She’s trying to be your friend, a voice whispered at the back of my mind. Why not talk to her?
I shook my head. People had tried to be my friend before, until they’d discovered I had little or no magical ability. They certainly hadn't tried to befriend me after they’d realised I wasn't going to inherit. Alana would be popular for the rest of her life, simply because she could bestow largesse at will. What did I have to offer? Rose would try to be my friend until she learned the truth, then she’d reject me. And how could I blame her? Befriending me would simply paint a target on her back.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, I told myself, sternly. And sit up.
The two professors stood at the front of the class, studying us. I studied them back, trying to place them. One was tall, his yellowish skin and dark almond eyes suggesting that he had travelled from far-off Cathay, although it was rather more likely that he was the son or grandson of a trading family who’d settled in Shallot. His companion was short, with pale skin and a bald dome lined with curly black hair. He wore three pairs of spectacles, one balanced on his nose and two more placed on his oversized head. I couldn't tell if his skull was an illusion, a trick of the light or the result of a magical accident. Someone might have tried to enhance his brainpower by making his skull larger, but it didn’t strike me as very safe. Only a complete idiot would try to cast such spells on himself.
The tall professor stepped forward. “Greetings,” he said. He waved a hand at the door, which closed with a loud bang. “The door will be locked five minutes into the lesson and will remain locked until the end. Anyone who gets here after the door is locked will be marked absent and will have detention, a very unpleasant detention. There will be no further warnings.”
He gave us a tight smile, then produced a sheet of paper. “Alana Aguirre ...?”
I forced myself to relax as he ran through the register, making a couple of sharp notes on the paper when two boys were found to be absent. Several glanced at me - including Akin - when they heard my name, clearly wondering if I too was a power. I rather doubted they were impressed with what they saw. I sat alone, save for Rose. And it wouldn't take them long to work out that she was common-born. None of them would have seen her before now.
“Right,” the professor said, when he’d finished the register. “I am Magister Grayson, Practical Charms. This” - he nodded to his colleague - “is Magister Von Rupert, Theoretical Charms. You may have heard of us.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. The Grayson-Von Rupert partnership was famous. They’d unlocked nearly a hundred spells from the old spellbooks, rewriting the equations until just about anyone could use them without some of the more exotic incantations. Their books were on the reading list of everyone who aspired to sorcery. And they were going to teach us? I sat upright, sensing the rest of the class doing the same. This was going to be a great class ...
... Or it would be, if I didn't need magic.
Von Rupert stepped forward. “Welcome,” he said. His voice was soft, almost impossible to hear. “How many of you have cast Anna’s Amphibian?”
I glanced around the classroom. Nearly every arm was raised. Mine wasn't, of course. Nor was Rose’s. A pale-faced boy in the rear looked torn between claiming to have cast it or not, his hand hovering in the air. I couldn't place the face, suggesting he was another common-born student. Chances were he hadn't been having an easy time of it in the dorms either.
“Of course you ... ah ... have,” Von Rupert said. “It is one of the simplest spells, used to turn someone into a frog. Ah ... it is practically traditional to turn people into frogs. But ... ah ... all it is good for is turning people into frogs. Why is that the case?”
Rose nudged me. “Why frogs?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then thought better of it. The common or garden frog is the most useful animal, as far as potions are concerned. There isn't a part of it that can't be used for something. Mum bred frogs in the garden because she needed a new one for her potions every week or so. But I didn't think that Rose would find that very reassuring, not after Isabella had turned her into a frog. It would be kinder not to tell her.
Grayson eyed her, sharply. “Why is that the case?”
Rose coloured. “I ...”
I felt the back of my neck heat as I heard titters from behind me. The answer was obvious, of course, but Rose wouldn't know it. She hadn't had time to go through all the basic spellbooks, let alone the more advanced - or forbidden - tomes in the family library. I didn't think she was stupid, but she lacked knowledge. And I felt a stab of sudden, intense pity.
“The spell is tightly focused on the frog transformation,” I said, quickly. Dad had drilled that into me, along with plenty of other useless pieces of knowledge. Useless to me, if not anyone else. “It cannot be modified, for example, to turn someone into a cat instead.”
“Correct,” Von Rupert said. His voice sounded a little steadier. “Ah ... the spell is so tightly woven that it cannot be modified. A magician who wants to do something different would be better off writing their own spell or adapting a pre-existing one. Those of you who want to truly ... ah ... master magic must learn how to adapt spells, then write your own. A finely-tuned spell you crafted yourself will be far more flexible than any you might find in a spellbook.”
Rose shot me a grateful look. I shrugged back at her. She’d need to read her textbooks from cover to cover, as quickly as possible. Could she even read? Everyone in Shallot could read, I thought, but what about commoners from outside the city? If she couldn’t read, how was she expected to study the textbooks? Of course she could read.
