“We won’t,” Markus said. He’d rubbished the whole idea of the feud, minutes ago. “I promise.”
Emily nodded, then turned to hurry back to the Great Hall.
Chapter Sixteen
“A HANDFUL OF MINOR HEXINGS, two curses, and several loud arguments,” Lady Barb said the following morning, as they walked down towards the Faire. “I expected more trouble, to be honest.”
Emily nodded, thankfully. The remainder of the dance had been surprisingly peaceful, largely because Fulvia and Marcellus had glared anyone who felt like picking a fight into uneasy silence. She’d been unable to leave until the end of the dance, whereupon she’d gone straight to bed without bothering to undress, let alone wash. Fortunately, nothing had been planned for breakfast.
She peered down towards the Faire and frowned, inwardly. It had seemed big when they’d arrived, but now it was even bigger, with hundreds of stalls and thousands of people, magical and mundane. A stream of people was moving down from the castle, while another was heading in from the nearby city. Emily hoped, silently, that unfortunate incidents were being kept to a minimum. There was a reason, after all, why such gatherings were normally held far from any mundane settlement.
Frieda caught her arm. “You don’t have to do anything today, do you?”
“You do have to host the dance tonight,” Lady Barb said, quickly. “But you don’t have to make any speeches until then.”
“Thank God,” Emily said. She knew the morning would be spent at the Faire, but she had plans for the afternoon. Perhaps, if she were lucky, she could make a start on the battery. Or maybe work on Caleb’s project. “We can just relax and wander around until lunch.”
“If you wish,” Lady Barb said. “But I do have to wander through the Faire, keeping an eye on people.”
She nodded politely to Emily before hurrying off ahead of them. Emily sighed inwardly, and looked back at her little group. Alassa and Jade looked disgustingly fresh, as always; Emily honestly couldn’t remember a time when Alassa had looked anything but beautiful, never a hair out of place. Imaiqah and Caleb, at least, looked as if they hadn’t had enough sleep, although Imaiqah hid it well. Emily couldn’t help wondering if she’d chosen to break the taboo on using makeup, or if she’d just used a well-constructed glamor. The latter would be quite understandable.
They reached the edge of the Faire and passed through the VIP entrance, guarded by Master Grey. He exchanged a few words with Jade as Emily looked around, drinking in the sights of the Faire. It was definitely larger than the previous one, with hundreds of interesting stalls; in hindsight, perhaps she should have insisted on a private viewing of the bookstalls, before they opened formally. Shaking her head — she knew she would never get used to being an aristocrat — she turned, just in time to see Alassa and Jade heading off on their own.
“They thought it would be less exciting if they went off on their own,” Imaiqah said. “She does tend to attract attention.”
Emily rolled her eyes. That was an understatement. Alassa was stunning...and there were portraits of her scattered all over Zangaria, now she was Confirmed. There wasn’t a single person who wouldn’t know who the "Duchess of Iron" was, but it would be a very bold or stupid person who tried to kidnap her from the Faire. Jade was a skilled combat sorcerer, Alassa had powerful magic herself, and besides, there was plenty of help within easy shouting distance.
“Come on,” she said. She looked up at Caleb, who seemed even more out of place. “Are you going to come with us?”
Caleb hesitated, noticeably. Emily understood. It was easier for an introvert, such as herself, to stay on his own. If she hadn’t been so completely unique on the Nameless World, if she hadn’t been forced to share a room with her fellow students, she might have remained friendless too, by choice. And Caleb had come late to Whitehall, after friendships and rivalries had already been formed. In many ways, he was even more of an outsider than she was.
“I will,” he said, finally.
“Great,” Frieda said. “Let’s go!”
Emily smiled and allowed Frieda to tug her towards the bookstalls, where hundreds of people had already gathered. Copies of various newly-printed novels, some with lurid covers that made her blush, were selling like hot cakes, while reprints of older books were being scooped up by magicians who would never have been able to afford originals. Frieda headed towards the first stall with grim determination, but stopped dead. Emily realized it was because Frieda didn’t have any money.
