“I’d even know how to clean my robes afterwards,” Caleb said. “And then cook something nice to celebrate after I was dismissed.”
Emily slowly shook her head. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that all of her friends had grown up on a very different world... and times when it was impossible to forget. She couldn’t imagine any of the boys she’d known on Earth knowing how to repair their clothes, let alone trying. They would have called it women’s work, if they’d bothered to think about it at all. And the girls hadn’t been much better. Better to buy something cheap and mass-produced, rather than try to repair damaged clothing. Jade, Cat and Caleb knew better. They couldn’t go to a store when their clothes needed repaired.
And a woman can make a good living as a seamstress, Emily reminded herself. There are no cheap mass-produced clothes here.
Caleb caught her eye. “That said, there is some discontent. Some people feel you punished Seth too harshly, while letting Roland get away with everything.”
“He got turned into a frog!” Emily shook her head. She remembered the heart-stopping moment when Jacqui had turned her into a frog, when she’d lost her powers. The sense of utter hopelessness, the grim awareness that she might escape... only to discover she would be stuck as a frog for the rest of her life. If Jacqui had been smarter, Emily would have remained her prisoner. “He was punished enough, don’t you think?”
“It isn’t me you have to convince,” Caleb said. “It’s magical apprentices who’ve been turned into frogs so often it doesn’t hold any terrors for them any longer.”
“Then tell them...” Emily bit off her words. “We’ll see how things develop. Roland might leave of his own accord.”
“Which will send quite another message,” Caleb said. “We need a Sergeant Harkin.”
“I don’t suppose your dad wants the job,” Emily said, more in hope than expectation. “If your parents both came here...”
“They wouldn’t want to move,” Caleb said. “Sorry.”
Emily nodded, then opened the door and peered gingerly into the darkened corridor beyond. It was dark, the shadows growing stronger until they swallowed all the light. She braced herself, then sent a light-globe floating down the corridor. The shadows vanished, revealing... just another corridor. A handful of shards lay on the ground. Emily eyed them, then looked up. The light crystals had fallen out of their sockets, leaving them empty. Emily reached for her notebook and scribbled a note. The crystals would have to be replaced before the section could be opened.
Caleb took the lead, inching down the corridor. Emily followed, ready to yank him back if they ran into another trap. There were a dozen mirrors lining the walls, each one carefully spaced... Emily, on impulse, measured the gap and discovered there were precisely three meters between each mirror. She glanced at her reflection, but saw nothing. The corridor kept moving down, dust billowing to stain their clothes. Emily muttered spells to clear the air, directing the dust towards the vents. Clearing the entire school was going to take years.
We need to hire more staff, Emily thought. They had the basics now—cooks as well as cleaners—but they were going to need more. And we have to make it clear to the apprentices, mundane as well as magical, that the staff are not to be harassed.
“Hang on,” Caleb said. They reached a fork in the corridor. “I think there’s a spellchamber through here, between the corridors.”
Emily nodded slowly as she reached out with her senses. It certainly felt as though the corridor was branching out, around something. A spellchamber? She wasn’t sure, but...
“Stay here,” she ordered. She owed it to her conscience to take some risks. “I’ll go ahead.”
“I can send a message to Hoban or Frieda,” Caleb said. “And disturb them while they’re at play.”
“I’m sure they’re working hard,” Emily said, primly. She rather doubted it, but wouldn’t complain as long as they kept up with their work. “We’ll be fine, as long as we’re careful.”
Caleb shot her a warning look. “Sixth thought that way too.”
Emily nodded, then turned and walked down the right corridor. The air seemed to tingle with unexpended magic as she walked, her skin prickling uncomfortably. She felt as if she were caught in a thunderstorm, but... a curiously abstract thunderstorm. It felt as though she was recalling the sensation, rather than experiencing it. She sucked in her breath as the temperature rose, unpleasant sensations pulsing at the back of her mind. Her head ached, very slightly.
She opened her mouth to call for Caleb, then stopped herself. There was no need to panic, not yet. She cast a detection spell, frowning in confusion as the spell returned a very odd result. A place was either magical or it wasn’t, but the spell seemed to be having problems making up its mind. One moment, the area was so magical that she knew she needed to run for her life; the next, it was completely dead. She caught sight of a mirror—and her reflection in the mirror—and blinked. The reflection was different...
No. She blinked and looked again. It isn’t.
She turned and saw a spellchamber. The walls were blackened, the runes charred and broken into utter uselessness. Magic—a memory of magic, traces left behind by something—crackled at the edge of her awareness. The floor was covered in black ash. There was no trace of who had cast the spell. And...
Her eyes went wide as she swept the chamber. The ceiling had melted. Molten rock had poured down, only to solidify into something resembling an elephant’s foot. Raw terror struck her. She stumbled back before remembering quite why she should be scared of an elephant’s foot. Chernobyl. The explorers who’d probed the remains of the reactor had discovered an object shaped like an elephant’s foot, perhaps—at the time—the single most dangerous object in the world. A person who stood next to it for more than a few seconds would be assured a horrific death.
