In the end, she found herself enlisting Frieda and a handful of her young friends, probably the ones who had redecorated Mistress Granite’s classroom. It awed and humbled her just how much magic the Shadows had learned, although their grasp of the basics was still shaky. If they caused a diversion, Emily would have at least an hour to slip back into the caves and see what the proctor had been guarding. If she used night-vision spells, rather than light globes, there was a good chance she could remain undetected.
Or so she hoped.
“Don’t be caught,” Emily warned. “I think they’re reaching the limits of their patience.”
Frieda nodded, seriously. “We’ll be careful,” she said. “But you shouldn’t be going down there alone.”
“I can’t take you, either,” Emily said. She rose, then checked her watch. “Make them spend time chasing you instead of me.”
There was no guard on the gate when she arrived, which puzzled her. A single proctor standing there would have made it impossible for her to enter the caves. Instead, there was a complex network of wards, which–she had to admit–would have stopped any normal Third Year student. Emily, however, hadn’t taken Martial Magic for two years without picking up several tricks that most students didn’t learn until they entered Fifth Year. Recalling what Lady Barb had taught her, she carefully worked her way through the wards and allowed them to slam closed behind her. Breaking back in would be harder, but she knew she could handle it.
The caves felt colder, this time, as she cast the night-vision spell and waited for it to take effect. They looked odder, too; there were tiny sparkles of light running through the stone she hadn’t seen before, when they’d been using light globes. But then, they would have been washed away by the glow. Emily checked the spell twice, then walked down the tunnel, leaving markers as she moved, making sure they were only visible to her.
She walked down the long corridor into the big cave and waited, heart thumping in her chest, for the proctor to appear. Nothing happened. It was possible, she decided, that the proctor had sensed the light globe... or that he had simply been on patrol when he’d caught a sniff of their presence. The books she’d looked at in the main library hadn’t said anything about what the proctors actually were, merely that they were the guardians of the school. It could cover a multitude of sins, Emily knew. They might be homunculi, like Whitehall’s Warden, or they could be something far darker. There were just too many possibilities.
Bracing herself, she slipped onwards. It rapidly became clear to her that there must be quite a lot of traffic through the caves; there was almost no dust, while the pathways had been swept clean of rubble. Indeed, as she walked further into the network, there were no places she had to lower her head. And yet, the only thing that was completely odd about the caves were the continual streams of magic, flowing through the stone like trickles of water. Emily had never felt anything like them in her life.
But they felt disturbing. And she wasn’t sure why.
The next cave was smaller, yet illuminated by an eerie green glow shimmering down from high overhead. Emily looked up, automatically, then down towards the end of the cave. A solid door–a metal door–was set firmly in the stone, covered with so many runes that it practically crackled with subtle magic. Emily thought, for a hellish moment, that the rune on her chest was going to catch fire. The pain was so intense that it almost sent her to her knees before she managed to stumble back, away from the magic.
Shit, she thought, fighting down a whimper. There was so much subtle magic in the air that she had a feeling it was actually counterproductive. Indeed, it was reinforced by a dozen passive wards designed to keep out everything from teleportation to long-range magical spying. Most of them felt old, as if they had been created decades, perhaps centuries ago. Others felt much newer, even oddly familiar. Aurelius, she decided, must have had a hand in creating some of them.
She sat down and rubbed the rune as the pain slowly faded away, thinking hard. Maybe there was a reason for the seemingly lax security after all. She couldn’t even approach the door with the rune carved on her chest–and if she hadn’t had the rune, she wouldn’t have even been able to see the door. There were ways to get closer, she was sure, but she had no idea what they were.
What the hell was it? Even the nexus chamber in Whitehall didn’t have such an intensive level of security wards layered over it.
I could ask Frieda to try to open it, she thought, then shook her head, dismissing the idea. It would just land her Shadow in more trouble... for nothing. She wasn’t part of Emily’s mission, after all. Or I could try to walk up to it again.
Carefully, Emily rose to her feet and walked towards the door, trying hard to disregard the subtle magic altogether. It seemed to work, for a long moment, and then the pain resumed, worse than before. Emily screamed, then nearly fell to the ground, her shirt starting to catch fire. The rune couldn’t dispel so much energy...
A strong hand caught her arm and pulled her back, away from the door. Emily shuddered; her entire body felt as though it had been tossed into a fire, then looked down at her treacherous shirt. It was intact. Her head pounded unpleasantly as she realized she’d imagined it catching on fire, although it might well have killed her. She knew enough about how sympathetic magic worked to realize she might just have set herself on fire if the pain lasted much longer.
And then she looked up. A hooded proctor stared back at her.
Shit, she thought, woozily.
At first, all she saw under the hood was darkness. Or so it seemed. The faintest hint of a chin revealed itself as the proctor hauled her to her feet, took a firm grip on her arm and pulled her towards the exit. Emily started to struggle, but rapidly discovered it was useless. The proctor wasn’t just stronger than her, he was surrounded by a faint glow of the same strange magic running through the tunnels. She had a feeling that any spells she tried would rebound badly.
Or was that just an illusion created by magic, too?