“Here,” Emily said, passing her a handful of gold coins. “Don’t spend them all at once.”
Frieda frowned, clearly torn between desire for the books and reluctance to accept any form of charity. “You don’t have to,” she mumbled. “Really.”
“Yes, I do,” Emily said. She gave the younger girl a gentle push towards the stall. “Just don’t spend them all at once.”
“That cover is inaccurate,” Imaiqah said. She pointed to a thin book with a cover so detailed that Emily couldn’t bear to look at it. “No one could do that without warping their own bodies...”
“I don’t want to know,” Emily said quickly. She shared a look with Caleb and realized he was just as embarrassed. “I really don’t want to know.”
Imaiqah picked up the book and glanced at a handful of pages. “I don’t think anyone could do this either, unless they wanted to kill themselves,” she said. “And this was clearly written by a man pretending to be a woman.”
Emily sighed, hastily moving to a stall selling magical textbooks. Most were fairly common, she noted to her disappointment, but a couple were new. The prices, though, were staggeringly high. She made a mental note to look up both of the volumes, just to see if they really were rare or unique, then glanced at a couple of reprints. They were on demand in the library, she knew, and she could use a copy or two of her own.
“I’d like to buy some of these,” Caleb said. “Do you want to share?”
Emily blinked, then realized they would be sharing Fourth Year, even if the proposal fell though. They would both need copies. It wouldn’t be quite as convenient as having one of her girlfriends own half of the book — she dreaded to think what Madame Beauregard would say if she keyed Caleb into the wards protecting her room, to say nothing of her roommates — but it would be useful. Besides, they were going to be spending a lot of time together.
“Yes, please,” she said. She scooped up a handful of volumes and checked her money pouch. “Four gold each?”
“Looks that way,” Caleb said. “But try to haggle first.”
He stepped forward as the seller wrapped up the books, then started haggling. Emily watched in some amusement; the bookseller demanded ten gold, while Caleb offered one. Eventually, after much bickering, they finally settled on three, then went through another round of arguments over which coins should be accepted. The bookseller weighed the coins, bit them and finally tapped them with a wand, before grudgingly accepting them.
“Definite keeper,” Imaiqah muttered in her ear. Emily flinched. She hadn’t sensed her friend slipping up behind her. “You would have been overcharged by five gold if he’d just let you have your way.”
“I know,” Emily said. Bargaining wasn’t something she’d learned to do on Earth. But then, the value of coins was always what it said too, rather than going by both weight and the amount of pure gold in the metal. One thing she definitely intended to do, once she was established, was set up a proper bank and begin coining money. “Good thing he was here.”
“Quite,” Imaiqah said.
Caleb dropped the books into his bag, and followed them as they walked past the next set of stalls, all selling various different kinds of potions or enchanted artefacts. Emily couldn’t help noticing that one was manned by Yodel, who’d sold her the first two trunks she’d owned. But she’d also managed to get him into trouble...she knew she should go talk to him, but she didn’t want to face him again. She promised herself she’d visit him after the Faire, and walked
onwards.
“I think some of those are colored water,” Imaiqah commented, pointing at a stall selling love potions. “Anything really strong would be illegal.”
Emily nodded. Love potions were almost always forbidden; even brewing the mildest version could get a student in real trouble. They were no better than date rape drugs, she considered...and, for once, the locals agreed. If they weren’t used, sometimes, for legitimate purposes, they would be banned outright. The Faire wouldn’t tolerate anyone selling really strong brews in the open.
“It’s a common trick,” Caleb said, suddenly. “But they also help people overcome their nerves.”
“If they don’t know the trick,” Emily said. She shook her head. “Placebos only work if someone doesn’t know they’re useless.”
“That smells lovely,” Frieda said. She caught Emily’s hand and pulled her towards a food stall. “What is that?”
Emily smiled. “Burgers,” she said. She had tried to explain the concept to Bryon, last time she’d been in Cockatrice, but she hadn’t realized it would spread out of the castle. “Real burgers.”
