The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic Book 13)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “You came to see me instead of getting caned.” Frieda laughed, a humorless sound that sent chills down Emily’s spine. “I feel so flattered.”

  “I might just have thrown away my schooling,” Emily snapped. “Do you think the Grandmaster is going to let me back in?”

  “You’re the most important student in a generation.” Frieda’s voice wobbled for a long moment. “Of course he’ll let you back in. Not like me ...”

  “Stop the pity-party,” Emily ordered, icily. Running away from the Warden was bad, but injuring three students—one of them a firstie—was far worse. Frieda was in deep shit. “Perhaps you should feel sorry for the students you hurt.”

  Frieda’s hand played with her bracelet. “Perhaps they should have shut up when they had the chance!”

  “You turned into a bully,” Emily said. “How are you any different from the students who tormented you at Mountaintop?”

  Frieda recoiled, as if Emily had slapped her. “I’m nothing like them!”

  “You do not hurt students three years younger than you without being called a bully,” Emily said, flatly. “I don’t care what she called you. I don’t care what she said about me. I just don’t want you to lose everything!”

  “It isn’t as if I’m going to finish the year,” Frieda muttered.

  Emily silently counted to ten before speaking. “I organized help for you,” she said. It was hard to keep her voice under control. Cirroc had demanded a favor in exchange for extra tutoring, a favor to be called in later. And she’d be honor-bound to agree to whatever he asked. “I helped you cut down your classes to a manageable level. I even spent several days over the last couple of weeks helping you with your studies.”

  She felt her voice begin to rise. “You had every chance of getting through your exams until you decided to throw it all away!”

  Frieda flinched. Emily took a long breath.

  “But now, you’re wanted for attempted murder! Does it really fucking matter if you finish your exams?”

  “He didn’t die,” Frieda pointed out.

  “He could have died,” Emily said. She could have died, too. It wasn’t something she cared to think about, not now. “A few more droplets on his face and he’d be dead. Or the shock of being scalded so badly could have killed him too. Or ...

  “You came very close to killing him. And it will get you killed.”

  She walked forward. Frieda inched backwards, pushing against the table.

  “You’ve thrown your life away,” she snarled. “Why?”

  Frieda held up a hand, as if she was about to cast a spell. “I ... I ... don’t know.”

  “You turned into a monster,” Emily said. She hadn’t wanted to say it - she hadn’t wanted to admit it - but it was true. She felt hot tears prickling at the corner of her eyes and blinked them away. “You bullied younger students, you fought with older ones ... and you threw away your life. What do you think is going to happen now?”

  She felt a surge of anger as Frieda lowered her hand. What had happened to Frieda? What had she become? And what would it take to put everything back to normal?

  “I don’t know,” Frieda said. Her voice was almost a scream. “I don’t know ...!”

  Emily looked past her, frowning as she saw the book on the table. “Malice?” She’d taken the book from Mother Holly, three years ago. It had been so crammed with dark magic that her skin had crawled every time she looked at the creepy leather-bound cover. She had no idea what animal had been used to make the cover, but the pages were made of tanned human skin. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Studying,” Frieda said, sullenly.

  “Idiot,” Emily said, sharply. Frieda knew better, didn’t she? “Those magics are dangerous.”

  She sucked in her breath. Lady Barb had urged her to destroy the book. Emily hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that—burning books was akin to blasphemy, as far as she was concerned—but she had stored it in a hidden safe. Frieda should never have been able to get her hands on it.

  “How did you find it?”

  Frieda shrugged. “I want them to respect me.” Her voice was defiant. “Dark magics will ...”

  “No, they won’t,” Emily said, sharply. She understood the impulse far too well—it was better to be the victimiser rather than the victim, if those were the only choices on the table—but she knew it was dangerous. Frieda couldn’t force people to respect her through dark magic. “It’ll drive you mad.”

  “So what?” Frieda’s hand played with her bracelet. “What do you care?”

