Love's Labor's Won (Schooled in Magic Book 6)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She shuddered, suddenly, as everything fell into place. Melissa was young and strong, perhaps strong enough to challenge her great-grandmother. But until she was twenty-one, she was still considered immature by her community. Fulvia could marry her off to someone who would make her a mother, but not encourage her to seek power for herself. Or, if the death of Melissa’s father hadn’t been a stupid mistake, father a few children and then arrange an accident for Melissa. Gaius was nothing to House Ashworth without his wife.

  And what, she asked herself, do I do about that?

  If she was right, and it felt right, Fulvia would never consent to Melissa marrying Markus and having his children. Markus was the Ashfall Heir...but even if there had been no feud, he was still strong enough to protect his wife and support her if she wanted to challenge her great-grandmother. And he would have strong ties to a House that would seek revenge, if both of the youngsters turned up dead.

  “Lady Emily?” Gaius asked. “Are you all right?”

  Emily nodded, curtly, and looked at Gaius. Young enough to be biddable, old enough to dominate his wife, trained enough to respect Fulvia as his superior, conceited enough to believe that Melissa had been given to him...yes, he was the perfect husband for a girl the Matriarch wanted to keep under her thumb. And he would play his role to perfection, never wondering if he was a pawn in a deeper game.

  I’ll have to talk to Melissa about this, she thought. And Alassa.

  “I would advise you to try to court her instead,” she said. “Why not see what she likes and try to share her interests?”

  Gaius stared at her in honest bemusement. “But why would I try to court her when we’re already engaged?”

  Because she doesn’t consider herself engaged to you, you ninny, Emily thought.

  “Courtship is for magicians who do not have families to arrange a match,” Gaius continued. “I was always told my parents would decide on my bride.”

  “If that was true,” Emily said, “I wouldn’t have been sent letters asking me to consider marrying into one family or another.”

  “I’m sure my parents wouldn’t have sent such a letter,” Gaius said, doubtfully. “It would be a dreadfully ill-bred thing to do.”

  Emily shrugged. Void had never bothered to give her a list of who had sought her hand in marriage — and she’d ended up burning the letters she’d been sent personally, after writing a short reply stating that she was not currently interested in marriage. It had been flattering, but also creepy. People she barely knew — or didn’t know at all — were interested in marrying her, merely because she was a strong magician. They only wanted her for her genes.

  “Do you want to be happily married,” Emily asked, “or do you want to be fighting with your wife every day?”

  “I don’t think happiness is the issue,” Gaius confessed. “The issue is merely producing children.”

  “Which you will find difficult, if your wife can’t stand the sight of you,” Emily snapped.

  Gaius scowled at her. “Lady Emily, I asked you for help, not for...not for unwanted advice that offends my sense of how best to proceed.”

  Hodge had his own sense of how to proceed, Emily thought. And look what happened to him.

  She sighed. It was tempting to point out that Gaius’s approach wasn’t doing anything but driving Melissa away. But she had a feeling that he wouldn’t have understood any good advice, even if she hadn’t been uneasily aware that Melissa was effectively dating Markus, despite their families. Gaius would be mortally offended if he ever found out, feeling that he’d been made a fool, while Fulvia would go ballistic. And somehow, she doubted Markus’s father would be very happy either.

  “I think you should give her some space,” she said, firmly. “And learn to relate to her as a person, rather than a...an object.”

  “Those two pieces of advice contradict one another,” Gaius said. He rose, peering down at her. “I must act as I see fit.”

  Emily was tempted to suggest that he ask Fulvia for advice, but she knew it would be disastrous. One thing she had learned from the attempted coup in Zangaria was that women who climbed to positions of power rarely did it because they had sisterly feelings for other women. The Iron Duchess had been prepared to condemn Alassa to a fate worse than death, just to ensure she kept a firm grip on power. Fulvia, too, had no motherly feelings for her great-granddaughter. Instead, she wanted Melissa married off before she could challenge her.