“The first half of this class will concentrate on working out theoretical spells,” Grayson informed us, as he dumped a pile of papers on the first desk. The boy sitting there took one and passed the others on. “The second half will attempt to put theory into practice. We will be most displeased if any of you attempt to cast a basic spell, instead of your own work. And we will notice.”
I glanced down at my paper. It was a complex set of equations, only comprehensible because Mum and Dad had spent years training me - and my sisters - to read them. Beside me, Rose let out a tiny gasp. The notation had to be completely incomprehensible to her. I didn't think she could tell the difference between hand-waving directions, finger-motions and chants, let alone runes and sigils carved into metal or stone. Not that it mattered, I suspected. She probably had enough raw power to compensate for any early problems.
“There is a mistake somewhere within these equations,” Grayson said. “Find it.”
There was a groan, somewhere from behind me. I liked to think that Isabella found the exercise daunting, although I doubted it. She would have been drilled as intensely as any of us, with the added advantage of having a brother who was equally schooled in magic. Maybe it was one of the other girls. It had definitely sounded feminine.
I pushed the thought aside as I worked my way through the equations. It looked crude to my eyes, yet it should have been effective. And yet ... Dad would have laughed at us, if we’d tried to present him with such a spell. It was utterly inefficient, wasting magic on a terrifying scale. Beside me, Rose looked utterly stumped. She didn't even know where to begin.
Think, I told myself. What is the spell intended to do?
It took me nearly twenty minutes to parse out the equations and realise what - precisely - was wrong. The professors had overdone it, working three or four spells into one. If someone managed to cast it - and I didn't think Alana could have cast it - the result would have been hugely amplified. A simple cantrip designed to lift a stone into the air would have sent it cracking into the ceiling instead. I looked up, wondering just how many times the ceiling had been damaged. But then, there would be protections in place ...
... Wouldn't there?
Von Rupert cleared his throat. “Ah ... are you all finished?”
There was a rumble of agreement. Rose looked terrified.
“Very good,” Grayson said. He poin
ted a finger at Akin. “What was wrong with the spell?”
Isabella’s brother sounded confident, at least. “There are actually five spells,” he said, calmly. I blinked. Five spells? “Only one of them is strictly necessary. The remainder should be removed to save magic.”
“Ah ... interesting,” Von Rupert said. “Ah ... would anyone like to disagree?”
There was a long pause. I looked down at my paper. I couldn't see a fifth spell. Had I missed something or ... had he separated one of the spells I’d found into two? I ran through it quickly, silently testing the concept in my head. If I was right, Akin had made a serious mistake. But did I dare comment on it? I already had far too many enemies ...
I held up my hand. “Ah, you,” Von Rupert said, pointing at me. “You disagree?”
“Yes,” I said. All of a sudden, this seemed a very bad idea. I could feel my sister’s gaze boring into my back. “There are two spells designed to lift something, one of which is too big to be efficient, and two spells designed to impart speed. You only really need one of each - and with a little effort, you can meld them together.”
Von Rupert gave me an approving smile. “Very good,” he said. I couldn't help feeling a flicker of pride. Praise from Von Rupert was worth more, far more, than praise from my parents. “Ah ... more advanced spells are melds of incants, woven together into a whole. Separating them too far can weaken the combined effect.”
Grayson took a step forward. “Many of you will think that we are going back to the basics here,” he said. “And you will be right. You have to master the early steps before you can start writing your own spells. If you don’t understand what you’re doing, you can cause all sorts of problems. A simple misstep can lead to disaster.”
He smiled, rather thinly. “And now, rewrite the spell we gave you,” he added. “But do not try to cast it until we have checked it.”
I bent my head over the paper as my mood soured. I could rewrite the spell until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn't matter. I couldn't even begin to cast it. They might give me high marks for theoretical work, yet I couldn't graduate without proving I could actually cast my own spells. Von Rupert’s praise was meaningless. I couldn't even study magic without magic of my own.
Rose nudged me. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “Help!”
“You’re going to have to spend months studying the equations,” I muttered back. Rose hadn't even touched her paper. “I can show you books, if you want.”
“Please,” Rose said. “Where do I even start?”
I shrugged as I started to work on my paper. “You don't need half of this,” I said. I was fairly sure the spell was intended to lift something up into the air. There certainly didn't seem to be any other purpose, as far as I could tell. “Cut it out, then meld this section into that section ...”
Rose shook her head. “I’m never going to get this right.”
“You will,” I muttered, sourly. “The more you use magic, the easier it will be to understand.”