  Emily closed the book, trying to ignore the crawling sensation. Whoever had written the book—there weren’t many copies, according to Lady Barb—had been a monster. And he’d created many more monsters. The spells in Malice more than lived up to the book’s name.

  “I am your friend,” she said. It was hard, so hard, to put her feelings into words. “I taught you how to do magic—proper magic—at Mountaintop. I took you to Whitehall and arranged for you to have decent classes with decent teachers. I took you into my life ... I even brought you into my home! And you ask why I care?”

  “You abandoned me for him.” Frieda’s hand was still touching the bracelet, her fingers tracing the runes carved into the metal. “He was unworthy of you and ...”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. The bracelet ...

  Frieda had made it herself, hadn’t she? It couldn’t be dangerous, not when Whitehall’s wards would have sounded the alarm. God knew there were a handful of students who brought prohibited items every year. But ... it was new and Frieda’s behavior had changed after she got it and ... was it a coincidence? Or was it something to do with the bracelet ...?

  “Frieda,” she said, slowly. “Take off the bracelet and give it to me.”

  Frieda seemed to hesitate. “Why ...?”

  “Now,” Emily ordered. She was suddenly certain she was right. The bracelet was dangerous. If it had somehow been slipped through the wards, it could have been influencing Frieda for months. “Take it off and put it on the table.”

  “I ...” Frieda stumbled forward. “Emily ...”

  Emily put out a hand. “I’m here for you,” she said, as reassuringly as she could. She rested her hand on Frieda’s shoulder. “But you have to take off the bracelet ...”

  Frieda leaned forward and kissed Emily on the lips, hard. The touch was so unexpected that Emily froze, just for a second ...

  ... there was a flash of excruciating pain.

  And then there was nothing, but darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  EMILY HURT.

  Her entire body hurt. It felt as if someone had beaten her bloody, then healed her only to beat her bloody again. Her limbs were stiff, flashes of pain coming from her wrists and ankles; there was a foul taste in her mouth, a taste so vile she wanted to throw up. But her body ached too much for her to even try. And the world was dark.

  A finger poked her chest. “Open your eyes,” a voice said. A male voice. “I know you’re awake.”

  Emily forced her eyes to open, despite a puffy feeling suggesting at least one of her eyes had swollen. She was lying on her side in a darkened room ... one of the rooms she’d never used for anything, she thought. Her hands were tied firmly behind her back. The only source of illumination was a light-globe hanging over the speaker’s head, bathing the entire room in a faint radiance. She reached for her magic desperately, only to feel it recede from her grasp. The taste in her mouth confirmed that she’d been dosed with potion.

  Durian-based potion, she thought. It would make it impossible to use her magic, as long as it stayed within her body. There were ways around it, but she doubted he’d sit down and let her work on them. Shit.

  She twisted her head to look up at her captor. He was a tall man, wearing a long dark robe and a hat that cast an odd shadow over his face. And yet ... she saw enough of his harsh, angular face to feel as if she’d seen him or someone like him, not so long ago. There was somethi
ng oddly familiar in the slant of his chin and shadowed eyes. She stared at him, trying to place him, but failed. She’d met too many people over the last five years to remember them all.

  Besides, it could be nothing more than an illusion, she thought. For all I know, he could be a woman.

  “An impressive piece of work.” He pointed to her chest. “I assume you carved it yourself?”

  Emily looked down. He’d cut her shirt open, revealing the rune between her breasts. Oddly, he’d left the breasts themselves covered. She wasn’t sure if it was a courtesy or an unspoken reminder that he could rip the clothes from her body at any moment. A skilled magician would have more on his mind than rape and molestation ... she hoped. Whoever her new opponent was, he’d already put himself beyond the pale.

  She cleared her throat, wincing at the taste. “Who are you?”

  “Call me Daze.” He knelt down next to her. “I’ve actually been looking forward to meeting you.”

  Emily frowned. The sense of familiarity was growing stronger. And yet ... she still couldn’t place him. She wished she had enough magic left to get a sense of his magic, but he’d forced enough potion into her to make it impossible. The only magic she seemed to have left was the familiar bond.

