“And then the dragon opened its mouth and blew fire towards me,” a voice she vaguely recognized boomed. “I ducked under its jaw, and stabbed up with my sword.”
Emily peered over at the next crowd and blinked in astonishment. Farmer Giles — former Farmer Giles — was standing there, wearing a mercenary suit of armor and telling an outrageously tall story about a battle with a dragon so large it had to have grown into intelligence. Emily shook her head in disbelief — she’d actually met a dragon, which was more than could be said for most magicians — and listened with growing amusement. Giles was a surprisingly good storyteller, even when he was describing how he tamed the dragon by pulling a thorn out of its scales. Emily knew that next to nothing could actually harm a dragon, save for magical weapons and other tricks...
“Alassa said you actually rode on a dragon,” Frieda said. “Is that true?”
Emily nodded, smiling, as Giles brought his story to an end. The crowd cheered, tossing a handful of coins towards him. Giles scooped them up, loudly promising another story in an hour or two. He would definitely make a fine author, Emily decided, as long as one didn’t happen to look too closely at his plots. She had no idea what would happen if a person pulled a thorn out of a dragon’s scales, but she doubted it would lead to lifelong friendship. The dragons were simply far too long-lived to give much of a damn about humanity.
And at least he found a way to support himself, she thought, as she gave him a coin herself. His eyes went wide when he saw her, then he looked away. He might make a career out of storytelling.
“You should tell stories yourself,” Frieda said, as they walked off towards the food stalls. The smell of cooked meat was growing overpowering. “You’re good at telling stories.”
“No, I’m not,” Emily muttered.
She sighed, inwardly. Every story she’d told Frieda, to help the younger girl sleep, had been from Earth. There was no one in the Nameless World to enforce copyright — she could write out The Lord of the Rings if she wanted to, and sell copies — but it still felt wrong to steal. Besides, there was no particular reason why someone couldn’t actually produce a whole series of magic rings, with one ring to bind them all. The story would only give unscrupulous magicians ideas, Emily was sure, and she knew from Lady Barb that they had too many ideas already. But she had never told Frieda the truth.
“You should,” Frieda insisted.
“I have too much else to do,” Emily said. Besides, even high fantasy like The Lord of the Rings would need to be revised to fit into the Nameless World. Putting semi-humans like hobbits as the heroes? It would not go down well. And then she would have to explain Gandalf and the other wizards as something other than angelic creatures of light. “But you can do it, if you like.”
Frieda frowned. “Can I?”
“Of course,” Emily said. She clapped the younger girl on the shoulder. “Don’t let anyone else tell you what you can and cannot do.”
“Unless they happen to be tutors?” Frieda asked. She gave Emily a sly smile. “Or older students?”
Emily was still chuckling as they bought pieces of pizza and settled down to eat. Perhaps Frieda would make a great storyteller...and, by the time the story was written, it would be very different from the original. Or perhaps she would find something else to do with her life. The Nameless World wasn’t ready to support an author trying to earn a living wage through writing. But she could always write in the evening, after doing her job...
Maybe she can write about the courtship of Jade and Alassa, she thought. She’d read a few stories of past courtships, only to dismiss them as romantic nonsense. But there was probably a method in the madness. Romantic stories helped disguise the ugly truth, that all royal marriages were business arrangements first and everything else second. King Randor was fond of his wife, Emily knew, but he would still have married her even if he’d hated everything about her. His father wouldn’t have let him welsh out of the contract.
Frieda looked up, sharply. “What the hell is that?”
Emily blinked, then listened. Someone was barking like a dog...no, several people. And others were shouting...
“Stay here,” she ordered. Whatever had gone wrong, she had to deal with it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She tossed the remains of the pizza into the bin, rose to her feet and hastened towards the source of the sound, cursing her dress as she moved. It just wasn’t designed to allow her to move quickly.
Do you want a slit in it so you can actually run? Her own thoughts mocked her.
And show your legs to the crowd?
She almost ran into Master Grey as she turned the corner around one of the larger tents, and blinked in surprise. A handful of children, ranging from seven to fourteen, were running around on the ground, barking like dogs. It would have been funny, Emily was sure, if it wasn’t for the panic in their eyes. And in the eyes of their parents, who were staring at their children in horror. She shivered, remembering the girl who’d served as a test subject for compulsion spells at Mountaintop, and looked up as she heard the sound of someone giggling. A young boy was perched on top of the tent, looking at the children and cackling madly. It took her a moment to place him as Maximus Ashfall, Markus’s younger brother.
Master Grey glanced at Emily and made a show of stepping backwards, leaving the matter in her hands. Emily fought down the urge to glare at him, then returned her attention to Maximus. It didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he was behind the chaos, even if there hadn’t been a number of parents looking at him, their faces torn between fear and rage. But he was eleven, wasn’t he? He couldn’t have magic of his own...
Potion, she thought, as she saw the bottle in his hand. He must have tricked them into drinking something that made them act like dogs.
