years? “And keep your wards up.”

  “I know,” Alassa said. “I got told a whole series of horror stories by Thomas - you know him?”

  “No,” Emily said. She’d known a handful of Fifth and Sixth Years in her first two years as a student, thanks to Martial Magic, but she didn’t know many of the students who’d been in Third or Fourth Year. “I don’t think I know him.”

  “He’s one of the prefects for Sixth Year,” Alassa explained. “He said that Dorm Monitor was one of the worst jobs in the school, because students would try to turn them into things just so they could get away. By the time he managed to undo the spell, the person who’d cast it was safely out of reach.”

  “Oh dear,” Emily said. Assaulting a tutor would be very bad - it would be easy to identify the culprit - but someone quick enough to cast a spell on the Dorm Monitor and run? It was quite possible the tutors would regard it as a learning experience, rather than something requiring punishment. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve felt better,” Alassa said. “I...”

  The lights went out. Alassa hastily cast a light globe, then smiled, her face illuminated by the soft radiance. “Go to bed,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  Emily nodded, headed down the corridor and stepped through the door into her room. Imaiqah was already there, lying in bed with the covers pulled over her head. Emily hastily undressed, pulled her nightgown on and climbed into bed herself. There would be time for a shower in the morning before she had to get to class. And then she had a free period before lunch...

  And then I have Martial Magic, she thought, feeling the butterflies returning to her stomach. Intellectually, she knew Lady Barb was right; this was an opportunity to learn from one of the most skilled sorcerers in the world. But emotionally...she caught herself starting to panic again and concentrated on her breathing exercises. I survived Shadye. I can survive Master Grey.