  You could be wrong, she thought, as Gaius walked out of the library. And what would you do then?

  She shook her head, cursing — once again — the decision to hold the Faire in Cockatrice, then turned and walked out of the room herself, dismantling the ward on the way. Hopefully, Gaius would assume that Emily had erected the aversion ward, rather than anyone else. But the fact he’d been prepared to try to break it down was worrying. What would he have done, Emily asked herself, if he had found Melissa? What if he’d found her with Markus?

  The thought made her shiver. Hodge had thought he had rights over every girl in the village...and every traveling girl without a powerful protector. The thought that someone might stop him had never entered his mind. And if Gaius, who was a capable magician if he had graduated from Mountaintop, thought he had rights over Melissa...it might well get ugly very quickly.

  Melissa is a fighter, Emily thought. Certainly, Melissa had never been scared of her, even after Shadye had died. But she isn’t fighting Gaius. Why not?

  She walked back to the balcony and looked down at the dancers. Most of the guests had headed back to their rooms, leaving only a handful of dancers remaining on the floor. Somehow, Emily wasn’t surprised to realize that Jade and Alassa were still dancing together, while Imaiqah had found a young man from the Faire. Emily leaned on the balcony and watched, feeling oddly wistful. It was something she would have liked to do, perhaps, with a young man of her own.

  I could find Caleb, she thought, and ask him to dance. Or someone else...

  The thought echoed tantalizingly in her mind for a long moment, then faded away.

  Or perhaps not, she added, mentally. She’d been less unsure of herself around men after Hodge — or, rather, after she’d knocked him down and turned him into a pig. As if I don’t have enough distractions right now.

  She caught sight of Fulvia, sitting on a chair like a queen holding court, and shivered again, but looked away before the ancient women could catch Emily staring. Was Fulvia really so unconcerned about her great-granddaughter’s happiness? Or was Emily completely wrong about her motivations? Maybe Fulvia thought Gaius was the ideal husband for Melissa, someone who could be retrained to follow her without question. Or...

  The dance came to an end. Emily looked down for a long moment, and turned and headed back to her rooms. There wouldn’t be another disaster tonight, she was sure, even though Markus and Melissa were still together. Or were they? They might have had one last kiss before they went to their separate rooms. She shrugged, dismissing the thought. There was no way to know.

  She sighed, inwardly. Gaius had been right about the need for more anchorstones and, despite what she’d told him, she could probably afford them. But it would have made it harder for her to pretend ignorance of what was going on under her roof if she had better wards. Markus and Melissa could be tracked easily, even monitored. Whitehall’s Warden existed, at least in part, because of the dangers of overusing such powerful wards. The inhuman Warden had no real interest in human affairs.

  And if you go into a magician’s house, she recalled Lady Barb saying, you are bound by his rules.

  She unlocked the wards protecting her door and stepped inside, sealing the wards behind her. No one had tried to break in, as far as she could tell, although she knew she was far from a perfect wardcrafter. Someone like Void could have dismantled the wards, searched her rooms and then rebuilt them so perfectly she couldn’t tell they’d been touched. Or someone more subtle might have tinkered with the access permissions. The more people
she added, the easier it would be for someone else to add more.

  Shaking her head, she undressed, washed quickly in the bathroom and pulled on a nightgown, before falling into bed. It had been far too long a day, but her thoughts were so tangled she had to force herself to clear her mind before she could relax. Markus and Melissa, Jade and Alassa...when would it ever end? Sleep fell over her...

  ...Only to be broken by a faint tapping at the door.

  Emily stiffened, sat up in bed, and reached out towards the wards. Frieda stood outside, knocking on the door as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted to be heard. Emily frowned, but opened the door. A faint glow from a light spell illuminated Frieda as she stepped into the room.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed, as Emily used magic to close and relock the door. “My room is just too empty.”

