“It used to be magnificent,” Master Highland said. “The first years would always go up the main staircase, the only time they were allowed to use it. At the top, they would be welcomed by the staff and shown to their dorms. The final years would go down the staircase when it was time to leave, where they would be greeted as equals for the very first time. Some of them would return to the school, from time to time; others... others would never return. It didn’t matter. We were all one big family.”
Emily shot him a sharp glance. There were students who saw it that way, she knew, and students who loathed every aspect of the boarding school experience. She’d loved Whitehall, but... she wasn’t blind to its flaws. It would have been a great deal harder if she’d wanted more friends, or if she’d been bad at magic, or... Whitehall really had more in common with her old school than she cared to admit. The unwritten rules weren’t that different. If you didn’t fit in—somewhere—you were a social outcast. And a social outcast was always at the bottom.
Cirroc walked up beside her. “We’re going to be doing a lot of dusting, aren’t we?”
“There are spells to take out the dust,” Emily said, before Master Highland could suggest putting the mundanes to work. “We used them under Whitehall.”
“And you came up looking like someone had hexed your clothes,” Cirroc said, remembering. “Perhaps we should just vent the whole building.”
Caleb studied one of the mirrors, thoughtfully. His reflection gazed back. Emily frowned, her eyes itching. The reflection looked... she blinked and it was gone. She wasn’t even sure it had been there in the first place. And yet... she looked at Master Highland. He was lost in his own little world. He wasn’t paying attention.
“Master,” she said, quietly. “Why did they cover the entire building in mirrors?”
“I don’t know,” Master Highland said. He looked up, wistfully. “There were all sorts of stories, but...”
“Perhaps someone was very vain,” Cirroc said. He struck a dramatic pose in front of one of the mirrors, flexing his muscles in a manner that made Frieda giggle. “They simply couldn’t bear to be away from their reflection, even for a moment. Do they have mirrors in the toilets?”
“They used to.” Master Highland shot him a sharp look. “We need to head up.”
“Let me go first.” Hoban pulled a wand out of his bag and held it in front of him. “Stay at least two steps behind. If there are any traps, let them snap at me first.”
Emily glanced at Frieda. She was staring at Hoban, her eyes wide with admiration—and excitement. Emily didn’t begrudge her happiness, although... she reminded herself, firmly, that Hoban was more mature than Cat or Caleb. And yet, he was addicted to risk. No one tried to play tomb raider without a certain willingness to risk everything in the pursuit of knowledge—and treasure. She’d heard stories. Some of the ancient sorcerers had had nasty imaginations... and the power to turn their concepts into reality. There were some tombs that had never been opened—and anyone who’d tried had wound up dead -- or worse.
Hoban kept up a running commentary as he inched up the stairs, waving the wand in front of him. Emily listened, even though he seemed to be babbling. She knew the drill. If he stopped talking, something was wrong. Master Highland hovered behind Hoban, occasionally offering a comment. Emily stayed further back, although she suspected she should be taking the lead. The wards might react badly if she wasn’t with them when they reached the top.
Caleb caught her eye. “There are mirrors inserted into the stairs,” he said, “and... everywhere.”
Emily nodded. There had to be a reason, but... what? She made a mental note to hunt through the books in the library, the ones that had survived, for whatever clues they might hold. She’d written to a couple of libraries, asking for books on mirror magic, but they hadn’t replied. There was no point in asking Gordian for access to Whitehall’s library. The Grandmaster would probably take perverse pleasure in denying her permission to visit and search the shelves.
“We’ll figure it out.” She had no doubt they’d work out the solution eventually. “It could be anything.”
She touched one of the mirrors gingerly, expecting magic to snap at her. There was nothing at first, but... there was a faint hint of something the longer she stared at it. It made no sense. She frowned, her own face staring back. There was something faintly distorted about it, although she couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong. She looked away, gritting her teeth as reflections seemed to dance around her. The students had probably managed to get accustomed to being surrounded by mirrors. She’d do so, too, in time.
“They might be part of a surveillance system.” Cirroc sounded irked. “Last year, I caught a boy casting a watching charm on a girl’s mirror. Gods alone know how he got his hands on it, but... he could look through the mirror any time he liked. He would have gotten away with it too, if his charm hadn’t caused a resonance with the wards on his room and... well, I caught him. He had to make a formal apology to the girl. That didn’t go well.”
“I think I’ll be covering the mirrors in my room, if they can’t be removed,” Emily said, after a moment. The spells should have worn off fairly quickly, but... it was hard to be sure. “And we’d be unwise to remove them until we figure out why they’re actually there.”
She shuddered. If Cirroc was right and they were being watched... by whom? And why?
“The dorms are down there,” Master Highland commented. The stairs grew narrower as they climbed higher. “Heart’s Eye always had fewer students than Whitehall or Mountaintop. There were generally around fifty or sixty students in each year. The older ones were expected to help supervise the younger ones...”
“Ouch,” Emily said.
“It worked better than you might think,” Master Highland said, defensively. “A lot of friendships were made in the dorms.”