It felt like years before Grayson started to make his way around the room, reading papers and offering everything from approval to caustic comments. I couldn't help feeling a flicker of dark amusement as he berated Gayle Fitzwilliam for creating a spell that would send her flying into the ceiling, then despondency as he praised Isabella and Akin for their work. One by one, chairs and desks started floating into the air as the approved spells were cast. Gayle looked utterly thunderous when I glanced at her, her cheeks burning with shame. She was an only child, if I recalled correctly. Her family expected great things from her.
“Use mine, when the time comes to cast a spell,” I muttered to Rose. She gave me a surprised look. “Yours is a mess.”
She opened her mouth, either to argue or to thank me, but my chair shook before she could say a word. I drifted up into the air, held by an invisible force ... I glanced back to see Alana smirking at me, her finger pointed at the chair. She could drop me from a great height ... I gritted my teeth, refusing to let fear or panic overcome me. The chair wobbled a second later, threatening to tip over ...
“Not bad, but your sister is a little too heavy for the spell,” Grayson said. I found myself lowered back to the ground. “You need extra power if you want to levitate her safely.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alana said.
Grayson picked up my paper and studied it, then nodded curtly. “Cast the spell.”
I lifted my hand and went through the motions, chanting the words one by one. Nothing happened, of course. Grayson lifted his eyebrows, then rechecked the paper. It should have worked. He wouldn't have let me try it if it shouldn't have worked. And yet ...
“Try again,” he ordered.
Nothing happened, again. Grayson frowned, then moved onto Rose. I wanted to cover my ears as he told her off for doing nothing, although it wasn't remotely fair. She didn't even know where to begin. And then there was a crash behind me.
“Detention,” Grayson said. He strode past me, his robes billowing angrily around him. “Go to the kitchens on Saturday and do whatever the cooks tell you to do.”
I resisted the urge to turn and look as I heard someone - a boy, I thought - spluttering behind me. It was an awful punishment for someone who had probably never cooked or cleaned in his entire life. But I found it hard to feel sorry for him when I’d just revealed my lack of magic to the entire class. Some of them might believe there had been a flaw in the spell, some overriding reason why I hadn't been able to cast it, but others would suspect the truth.
Rose glanced at me. “Do you want me to ...?”
Von Rupert cut her off. “Ah, homework is an essay on the twenty-nine letters of the basic runic alphabet,” he said. “I expect you to list all of the basics, then outline their uses in geometric diagrams.”
“Do not attempt to use any of the runes or modified letters outside class,” Grayson added, firmly. “We will know if you try and you will be punished. Dismissed.”
I rose with the others. Three hours ... it was lunchtime now. And after lunch ... another chance to humiliate myself in front of my dorm mates. No doubt Isabella was already planning revenge for how I’d embarrassed her brother. The sooner I got my hands on some Devices, the better. I might just be able to surprise her if I had a Device or two up my sleeve.
“Come on,” Rose said. She seemed to have attached herself to me. “We have to get to the hall before the food runs out.”
I shrugged. “You need to do more reading,” I said. “Go to the library after class.”
Rose gave me a hopeful look. “Will you come with me?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but I reconsidered. I’d been cruel to Rose earlier, even as I’d helped her. Maybe I should ...
And yet she will leave, when she finds out the truth, my thoughts mocked. And you’ll be alone again.
I told my thoughts to shut up. I’d take whatever I could get.
Chapter Nine
The Protective and Defensive Magic classroom was smaller than I had expected, but otherwise largely identical to the Charms classroom. Twenty-one desks and chairs, a single heavy chair at the front and a large fire, burning merrily in the fireplace. The walls were decorated with images of people being jinxed, hexed, or cursed. I felt my stomach heave at some of the latter, remembering my Dad’s strict instructions never to even think of using curses unless we were in real danger. The average magician, he'd said, never needed anything more dangerous than hexes to defend himself.
A single old lady sat in the heavy chair, so frail and weak that I half-thought she was an illusion. She looked to be in her nineties, with bushy white hair, pale skin and bright blue eyes, which flickered over us as we sat down. She couldn't be the teacher, could she? I’d expected Protective and Defensive Magic to be taught by a man. But that proved nothing. I glanced at Rose - she’d stuck with me all though lunch - and then forced myself to try to calm down and relax. It didn’t work. I knew this class was going to be another disast
er.
The seats behind us rapidly filled. I heard my name and, turning, saw Bella sitting at the very back. She gave me an uncertain smile, then turned her attention back to her new friends. I supposed I should be glad to be ignored. Akin and Isabella followed, just as the clock started to chime. There was no sign of Alana.
I turned back, just in time to see the old woman rise from her chair. She looked even more frail as she stood, her mouth shaping into a smile that revealed a number of missing or rotting teeth. And yet, there was a strength about her that reminded me of my mother and her grandmother. She stood without a cane, without leaning on anything ... her will was strong, even if her body was weak. And it was willpower that drove magic.
The Zero Blessing Page 8