  “I understand,” Emily said. She’d had less time for Frieda since the holidays had begun, which wasn’t entirely fair to the younger girl. They had planned to spend time together before she’d realized that the Faire would claim most of her attention. “But it is your room.”

  “I know,” Frieda said. She gave Emily a pleading look, one that made her look younger than her seventeen years. “But could I sleep here tonight?”

  Emily hesitated. She’d never really liked sharing a room with anyone, even though she had to admit she’d learned a great deal through rooming with Aloha and Imaiqah. But Frieda had grown up in a tiny house, then roomed in a dormitory at Mountaintop. Sharing a room came as naturally to her as breathing.

  And she felt alone. Emily understood that more than she cared to admit.

  “You can,” she said, finally. It was her castle. And, as a magician, she could do whatever she liked in the privacy of her own home. “But don’t tell anyone.”

  Frieda looked surprised, but hastily climbed into Emily’s bed. Emily sighed inwardly, and rolled over to give the younger girl some room. Magicians weren’t supposed to confess to any vulnerabilities, if they were so gauche as to actually have them. Frieda might have been bottling up her feelings ever since arriving at Cockatrice. If she’d been feeling lonely...

  Because vulnerabilities lead to weaknesses, she thought, bitterly. There wasn’t much she missed from Earth, but the suggestion that mental problems and depression could be handled was definitely one of them. But coping with madness might make necromancy practical after all. And if a necromancer could remain sane...

  Pushing the thought aside, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I’M SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT,” Frieda said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Emily said. Sometime during the night, Frieda had cuddled up to her, which would have embarrassed the young girl hugely if she’d known. Emily had managed to extract herself before Frieda had woken and panicked. “I know how you felt.”

  She stepped into the bathroom, washing and dressing rapidly. She’d have to alter the wards, she reminded herself, to make it easier for the maids to set out some of her new clothes. It was so much easier back at Whitehall, where they could put their used clothes outside their doors for the servants to pick up and clean, but here.... She shook her head, reluctantly. Perhaps she could simply ward her bedroom, leaving a room outside the wards for the maids to enter and leave at will...

  And perhaps have them clean the room, too, she added, thoughtfully. She hadn’t stayed in the room for very long, but dust had already started to settle on the bookshelves and tables. But they won’t want to do it.

  She walked back into the bedroom. Frieda was sitting up in bed, looking lost and lonely. It definitely hadn’t been easy for her, Emily saw, to move to Cockatrice. Emily might have told her that it was Frieda’s home, but Frieda wasn’t used to living in a castle. She sighed inwardly. Next time, perhaps she would have more time to spend with the younger girl.

  “I need to catch up with Alassa,” she said, glancing at the clock. Alassa and Jade had always headed down to the Faire as soon as it opened, spending their days wandering from stall to stall before returning for dinner. “Will you be all right here?”

  “I should come with you,” Frieda said, scrambling out of bed. “Can you wait for me?”

  “If you hurry,” Emily said. Thankfully, Frieda wasn’t any more inclined to waste time washing and dressing than Emily was. Mountaintop’s Shadows weren’t encouraged to develop a sense of vanity. “I don’t want to have to chase them down at the Faire.”

  Frieda nodded, rushed into the bathroom, and started splashing water on her face.

  Emily smiled. Thankfully, people would think nothing of it if they came to breakfast together, shared a room, or even a bed. It wasn’t common for magicians to share beds, but it did happen. And poor families like Frieda’s were often forced to huddle together, just to share body heat.

  While she waited, she picked up a book and glanced at the title. It wasn’t one she had chosen; Bryon had simply picked a couple of dozen titles from the library and transferred them to her bedroom before she returned to the castle. Like many others, it was a dull flat book, suggesting that the writer had a long way to go before he came close to Tolkien or Peter Hamilton. Absently, Emily wondered what would happen if she wrote books set on Earth, with cars in place of carts and airplanes buzzing through the sky. Would it be considered a form of fantasy?