And some of them lasted forever, Emily mused. “Didn’t the students ever get rooms of their own?”
“The finals—that’s what we called students who were going to leave at the end of the year—were offered private rooms.” Master Highland looked regretful for a long moment. “Not all of them accepted the offer. By then, we were used to sharing rooms. We didn’t want to change.”
Emily lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure she believed that. There was so little privacy at school, even at Whitehall where younger students slept three to a room instead of ten to a dorm, that students carefully guarded what little privacy they had. A student was perfectly within her rights to hex someone who invaded that privacy, whatever their excuse. She had been glad when she’d moved to a two-person room, then a private room. The dorm she’d shared at Mountaintop had been hellish.
You can’t miss what you never had, Emily reminded herself. Too many students had grown up with very little privacy. And what little you have, you cling to it.
They reached the top of the stairs. “One moment,” Hoban said. “There’s something here...”
Emily watched as he went to work, fiddling with a spell that seemed to linger on the edge of existence. Whatever it was, it was complex... and woven firmly into the stone. She was surprised Dua Kepala hadn’t simply ripped it to shreds, even if he’d had to tear the upper levels apart to do it. Very few protective wards would stand up to a necromancer for long, unless they drew on the nexus point. And the nexus point under their feet had been dead until she’d reignited it.
“Odd,” Hoban commented. “I’ve never seen a ward like it. It...”
Master Highland stepped forward. “Do you want me to take a look at it?”
“Not yet.” Hoban fiddled with his wand. “I think...”
Emily felt the spell shimmer into full visibility, then shatter into a shower of sparks. She frowned, silently recalling what little she’d seen of the spell before it was too late. Hoban was right. The spell had been odd. There had been something translucent about it, as if it hadn’t been quite there. And yet, it had been there. Anyone who’d tried to cross
the wardline would regret it.
And the necromancer must have known it was there, she thought. Why else would he have left this part of the building strictly alone?
“The Schoolmaster’s office is down there,” Master Highland said. He pointed to a pair of ebony doors. “Shall we go?”
“Let me go first,” Hoban said. He started to inch down the corridor, waving his wand in front of him. “There might be other spells waiting for us.”
Frieda grinned at Emily. “He’s good, isn’t he?”
“Don’t distract him,” Emily said. “We need to stay alert.”
Chapter Six
THERE WERE MORE SPELLS ON THE office door, nastier spells. Emily watched, feeling a twinge of admiration, as Hoban dismantled them one by one, all the while keeping up a running commentary about what the spells did and how they were integrated into the wood. The Schoolmaster had been paranoid beyond words, apparently. There were spells woven into his door that daunted adult magicians, let alone children and half-trained teenagers. Emily couldn’t help thinking that he’d been desperate. A couple of the spells were designed to kill.
And he used them in a school, Emily thought. Teachers were allowed to defend their offices—students certainly tried to break in, for all sorts of reasons—but there were limits. There was no way the Grandmaster—either Grandmaster—would have allowed his teachers to defend their offices with lethal force. Transfiguration or petrification spells were the limit. What was he thinking?
“I’ve known tombs that weren’t so heavily defended,” Hoban said, as the last of the wards evaporated into mist. “What was he doing in here?”
“And where did the students go if they wanted help?” Emily looked at Master Highland. “If they risked death by coming here, where could they go?”
“There was no risk of death when I was a student,” Master Highland said, stiffly. “The doors weren’t defended with lethal force.”
“Not that you ever tried to break in,” Cirroc said. “Or did you?”
Master Highland gave Cirroc a look that promised trouble, later. “Every student did, from time to time. But the worst they risked was a public flogging, not... death.”
The doors lurched open. Hoban stepped to one side, holding up his hand. “There are some faint traces of magic inside,” he said. “But none of them appear to be deadly.”
“I hope you’re right,” Emily said, as Master Highland pushed past Hoban and stepped into the office. “Check everything, anyway.”
She walked forward herself and peered into the office. It was smaller than she’d expected, but still large enough to showcase its occupant’s power and position. Two large windows—both glass, rare in old buildings—looked out over the dusty wasteland, one staring directly towards Heart’s Ease. A giant contraption that looked like something out of a steampunk nightmare—gold wire, glowing crystals, strange flickers of magic—sat in the center of the chamber. Emily made a mental note not to go near it until she could figure out what it actually did. The desk was positioned to one side. She inspected the drawers from a distance, then frowned. They were almost certainly hexed shut. Hoban would have to try to open them. The slightest mistake would incinerate the contents, if it didn’t kill anyone stupid enough to force the lock.
“He moved the desk,” Master Highland said, thoughtfully. “It used to be in the center of the room.”
Caleb looked up. “Making room for”—he waved a hand at the contraption—“that thing?”
“It looks that way,” Master Highland said. He sounded almost as wary as Emily felt. “It wasn’t here, the last time I was here.”
Emily glanced at him. “How long ago was that?”