Summoning her magic, she reached out for Maximus and pulled. The boy let out a yelp as he was torn from the tent and dropped to the muddy ground in front of Emily. He let go of the bottle of potion and turned to run. Master Grey stepped forward, arms crossed, and pinned Maximus in place with a glare. Emily couldn’t help feeling a flicker of envy. If only she had the presence to match her reputation. It might save her a great many problems.
“It was only a joke,” Maximus said. “I didn’t mean for them to actually drink it...”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Emily said, as the parents closed in. “What did you give them?”
“They didn’t believe me when I told them I was a magician,” Maximus said. “So I gave them Dogbreath Potion.”
Emily shuddered inwardly. Professor Thande had taught them to brew Dogbreath Potion in First Year. It didn’t actually turn someone’s breath into foul-smelling gas, despite some ribald comments from her fellow students; it actually make them act like a dog, at least until the potion had worked its way out of their system. A powerful magician might be able to push the effects aside, given enough mental discipline, but someone without magic would find it very hard to resist the potion. She looked at the barking children and shuddered, again.
“It was funny,” Maximus insisted. “And...”
Emily had to fight down the urge to throw a fireball right into his smirking face. She hated bullies; she’d always hated bullies. Maximus would come into his magic and go to Mountaintop, she was sure, where he would spend half of his time picking on the children from non-magical families...and then his Shadow, if someone didn’t give in to the temptation to feed him something lethal before Third Year. It would be so easy to wipe the brat’s smile off his face...
“I will take you back to your parents, who will deal with you,” she said, instead. “And you will not return to the Faire.”
Maximus opened his mouth, either to object or to pretend it had only been a joke, but Emily didn’t give him the time to say anything. Instead, she cast a spell, turning him into a tiny statuette of himself. The parents looked torn between relief and fear as she picked up the statuette, tucked it into her pocket, and turned to the children. They
were still gambolling around like dogs.
“Take them to the healer’s tent,” she ordered the parents, quietly. Professor Thande had also told them what to do if they drank something they shouldn’t. “Tell the healers they will need a dose of purgative. If they try to charge you for it, have the bill sent to the castle and I’ll forward it to the brat’s parents.”
“Thank you,” a terrified-looking mother said. “I...”
She broke off as she saw through Emily’s glamor. “Lady Emily!”
“See to your child,” Emily ordered. She hadn’t wanted to be recognized. “I’ll deal with him.”
She sighed, inwardly, as the parents dragged their children towards the tent. It would have been nothing more than a prank in Whitehall or Mountaintop, nothing more than a harmless jest. Emily had lost count of the number of times Melissa and her cronies had pranked her...and of the number of times she, Alassa, and Imaiqah had pranked them back. But for these children, even if they recovered without permanent harm, it would blight the rest of their lives. Everyone would remember them acting like dogs even when the potion wore off.
“Not the nicest of people,” Master Grey observed. “But what can you expect from an Ashfall?”
Emily rounded on him. “You could have handled it.”
“You were the superior here,” Master Grey said, with a glint in his eye warning her not to presume on it under other circumstances. “It would have been insulting for me to take the lead.”
He shrugged. “I dare say Master Ashfall will not be too concerned,” he added. “It was only a prank.”
“Played on someone incapable of defending themselves,” Emily countered. “It could have been really dangerous.”
“It will be worse now,” Master Grey commented. “But really, what can you expect from an Ashfall?”
Emily scowled at him. “Are you allowed to show a link to your former family?”
“Sometimes,” Master Grey said.
“Then tell me,” Emily said, “what are the other stories about how the feud started?”
Master Grey gave her a long, considering look. “Some people are told that the Ashworths wished to keep the family following the old traditions, while the Ashfalls wanted to rewrite them to suit themselves. The family was split between two factions, both so large that neither could claim a consensual victory. Eventually, the Ashworths stayed where they were, while the Ashfalls stormed off to set up their own family. And the feud spread from there.”
It sounded believable, Emily decided. And yet...was it really likely that the split had been even enough to allow half the family to leave the other half?
He snorted. “In the old days, there would have been no contact between the magical families and common mundanes,” he added. “This would not have happened.”
Emily rather doubted it. From what she’d read, both the mundane aristocracy and the magical families had once been tied together under the emperor. It had only been after the death of the last emperor and the fall of the Empire that the two had separated, which was probably why powerful magic had popped up in Alassa’s bloodline. But then, she had never really been sure just how powerful King Randor was, or indeed if he was a magician at all.
“I’m sure it wouldn’t,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I have to take the brat back to the castle and hand him over to his father. I’m sure he will deal with him.”
Master Grey looked for a moment as though he were about to say something, but instead shrugged and walked off towards the bookstalls. Emily glowered after him, collected Frieda, and began the walk back to the castle, mentally planning out what she would say to Marcellus. Maybe the Ashworth Patriarch would see it as a joke too, but Emily didn’t. One way or another, Maximus would not be allowed back to the Faire.
“He won’t like you telling him this,” Frieda warned, once Emily had told her what had happened. “Fathers always believe the best of their sons.”