  And if he tries to take my bracelet, he’s going to be in for a nasty shock, Emily thought, grimly. She tamped down the bond as much as possible. A Death Viper made one hell of a secret weapon, but she didn’t dare unleash the creature without a plan. Daze could easily kill the snake if he wasn’t killed in the first few seconds. If we’re on the lower floor, I wonder if ...

  She put the thought aside, for the moment. “What did you do to Frieda?”

  Daze shrugged. “What do you think I did to Frieda?”

  “You ... influenced her in some way,” Emily guessed.

  “True enough.” Daze shrugged. “Frieda spent two months working ... away from you, away from anyone who might notice too soon. It wasn’t too hard to start slipping commands into her mind, slowly turning her thoughts to violence. I’m actually quite impressed she lasted as long as she did before going completely bonkers. No one else has remained sane quite so long.”

  “She’s not insane,” Emily said.

  “It’s an interesting little trick,” Daze said. “You push someone in a certain direction. If they get angry, you make them angrier. Something that annoys them will make them angry instead, making them less inclined to listen to sweet reason. All the little niggles and resentments of life become impossible to tolerate for a second longer. Anchor a little magic into something the victim keeps close to them and ... well, it’s hard for them to realize they’re slowly going mad.”

  “Frieda made the bracelet,” Emily said, slowly. She saw it now. “But she did it under your direction, right?”

  “Of course,” Daze agreed. “It was her magic, complete with her signature. I was fairly sure that Whitehall’s wards wouldn’t notice.”

  Emily felt her chest clench. Of course the wards wouldn’t notice. They couldn’t respond to magic students cast on themselves or the alarms would be going off all the time. Even firsties used protective spells and wards, once they realized the alternative was ducking spells all the time. The bracelet would have set off alarms if someone else had made it ...

  “She really does admire you.” Daze glanced behind him. “She calmed down quite a bit, every time you spoke to her. I fancy the effect might have worn off completely without the bracelet.”

  Emily followed his gaze. Frieda was standing by the door, as stiff as a board. He’d cast a freeze spell on her, Emily realized. Now she was aware of his manipulations, it would be harder for him to control her. She wondered, idly, why she hadn’t been frozen too. Maybe he just wanted to gloat. Or perhaps he had something worse in mind. He’d clearly already taken the time to study her rune.

  “You bastard,” she said. “Why?”

  Daze smiled. “Why not?”

  ... She stands in line, beside a terrifying woman. She is a young girl, barely entering her teens. She feels utterly out of place as the young men approach the matriarch and bow, pledging their services. Daze is one of them, shooting a sidelong smile at his future mistress even as he abases himself before his current matriarch. The smile is so creepy that it takes all of her training to keep her from stepping backwards ...

  ... Daze is useful, says the matriarch coldly. She smiles at the little girl, but there is no warmth in it. Some people exist to get their hands dirty so others don’t have to. They are there to be used, praised and then discarded. The little girl is scared, but she knows better than to show it. Embarrassing the matriarch in public would cost her ...

  Emily recoiled. A memory ... not her memory. Melissa’s memory. She’d been the one who’d seen Daze, years ago. The memory was jumbled—Emily wasn’t sure just how old Melissa had actually been—but most of it was intact. And the matriarch had been ...

  “Fulvia,” she said. “You’re working for Fulvia.”

  Daze’s eyes opened wide. “How do you know that?”

  Emily ignored him. “Fulvia wanted you to drive Frieda mad,” she said. Fulvia had lost her power base because of Emily. She had every reason to want a little revenge. “She assumed, no doubt, that her behavior would reflect badly on me. Right?”

  “Something like that,” Daze said. He cocked his head. “How did you know that?”

  “You wouldn’t be doing this on your own,” Emily lied. “Someone had to be backing you. I thought she was the most likely suspect.”