She joined the line of people waiting for a burger, smiling at just how much the cooks had duplicated from Earth. They hadn’t produced fast food-sized burgers; they were offering burgers the size of dinner plates, with everything from makeshift relish to mustard and mayonnaise. Large bowls of lettuce, tomato and everything else one could want were piled next to the barbeque, where the burgers were being prepared. She took her burger — the cook’s eyes went wide when he finally looked up and saw her; he shoved it at her and refused to take any money — and then loaded it with relish, mustard and lettuce. It tasted heavenly.
“It looks like a giant sandwich,” Caleb said. He’d gone to a nearby stall selling fried chicken and, Emily was amused to notice, French Fries. “What does it taste like?”
“Wonderful,” Frieda said, between bites.
“You have to make your own,” Emily said. It wasn’t something she had ever been able to do on Earth. Cheap burgers weren’t particularly healthy — or meaty. “Take a burger, pour everything you want into the bun, then eat.”
“These are good, too,” Caleb said. He held out the paper wrapper of fries. “Try one.”
Emily took one of the fries and nibbled it, thoughtfully. It didn’t taste anything like she’d expected; it tasted far better. Perhaps it was the open air, she decided, or perhaps it was the natural ingredients. Caleb finished his chicken, then went to get a burger for himself.
“What do you think he would say,” Imaiqah asked, “if he knew you’d suggested these foods?”
Emily shrugged. The Allied Lands might have been unified under the Empire, but no one had ever tried to make everyone eat the same foods. Indeed, while the kingdoms tended to stick to their native foods, the city-states were remarkably multicultural. Burgers, pizzas, kebabs and anything else she introduced from Earth would just blur into the mainstream — or vanish, if they didn’t find niches of their own. It would be quite some time before anyone could set up a proper fast food restaurant.
But that isn’t a bad thing, she thought. Is it?
Once they had eaten, Imaiqah dragged them towards the edge of the Faire, where her father had his stall. A small steam engine sat on the rails, blowing smoke into the air, while dozens of children were eagerly lining up for a ride in the small carriages. Frieda laughed and ran forward, jumping into the rear carriage as the train started to move. Emily smiled before she took a good look at the adults. The mundanes seemed to be terrified, even though the train was moving so slowly anyone could have outpaced it, while the magicians seemed to be thoughtful. They had to know there was no magic in the steam train.
Caleb put their puzzlement into words. “How does it work?”
“Steam technology,” Emily said, uncomfortably aware that technology might as well be magic, as far as the Nameless World was concerned. “It...”
She shook her head. “I’ll explain later,” she added. “It will need diagrams.”
Caleb nodded. “I look forward to it.”
Emily smiled at him before turning to watch as the steam train slowly made its way around the Faire, puffing up smoke. It was a basic version; it would be years before more complex versions started to link the cities and towns together. But it would change the world in many ways, just like the railways had done on Earth.
“It’s an iron dragon,” Caleb said, as the steam train returned to the station. “Isn’t it?”
“No,” Emily said. Iron Dragon sounded magical, too magical. “It’s a steam train. There’s no magic inside at all.”
“That was fun,” Frieda called, as she scrambled off the train and ran back to them. “Can I go on it again tomorrow?”
“You’ll get bored with it soon enough,” Emily said, smiling indulgently. “You can go on it every day if you like.”
“Unless it breaks down,” Imaiqah said. “Or someone steals the rails. We’ve had problems with people taking up the pins and pinching the rails when we started laying the first mainline tracks.”
Caleb gave her a surprised look. “Why?”
“Because metal is expensive,” Imaiqah said. “And we can’t afford to police every last piece of the line.”
“You could use subtle magic to keep people away from the line,” Caleb offered. “Once you carve out the rails, have the runes stamped directly into the metal.”
“It might work,” Emily said, slowly. She fought down the urge to rub her chest, where the rune was still there. “But the magic might keep everyone away.”