She swallowed hard, then chanted a spell she’d devised, a spell that should detect radioactivity. She had no way to know if it actually worked. Background radiation wasn’t particularly dangerous, perhaps nowhere near strong enough to register, while she couldn’t take the risk of using the nuke-spell again. The spell found nothing. Emily rubbed her forehead, feeling sweat glistening against her palm. There was no radiation. No mundane radiation, at least. She wondered, morbidly, what Seth would say if he knew mundanes had managed to create weapons more dangerous than any spell. He probably wouldn’t believe her.
And if he did, he’d create one himself. She shuddered. The nuke-spell was only slightly more complicated than necromancy. Anyone could cast it if they had a spark of power and no concern for their own survival. In hindsight, she should never have devised the wretched spell. The entire world will be doomed if the secret gets out.
She concentrated and repeated the spell, then cast a second spell of detection. The elephant’s foot was dead, lacking traces of either magical power or mundane radiation. Emily looked at the ceiling, trying to imagine what sort of power had been unleashed. Something had burnt through the containment spells, vaporized the magicians who’d been trying to do... something... and melted the ceiling. Emily couldn’t think of anything that would do that. She’d watched a spellchamber being put together, once. It was hard to imagine something that would break loose completely...
And the floor is ashy but untouched, she mused. There wasn’t a meltdown here.
She told herself, firmly, she should be relieved. Even without radiation, something hot enough to melt through the stone and wards and head down would have been disastrous. If it had gotten into the underground lake... she shook her head. It hadn’t happened. And she didn’t dare talk about it with anyone else. It would only give them ideas.
Footsteps echoed behind her. She turned, just in time to see Caleb hurry in. “Emily?”
Emily blinked. “I thought I told you to stay up there.”
“You called me,” Caleb said. “And I came.”
“I didn’t,” Emily said. “Caleb...”
“You did,” Caleb ins
isted. “I heard you.”
Emily stared at him. She knew she hadn’t called him. Given what she’d thought she’d found, when she’d found the elephant’s foot, calling him might have sentenced both of them to death. And yet... she knew Caleb well enough to know he would never lie to her. He wouldn’t pretend she’d called him if she hadn’t.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I didn’t call you.”
“I heard you,” Caleb repeated. “It wasn’t my imagination.”
“Perhaps not.” Emily wasn’t sure what to think. Had she cried out, when she’d seen the elephant’s foot? Perhaps... but, if she had, Caleb would have either appeared sooner or summoned help before going to her aid. “What did I say?”
Caleb gave her an odd look. “You called my name. And I came.”
“I believe you,” Emily said. “Point is, I didn’t call you.”
She took one last look at the elephant’s foot—there was something sinister about it, even though she knew it was nothing more than molten rock—and led the way out of the spellchamber. There was no point in trying to repair it. It would be quicker and easier to turn another room into a spellchamber. She made a note to have Hoban and Praxis take a look at it, when they had time. The remnants of the spell—whatever they’d been trying to do—had faded into the background long ago, but they might pick up something.
Caleb glanced at her. “Are you alright?”
“Why?” Emily ran her hand through damp hair. “Do I look different?”
“Flushed.” Caleb directed the light globe towards her. “Like you just stepped out of a hot shower.”
“It felt hot in there,” Emily said, uneasily. What if the detection spell had failed? What if there was radiation in the chamber? What if they’d already absorbed a lethal dose? She hesitated, then cast a spell that should have picked up damage caused by radiation even if it failed to detect the radiation itself. It found nothing. “I don’t know what they were doing, but it was dangerous.”
“Particularly if it destroyed a whole spellchamber,” Caleb said. “Do you suppose they were experimenting when the wards fell? Or... do you think they accidentally destroyed the nexus point?”
Emily said nothing for a long moment. The spells insisted she hadn’t been hurt, but... she played with her hair, half-expecting to see brown strands coming away in her hands. There was no damage, yet... she felt a pang of sympathy for the mundanes. They didn’t need to face a dark magician to be hurt by magic. Walking into a high-magic field could be just as dangerous, perhaps more so. She’d heard the stories. Damage caused by wild magic was almost always impossible to fix.
“I don’t see how,” she said. She reminded herself that, seven years ago, magic had been nothing more than idle fantasy. The real world—her old world—had no room for people who defied the laws of reality. “If they intended to destroy the nexus point, or even tinker with it when they needed the wards to stay up, surely... they would have been committing suicide.”
She thought carefully as they made their way back to the cleared areas. It wasn’t easy to tap a nexus point, not when the slightest mistake could make Chernobyl look like a minor nuisance. There were horror stories, from sorcerers who’d killed themselves to one—just one—who had triggered a colossal explosion. If Heart’s Eye had been experimenting at the worst possible time... she shook her head. There were limits. The Schoolmaster would hardly have allowed any experimentation while the school was at risk of being destroyed.
We keep telling alchemists to conduct their dangerous experiments somewhere well away from everyone else, Emily reminded herself. Surely, the Schoolmaster would have made sure of it...