The pain between her breasts slowly faded as they moved away from the hidden door and advanced back up the stairs. Emily tried to parse out another way of approaching the door as she weakened, feeling her legs threatening to cave in under her, then dismissed it as the proctor dragged her bodily into the school. There must have been a signal of some kind, Emily guessed, as Nanette was waiting for her by the gate. The Head Girl looked utterly furious.
“You idiot,” she snapped, as the proctor let go of Emily’s arm. “Didn’t you remember me telling you not to go into the caves?”
Emily felt too tired to say anything. She stumbled and would have fallen if Nanette hadn’t reached out and caught her arm. The Head Girl said something, but Emily’s head was suddenly roaring with pain, and it was all she could do to remain awake. Nanette sighed, so loudly it had to be an act, then pushed something against Emily’s lips. Throwing caution to the winds, Emily sipped gratefully, ignoring the danger. The potion made her feel a little better.
“You really shouldn’t have gone down there,” Nanette told her, angrily. “Being caught by a proctor so far out of bounds means having to face the Administrator. You’re in deep trouble.”
Emily swallowed. Aurelius hadn’t written a response to the note she’d sent him–or called her into his office, even though they should both have more spare time during the holidays to study the more exotic branches of magic. Instead of having a pleasant conversation, she was likely to face him in a vile mood, one not made any better by whatever the Shadows had done to cause a diversion. She nodded ruefully, then forced herself to stand upright. The potion seemed to be working well enough to allow her to walk normally.
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t expelled,” Nanette snapped. “Do you realize just how poorly you acted?”
“Yes,” Emily said, sharply. She wanted to lie down and sleep, not face Aurelius or Nanette or anyone else. “But the caves are fascinating...”
Nanette glared at her, then frog-marched Emily towards Aurelius’s o
ffice. There was hardly anyone in the corridors until they reached the office lobby, where a pair of proctors stood, half-hidden in the darkness. Emily wondered spitefully if the bar on night-vision spells was intended to allow the proctors to sneak up on students and catch them out of bounds. Nanette told her to wait while she knocked on Aurelius’s door and went inside; Emily wearily studied the two proctors. It was hard to be sure, but there was enough magic swirling around them to make her think of the Warden. Maybe they were homunculi. It did make a certain kind of sense.
“The Administrator is busy,” Nanette said as she stepped out of the office. “Wait here until he calls for you.”
Emily nodded and leaned against the wall, trying hard to compose herself. Being caught in the caves was potentially disastrous, not only because of the risk of expulsion. They might start to wonder if she’d deliberately allowed herself to be kidnapped, just so they would bring her into the school. But then they would start wondering how Emily had known there was a plot to kidnap her in the first place...
It felt like hours before she heard Aurelius calling for her. She forced herself to stand upright, reminded herself that she had faced two Necromancers and a Mimic, then walked into Aurelius’s office, trying to keep her head held high. The cane rested on a chair, threateningly. She could hear the sound of sobs from the next room, but there was no one else in the office apart from Aurelius himself. He looked grim.
“Lady Emily,” he said. He looked down at his paperwork, refusing to meet her eyes, as she stood in front of his desk and clasped her hands behind her back. “I owe you an apology.”
Emily gaped. This was not what she’d been expecting.
“My... family situation is a secret,” Aurelius continued. “I was careful not to let anything of my personal life slip out into society. When I thought you were taunting me, I overreacted and behaved poorly. My behavior was outrageous and I apologize without reservation.”
He paused, waiting for her to speak.
“I behaved poorly, too,” Emily said, carefully. She’d expected a lecture, or perhaps just a stern order to bend over the chair and prepare herself for a thrashing. Instead... she found herself torn between relief and fear, fear that something was going on she didn’t understand. She’d had quite enough of that at Whitehall! “I should not have spoken so casually of something so important.”
“I would not dispute that,” Aurelius said. He gave her a thoughtful look. “My conduct was by far the worse, Lady Emily. I am charged with raising teenagers and turning them into functional members of society. I have dealt with everything from homesickness to temper tantrums and bullying far worse than anything you have seen. I know just how stupid and thoughtless teenagers can be. But I acted badly in assuming that you were being just as thoughtless, rather than ignorant.”
“I didn’t act well either,” Emily said. “I...”
“You’re the child,” Aurelius said. “I’m the adult. I should have known better.”
Emily felt a hint of irritation at being called a child. The Allied Lands had a flexible concept of adulthood, one that seemed to follow cultural rules rather than Earth’s more legalistic approach. On one hand, men weren’t really expected to be mature until they were in their earlier thirties; on the other hand, they were expected to adopt adult responsibilities from a very early age. The rules for girls didn’t seem much different, at least in magical society, although they were different in the mundane side of the world. But then, magic could help people avoid consequences like unplanned pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases.
He looked up, meeting her eyes. “My daughter is trapped forever by magic,” he said. “To release her is to kill her, to have her own powers kill her. Do you know anything that can be used to prevent others from dying in the same way?”