“You would have to tune it properly,” Caleb said. He turned to look at the train. “If the magic was tuned perfectly, you could keep the people on the train safe from its influence, while anyone who tried to steal the rails themselves would be unable to escape.”
“I’ll suggest it to father,” Imaiqah said. “But he’s quite keen to keep magic away from the steam engines. We even had a boiler explode because he didn’t want to put a binding spell on the metal.”
“It might not have saved the boiler,” Emily said. “The blast would have needed somewhere to go.”
“That’s what he said,” Imaiqah said. “He was quite annoyed with me when I pointed it out.”
“He was probably concerned about relying on magicians,” Emily said. “But once the runes were described, he could just produce them for himself.”
“He could,” Imaiqah agreed. “I’ll speak to him later today.”
Caleb frowned. “Your father invented these things?”
“Emily designed the first engines,” Imaiqah said. “We’ve improved quite a bit on the original designs.”
“They have,” Emily confirmed. She jabbed a finger at the steam engine as it started its trek around the Faire, once again. “I didn’t design that.”
“You still started it,” Caleb said.
Emily shrugged. She wasn’t comfortable with the look of admiration in his eyes, not when she knew all she’d really done was draw out a very basic steam engine from Earth. It had been the designers in Alexis who had really made it work, then started improving the design until they had something they could scale up into a full-sized steam train. And they’d done the same with other ideas too. Gunpowder, in particular, would reshape the world...
And Nanette might well have stolen those notes, Emily thought. There had been no hope of recovering her original notes, certainly not in time to prevent them being copied and redistributed. God alone knew who else now had the basic formula for gunpowder. And where the hell is she?
“I’m going to speak to my father,” Imaiqah said. “If you’ll excuse me...”
“Can I speak to him too?” Caleb asked. “I’d like a chance to talk about these...steam engines?”
“Just talk to him as an equal, and you will be fine,” Imaiqah said. “Emily?”
“I’m going to head back to the castle,” Emily said. She had a feeling she wouldn’t see either of them for the rest of the day
. Imaiqah’s father was a great believer in putting his children to work, while he’d probably bond with Caleb over a discussion about steam theory and practice. “Frieda?”
“I’d like to stay,” Frieda said. She looked around at the nearest stalls, then back at Emily. “Do you mind?”
“Just stay close to Lady Barb,” Emily said, firmly. She looked around for Alassa, but saw no sign of her. “And stay out of trouble.”
“We’ll take care of her, if you can’t find Lady Barb,” Imaiqah said. “It might help keep my father from keeping me too long.”
Emily concealed her amusement with an effort. “Stay with them, then,” she said. “I’ll see you all later, at the dance.”
“Don’t forget the fireworks,” Imaiqah said. “They will surprise your guests.”
Emily smiled. There was no shortage of magical fireworks, including some that looked like they had been taken from The Fellowship of the Ring, but the fireworks she intended to display were completely mundane, without even a hint of magic. She wondered what the two families, much less all the other guests, would make of them. She shrugged; they’d find out soon enough.
“And don’t forget to bring Frieda back before the dinner,” she warned. “I need company for the night.”
“You’ll probably have to sit in the middle again,” Imaiqah said, unsympathetically. “Try not to let them fight, or you’ll get hexed from both sides.”
“I know,” Emily said. “I almost wish I was sitting between Markus and Melissa instead.”
“That would be worse,” Imaiqah said. “Melissa hates you.”
“Maybe,” Emily said. She had a feeling that Melissa had other problems now. “But she wasn’t very aggressive last year.”
She nodded, turned, and started her stately walk back to the castle.
Chapter Seventeen
“IS THIS ROOM SUITABLE, YOUR LADYSHIP?”
Emily stepped into the workroom and looked around. It was larger than she’d expected, with a cheap wooden table, a pair of wooden chairs, and a rickety — and empty — bookcase perched against the far wall. Compared to the spellchambers she’d used at Whitehall, it was pathetic, but it was hers. She could organize it to suit herself.
Love's Labor's Won (Schooled in Magic Book 6) Page 16