She stopped and examined herself in the mirror. Her face was flushed and damp. Her shirt was damp too, clinging to her skin... she would have been more embarrassed, even though Caleb had seen her naked, if she hadn’t been so tired and drained and fearful. She muttered a pair of spells to dry her clothes, then tied her hair back in a single loose ponytail. She’d look moderately presentable, at least until she got back to the dorm. The sooner she had a shower, the better.
The image flickered, just for a second. Emily leaned forward. Something had moved. No, something had changed. She reached out once again, feeling... something behind the mirror. But what? A simple spell designed to keep the mirror in place—one of the apprentices had tried to smash the mirror in his room, only to discover that it was seemingly indestructible—or something else, something more sinister? And yet... she peered into the image, trying to see what had changed. There was nothing...
Perhaps being here isn’t such a good idea after all, she thought, tiredly.
She dismissed the thought as they made their way up to the dorms, carefully evading anyone who might have tried to distract them. More supplies were due to arrive... she wanted to be washed, changed and ready to greet them before they arrived. She wanted a few words with the procurers. If she had to hire more cleaners...
“We probably shouldn’t have segregated the dorms,” Caleb said, ruefully. “It was a mistake to allow that to happen.”
Emily nodded, tersely. They’d never intended the dorms to become permanent. She certainly didn’t intend to stay in her dorm any longer than strictly necessary. Once the private bedrooms were open and cleared, she could start distributing them... Master Highland would want one himself, of course. And so would all the other masters. Her lips twitched. They’d probably find it maddening if she stayed in the dorms. But as long as she was suffering, they could hardly complain.
And it would have been years since they shared a dorm, she thought. If she didn’t like it, a mere year after she’d shared a bedroom with one other girl, she doubted the older men were having a better time. They can’t be enjoying a return to student life.
She smiled at the thought, then shrugged. “We can’t do anything about that now,” she said. “Once we open the bedrooms, or start outfitting the dorms properly, we can start parceling out beds more... evenly. Mundanes and magicians will get along better once they realize they’re basically the same, on the inside.”
“And we’d better prepare for trouble,” Caleb predicted, darkly. He didn’t sound particularly convinced. “Students like trying to break into trunks, remember?”
Emily scowled. Her roommates, thankfully, had generally respected her privacy. She’d been more than happy to return their respect. But others... they’d seen a locked and hexed trunk as a challenge. A student who didn’t keep their trunk carefully locked was likely to come back to her room to discover her possessions scattered—or stolen. And, if that student happened to discover someone trapped by her wards...
“We can make the rules clear, again.” Emily paused outside her door, carefully unlocking the hex holding the door closed. “Protecting one’s trunks is fine. Hexing one’s dormmates is not. The difference is very clear.”
“It won’t be easy to enforce,” Caleb warned. “No one will want to admit to being hexed. Or anything. They’ll just seek private revenge.”
“Children.” Emily rolled her eyes. By any reasonable standard, the university’s students were adults. Physically, at least. In some ways, an apprentice was legally a child until she gained her mastery or was kicked out. “How old are they, again?”
She shook her head, firmly. “We won’t be taking anyone younger than twenty, or thereabouts. If they’re not mature enough to understand they shouldn’t be hexing people by then, they’re probably doomed anyway. They can go study somewhere else.”
“It takes longer for magicians to mature,” Caleb reminded her. “That’s a law of nature...”
“Is it?” Emily wasn’t so sure. She’d seen magicians—older magicians—act in ways that wouldn’t be acceptable for a preteen. “Or is that just an excuse people make to avoid confronting bad behavior?”
Chapter Seventeen
THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE A trial.
Emily had hoped, optimistically, that matters would improve after Seth’s punishment, but she was r
apidly proven wrong. Magical and mundane students continued to clash, verbal arguments breaking out with a speed and savagery that horrified her. She tried to be even-handed, to stay above the fray, but it wasn’t easy when she had ties to both sides. A magical student would enchant a mundane, a mundane would catch a magical by surprise and knock him out... no matter what she did, things were spiraling out of control.
Perhaps I should have killed Seth with my bare hands, she thought, as she broke up another dispute. It might have been more effective.
And it was so pointless. The arguments were about nothing, little trifles that shouldn’t have bothered anyone. She could understand someone wanting revenge for Roland, or Seth, but instead... most of the arguments were about petty disputes and disagreements that made no sense. A box put in the wrong place, someone served the wrong dinner... it wasn’t the end of the world. She honestly wasn’t sure if she was dealing with what Alassa called insolence—and a very particular form of insolence, where both sides appeared equally insolent—or if something else was wrong. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
“And I told you to put the printing press there,” someone shouted. “Not over here, where it might be crushed!”
“You said to put it there,” someone else shouted. “I put it where you told me.”
Emily gritted her teeth as she hurried into the workshop, Master Highland right behind. A mundane craftsman, one of Yvonne’s better apprentices, was glaring at a magician, who’d levitated a large box of machinery down the corridor to help him. The two of them looked as if someone was going to throw the first punch—or the first spell—in seconds. Emily forced herself forward, silently willing them to separate. It might just give her time to calm things down.
“What is going on?” She tried to keep her voice level, but it wasn’t easy. “Why are you arguing?”
The two combatants started talking at the same time. Emily held up her hand.
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 16