Emily swallowed. “You could teach them what to expect,” she said, without much hope. She’d known what was happening to her, and she’d still had problems coping with growing into a young woman. “And you could try giving them potions to moderate their growth...”
“There’s no potion that will leave someone a child forever,” Aurelius said. “Their minds eventually rebel against such abuse.”
There were worse things to be, Emily decided, than a teenage girl in a drunkard’s house. She couldn’t imagine growing to adulthood, mentally, while remaining trapped in the body of a child. The thought was unimaginably horrific, even if she did have magic; she’d be treated as a child for the remainder of her life. Everyone would look at her and see a child. And what if she wanted to form a relationship with someone her mental age? She could easily imagine her mind collapsing into madness as it struggled to cope with her body’s refusal to age.
“Maybe their aging can be enhanced, instead,” she mused. “Are there potions to make someone age faster?”
“Yes, though they tend to cause other problems,” Aurelius said. “It might be worth trying, though. If we were desperate.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll think about it, sir,” she said. “But you’d be experimenting on living people.”
“There would be no other way to proceed,” Aurelius said. “And if it saved their lives...”
He shook his head. “You’re clearly exhausted,” he said. “Come back here tomorrow morning, after breakfast. We have many topics to cover.”
“Yes, sir,” Emily said. She took a breath. “I thought I was in trouble...”
Aurelius lifted an eyebrow. It dawned on Emily’s dulled mind that he’d been quietly letting her have a way out, either because he still intended to seduce her into joining him or as a form of apology for losing his temper. But it was too late to take back her words.
“My,” Aurelius said, finally. “Do you want to be caned?”
Emily shook her head, firmly.
“It’s funny,” Aurelius said, with mock thoughtfulness. “I’ve only ever had one person say yes to that question, and he was a boy who was faced with the threat of spending several weeks serving as a test subject for First Year charms. Quite understandable, I suppose. It would be better to spend a few hours with a sore bottom then risk spending weeks in the infirmary as they try to figure out how to reverse a botched charm.”
He pointed a finger at the door. “Go out, get something to eat and then go to bed early,” he said. His face twisted into an odd little smile. “You’ll need your energy tomorrow.”
Emily nodded and fled the room. Outside, she found the nearest bathroom and stepped inside, casting a privacy ward as soon as the door was closed. Undoing the top of her shirt, she looked at the rune in the mirror. It looked as though someone had recently branded her flesh, just as a rancher would brand cattle. She touched it lightly, wincing at the pain. Lady Barb had told her it would heal quickly, if it was almost overpowered, but she hadn’t quite realized just what she’d meant. There was no way to remove the rune from her flesh, even if she wanted it gone. And that meant she couldn’t approach the hidden door without permission.
And that won’t be granted, she thought, as she did up her shirt. It was a bitter thought. Without the rune, she could be manipulated; with it, she couldn’t complete her mission for Whitehall. They can afford to treat me lightly. There’s no way I can get through that door.
Gritting her teeth, she took down the ward and walked back to Raven Hall.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“THEY EXPELLED LUCILLE AND PALMA,” Frieda said, when Emily returned to Raven Hall. There was no sign of Nanette, for which she was grateful. “The Administrator told them both that wreaking havoc was just not done–and then he expelled them.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She remembered Lucille and Palma, two Second Year girls with a sense of mischief that outshone anyone she’d seen at Whitehall. “What will happen to them now?”
“I don’t know,” Frieda said. She shifted, uncomfortably. “And I got walloped by Professor Rugerson.”
“I’m sorry about that too,” Emily said. “What were you trying to do?”
“I had an idea for a prank in the Great Hall,” Frieda said. “They caught me before I even started laying the oil.”
“I don’t want to know,” Emily said. She sat down on the bed and reached for a bottle of energy potion. Lady Barb had warned her, more than once, that such potions could be dangerously addictive despite the taste, but she had no choice. She just felt too tired to do anything else. “And I probably shouldn’t tell you to drink this.”
She passed Frieda a bottle of pain-relief potion. The younger girl glanced at it, but shook her head.
“I’ve had worse,” she said. She paused. “Can we go back to the spellchamber?”
Emily considered it briefly. She didn’t want to risk getting into more trouble, not now, not when it would be a better idea to keep her head down and wait to see what happened. But, at the same time, she knew it would be a good idea to keep practicing her own spells, as well as keeping a sharp eye on Frieda. And she enjoyed spending time with the younger girl.
“Very well,” she said. “Let me go into the washroom first, all right?”
The spellchamber had been modified slightly by one of the older students, they discovered when they stepped inside. A line of humanoid puppets–Emily couldn’t help thinking of them as test dummies–stood against one wall, armed with everything from swords to crossbows and even pre-charged wands. She puzzled over them for a long moment, then started to practice putting her wards in place, then extending them away from her body. It gave her a form of in-depth defense, she’d discovered, and also made it harder for the nastier hexes to latch onto her magic and start chewing through her protections.
“The shielding spell isn’t very good,” Frieda said, as she carefully cast the spell. A shimmering wall of magic, no bigger than a mundane shield, appeared in front of her. “Why can’t it be made bigger?”
Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks Page 25