  She gritted her teeth. Was Fulvia working with Gordian? Had Emily been appointed Head Girl so the position could be turned against her? To make sure she fell and fell hard? Or had her appointment come as a surprise? Gordian certainly hadn’t been pleased. She didn’t think he was that good an actor. Or ... there were too many variables. Perhaps someone as smart as Fulvia had merely started the ball rolling and then sat back to watch and see what happened.

  Maybe Fulvia had her plans and Gordian had his, she thought. And the two plans collided.

  “Very clever.” Daze smiled. “I must say you are as brave as you are beautiful, Lady Emily. I wasn’t expecting you to come charging after Frieda.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. She wondered if she could sweet-talk him into untying her, then dismissed the thought. That only worked in bad novels. “What did you expect to happen?”

  Daze shrugged. “But now I have you.” He smirked, unpleasantly. Emily felt a wave of unease that came from Melissa’s memories. “And I think that opens up a whole new set of options.”

  “They know where I am,” Emily lied. “They’ll be coming here.”

  “Frieda reset your wards for me,” Daze told her. “No one will be able to get into the house.”

  Emily shivered. Professor Armstrong and a team of wardcrafters could probably break through the wards, but Daze would have plenty of warning. He could send Frieda to cause a brief diversion while sneaking Emily out the back door ... if, of course, anyone actually showed up. Gordian knew she had the house, of course, but she had no idea how long it would take for him to realize she’d gone there. Hell, the thought of giving someone without a blood tie access to a private house would probably be beyond his comprehension.

  She met Daze’s eyes. “Whatever she’s offering you, I’ll double it.”

  “You can’t offer me what I want,” Daze said, pleasantly. “And besides, even if you could, I don’t think you’d want to.”

  He sat back on his haunches. “Fulvia wants you. She wants you broken. And I will break you. I’m sure you will prove an interesting challenge, Lady Emily, but everyone breaks eventually.”

  “Damn you,” Emily managed.

  Daze stood up. “I go now to make preparations. I’ll be back soon.”

  He strode out of the room, extinguishing the light-globe with a snap of his fingers. The room plunged into darkness. Emily listened for a long moment, but heard nothing. Grandmaster Hasdrubal had wanted his house to be quiet, hadn’t he
? He’d worked silencing materials into the walls, as well as charms to keep out the slightest sound from outside. Daze could be standing on the other side of the door and she’d never know about it. Frieda was frozen, unable even to move an eyeball. She would be quiet until the spell was released ...

  And perhaps unable to do anything to help, even if the spell was broken, Emily thought, as she tested the bonds. Sergeant Miles had taught her that there was no such thing as a knot that was impossible to undo, but she suspected freeing her hands would take more time than she had. She hadn’t even noticed her ankles were also bound until she tried to move her legs. How many commands did he put into Frieda’s head?

  She gritted her teeth. It was a painful thought. Frieda might never recover completely, even if she got the very best treatment. She might never—through no fault of her own—be trustworthy again. Emily cursed Daze, and Fulvia, as savagely as she knew how. Frieda had been turned into a monster, her reputation utterly destroyed, as collateral damage. Emily had been the real target ...

  Spread rumors about me, then drive one of my closest friends insane, Emily thought, angrily. Was that the whole plan, or was there more on the way? Did she want to discredit me? Or make it impossible for anyone else to trust me?

  Closing her eyes, she reached down to the familiar bond. It felt odd against her mind—she was drawing on the bond itself, rather than her magic—but at least it was intact. The spell holding the snake in place melted into the bond, allowing the snake to return to normal. Emily grunted as Aurelius’s thoughts slammed into her mind, at once calmer and wilder than usual. She no longer had the magic to cushion the blow ...

  She peered through the snake’s eyes. Aurelius saw the world differently: she was a reddish mass, while Frieda’s still form was flickering with magic. The rest of the room was cold. Emily breathed a silent prayer that Daze hadn’t put any wards of his own around the storage chamber, then directed the snake towards the nearest vent. Her wards wouldn’t stop the snake. She’d allowed Aurelius to explore the ducts, when she’d been alone in the house. He knew how to find his way from room to room.