“I know,” Emily said. In Markus’s case, Marcellus might have been right. “But I saw what happened, and I have Master Grey as a witness. And I told them all that I would not tolerate anyone abusing my people.”
Frieda gave her a strange look, but said nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I WISH TO APOLOGIZE, ONCE AGAIN, for my son’s behavior,” Marcellus said, during the evening meal. “He has been soundly chastised.”
“As in, he’s been told very loudly that he’s been very naughty and he’s not to do it again,” Fulvia put in. “There’s nothing to be gained by allowing one’s children to run free.”
“Except free-thinking magicians,” Marcellus countered, crossly. “But I suppose you wouldn’t want people thinking for themselves.”
Emily sighed as the two magicians sniped at one another. They weren’t the only ones; rumors had spread rapidly, of course, and now the two families were bickering constantly, while the other guests were trying to stay out of the line of fire. Both Markus and Melissa seemed to have made themselves scarce, while Gaius looked cross, and his two cronies were glowering around the room, as if they were searching for someone to blame.
“I don’t care about what you do elsewhere,” she said, sharply. “But I do care about what you do here.”
“My son has been taught a lesson,” Marcellus assured her. “He will not be abusing your people again.”
“Good,” Emily said.
“My son would not have had to be told,” Fulvia commented. “He knows not to pick on the small, weak, and helpless.”
“Your son is old enough to have grandchildren,” Marcellus snapped. “How does your granddaughter behave?”
Emily sighed and prayed, inwardly, that the meal would come to a quick end. Perhaps she could arrange for the next dinner to be held outside the castle, or perhaps come up with an emergency that required her urgent attention. Or...she cursed inwardly, already knowing what Lady Barb would say. She didn’t dare risk giving offense by not hosting the dinner every night.
After this, I am damned if I am hosting anything else, she thought, crossly. The next Faire can be held on the other side of the world.
Dinner, thankfully, came to an end without bloodshed, although there were a number of moments when Emily feared all hell was about to break loose. She watched the servants prepare the dance floor, and headed up to the balcony to rest while the guests danced the night away. Jade and Alassa were dancing; it bothered her to watch them, even though she wasn’t sure why. They looked happy together...no, more than happy; they looked right together. Part of her envied her friends that happiness.
“My lady?”
Emily turned to see one of the maids, a young girl she barely knew. Like so many of the others, she was a younger daughter and had gone into service, rather than trying to find a husband or a life of her own. Emily knew that most of her maids would leave in a few years, with enough money to be sure of finding either a husband or a place to set up their own business, but it still felt wrong, as if people had been dealt a poor hand simply by being born.
And it galled her she couldn’t remember half of their names.
“Yes,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“There’s something...funny...about the library,” the maid said. “I’m meant to clean it...ah...I kept meaning to do it, but every time I went close to the library I forgot what I was doing and walked away. And it kept happening.”
Emily frowned. It sounded like an aversion ward, one tuned to grant privacy without calling attention to itself. Anyone who walked too close would miss it, or remember something urgent they had to do elsewhere. A powerful magician might sense its presence, if he were looking for it, but others might just be repelled without ever realizing they’d been pushed away. Mountaintop had once been shrouded in such wards.
“I’ll see to it,” she said. It wasn’t her work and her friends were down on the dance floor, enjoying themselves. One of her guests had to have raised the ward. “Leave the library until tomorrow, please. The books will ke
ep.”
The maid bobbed a curtsey and hurried off. Emily watched her go, then turned and hurried down to the library. She felt the ward pressing gently against her mind as soon as she reached the door, trying to nudge her away. It was a skilled piece of work, she had to admit; if Lady Barb hadn’t made her work overtime to recognize the existence of such magics and counter them, she might have missed it entirely. She gritted her teeth — the maid would have wound up in hot water for not doing her job — and pushed against the ward. It didn’t actually fit into her wards — that would have been a step too far — but it was close enough that most people capable of noticing the ward would have assumed that Emily had put it in place.
But that would tell them I had something to hide, Emily thought. She had no illusions about how many magicians had been sneaking around her castle. Most of her notes were heavily protected — and the battery was sealed in her pocket — but that wouldn’t stop some of her guests from trying to snoop. They would think the ward was hiding something of mine.
She pushed right though the ward and opened the door, silently promising herself that whoever had created the ward was going to get a piece of her mind, then stopped dead. Markus was sitting on a chair; Melissa sat on his lap. And they were kissing...they jumped apart, Melissa hastily standing up, as they saw Emily. Emily braced herself as Melissa lifted her hand, ready to cast a spell, but she dropped it again. Behind her, Markus rose to his feet.
“Emily,” he said, gravely.
Emily looked from one to the other and found herself fighting down a giggle. Melissa’s lips were swollen...and, from her rumpled clothes, it was clear they’d been doing a bit more than just kissing. She remembered Imaiqah looking like that, after the party they’d held to celebrate the destruction of the Mimic...her friend had admitted, later, that she’d had more than just a kiss with a boy.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Melissa said.
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