“Around thirty years.” Master Highland never took his eyes off the contraption. Perhaps he was trying to figure it out. “I came here to ask for a position, after I gained my mastery. The Schoolmaster declined, for whatever reason. Maybe I should be grateful.”
“I think so,” Emily said. Thirty years... Master Highland had to be in his early fifties, although she supposed there was some room for flexibility. Jade was the only person she knew who’d completed an apprenticeship in one year, but there had to be others. “If you’d been here, you’d have been killed.”
“Perhaps,” Master Highland said. “Or perhaps I could have made a difference.”
“Yes, Master.” Cirroc’s voice was grim. “You would have added another life to the death totals.”
“Cheeky bugger.” Master Highland sounded more amused than angry. “But I like to think otherwise.”
Hoban inspected the drawers, then opened the first one. “No real traps,” he said. “Just a simple locking spell.”
“Curious,” Master Highland said. “Surely there should be something to deal with any prying eyes.”
“Nothing.” Hoban pulled a handful of parchment rolls out of the drawer and placed them on the desk. “The entire desk feels... undefended.”
“Maybe all the protections were on the door,” Caleb said.
Cirroc nudged him. “You remember when Janet was caught poking through Mistress Irene’s files? She’d been allowed into the office on some pretext and...”
“I remember,” Caleb said. “She had so many detentions she’s probably still working them off.”
“Her grandchildren will be working them off,” Cirroc said. “Mistress Irene’s going to be good for this school.”
Emily ignored the chatter as Hoban carefully opened the first scroll. She’d hoped there would be something—anything—explaining what had happened, but the results were disappointing. The scroll was nothing more than a list of teachers, with a handful of coded notes beside them. Hoban tried a couple of decryption spells, but neither worked. The code was apparently indecipherable. Master Highland tried a spell too, unsuccessfully. He huffed as he opened the second scroll. It was a list of students who’d been given detention over the final year.
“Frustrating,” Master Highland said. He opened a third scroll. “A little more interesting, but... useless.”
Emily peered over his shoulder. The scroll was written in a language she didn’t recognize, which was curious. There was only one common tongue on the Nameless World, thanks to the Empire. The handful of languages that had survived its rule—and the wars that had ultimately destroyed it—were rarely used outside their homelands. She found it hard to understand why anyone had written the letter—it looked like a letter—in a foreign tongue. It would have made them look unsophisticated.
“What does it say?” Cirroc leaned forward, interested. “They have to be hiding something.”
Master Highland shook his head. “It’s a Red Flag,” he said. “If a teacher has concerns about a student, concerns that they might be falling into darkness, they send out a letter stating their concerns. In this case, the student was a prospective student expelled from Mountaintop.”
Frieda laughed, humorlessly. “What does one have to do to get expelled from Mountaintop?”
“The student was showing signs of being... problematic,” Master Highland explained. “Nothing too dramatic, nothing that could be used as grounds for more drastic action, but worrying enough to convince the staff to keep an eye on him. Eventually, they caught the student performing a dark rite and expelled him. He promptly applied to Heart’s Eye. I’d guess the Schoolmaster asked for references and got this.”
Emily looked at him. “I’m guessing he wasn’t accepted, then?”
“There’s no way to know,” Master Highland said. “He might have been lucky. Who knows?”
They flicked through the rest of the scrolls, but none of them were particularly interesting. A report on sports, a detailed invoice for potions ingredients, a political briefing covering events current ten years ago... Emily put the latter aside for later reading. History had a habit of hanging around like an unwanted guest, even if one paid no attention. She knew better than to trust everything she read, but she’d still have to go over it. If nothing else, knowing what lies someone
wanted you to believe could be quite informative.
Hoban moved around the room, opening concealed doors and inspecting the contents. Emily followed him with her eyes, noting just how bare the room seemed to be. One compartment held clothes, one a handful of canes... she rolled her eyes at the sight before Hoban put them away. Other than that... the room was almost boring, save for the view. She walked over to the window and peered at the sand dunes. It looked as if another storm was brewing. She hoped the people in the ruined city would be fine. They should be. The buildings they occupied were heavily warded...
Master Highland stepped up and stood next to her. “It used to be a sports field,” he said, softly. “You won’t believe it now, but it was once as green as anyone could have wished. We would play on the fields, casting spells to keep our opponents off balance and... it’s all gone now, buried beneath the sand.”
“We’ll bring it back,” Emily said. “Once we get the wards up and running properly, we’ll be able to clear the fields and repair them.”
If anyone who comes is interested in sports, she thought. She’d never liked team sports and was wary of those who did. They’ll be coming to research, not to...
“I think we’ve done all we can here,” Hoban said. “But I still can’t figure out what that contraption actually does.”
“Me neither.” Emily studied the device for a long moment, but drew a blank. On one hand, it looked as if it was designed to channel power. On the other, it looked too weak to carry power. She’d studied wardcrafting and enchantment during her final two years of formal education. Putting too much strain on one’s enchantments could lead to a meltdown—or worse. “Caleb?”
“It might have been a prototype,” Caleb speculated. “But a prototype for what?”
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 6