  “I’m ready,” Frieda said. She’d exchanged her nightgown for a simple white dress that hung to her ankles. “Shall we go?”

  Emily nodded, checked to make sure she was carrying the battery, opened the wards and stepped out of her room. Frieda followed, and watched as Emily closed the door and resealed the wards, before they started to walk down to the Great Hall. As always in the morning, it was nearly deserted; most of her guests had danced the night away, and were sleeping in. Emily thought, briefly, of Mistress Irene’s reaction when one of her charges overslept, and smiled. There was no way she was going to start waking people up before they were ready.

  Frieda caught her arm. “What’s so funny?”

  “At school, we would be in trouble for getting up so late,” Emily said. It wasn’t easy, either; the beds were spelled to push someone out of bed, if they were too late getting up. “Here...the longer the guests stay in bed, the better.”

  “Funny,” Frieda said, thoughtfully. “But I would have thought they wouldn’t want to miss the day.”

  Emily shrugged. Frieda had grown up on a small farm, where not a single hour of daytime could be wasted, then moved to a school that kept her busy every waking hour. But for older magicians, the chance to sleep in could be a pearl beyond price. She could be tempted herself, once the Faire was over, just to lie back and sleep for a week. She was the baroness, after all. If she wanted to sleep until noon, no one would say anything – at least, publicly.

  But it would be a waste of a day, she thought, as she joined Alassa and Imaiqah at the table. And I could do so much else here.

  “Master Grey insisted on taking Jade down to the city,” Alassa said, before Emily could ask. “Said it would be good experience for later life.”

  Emily nodded. “Does he know about...?”

  “Us?” Alassa asked. “I don’t think so, but he is observant. He might have noticed something.”

  “Probably,” Emily said. Yet again, her thoughts mocked her; in hindsight, it had been all too clear. “When’s the announcement?”

  “I have to convince my father first,” Alassa said. She shook her head. “And that isn’t going to be easy.”

  Emily frowned. “I thought you listed the advantages and disadvantages.”

  “I did,” Alassa said. “But my father may have other ideas.”

  Frieda leaned forward. “Ideas about what?”

  Alassa exchanged a glance with Emily, and sighed. “Jade and I are planning to get married,” she said. “But my father may object.”

  “Oh,” Frieda said.

  “You’re not the only ones,” Emily sai
d. She’d promised not to tell their parents, but she’d said nothing about her friends. “Guess who I found kissing in the library?”

  “Marcellus and Fulvia,” Imaiqah said. “The way they snipe at each other, I would have thought they were lovers, once upon a time.”

  Emily grimaced. Fulvia was ancient, while Marcellus was probably somewhere in his late fifties. The thought of them actually kissing...she shook her head, determinedly. Maybe older people could get married and do all the things that married couples did, but she didn’t want to think about it. Besides, they hated each other. If they had been somewhere else, they might well have been hurling curses rather than verbal snipes.

  “No,” she said. “Markus and Melissa.”

  Alassa stared at her. “Damn,” she said, finally.

  She picked that up from me, Emily thought. She’d introduced so many ideas and concepts to the Allied Lands, but she hadn’t intended to introduce swearwords too. Or at least ones that came from Earth.

  “That’s so romantic,” Frieda said, her eyes going wide. “That’s...”

  “You’re serious,” Imaiqah said, cutting Frieda off. “Are they really going out?”

  “They were kissing,” Emily said, remembering Melissa’s swollen lips. How many times did someone have to kiss to make their lips swell? She had no idea. “They think they’re in love.”

  Alassa shook her head slowly. “And to think I thought that considering Jade as a consort was likely to worry my father.”

  She had a point. King Randor might object to Alassa marrying Jade...and, if he did, the whole idea would be buried. But it would be harder for Markus and Melissa to split up without heartache, now they’d moved to a physical relationship. How far had they gone together? Had they managed to find somewhere in the city they could make love without fear of detection? Or had they only just begun?