Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily nodded in understanding. The Allied Lands didn’t know what she’d done to kill Shadye, thanks to the Sorcerer’s Rule. It had given her a reputation that made her feared and admired in equal measure. No one had ever taken on a necromancer in single combat and lived to tell the tale – apart from Emily. Some claimed she was naturally powerful, others that she’d cheated in some way...and still others that she must be a necromancer herself. Rumors and innuendos would follow her for the rest of her life, she supposed. If someone else had beaten a necromancer, one on one...

  “You think we might encounter the killer?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Void said.

  “Maybe it was another necromancer,” Emily pointed out. “They’re not exactly friendly...”

  “We don’t know,” Void admitted. “Few necromancers would willingly lower their guard when another necromancer was close by. But it is a possibility.”

  He cleared his throat. “I want you to be very careful when you’re on your roving patrol,” he added. “Keep a sharp eye out for trouble. Hell, keep a sharp eye out for trouble anyway. I hear that the mountain lords have been plotting trouble for each other ever since the Empire fell. You might wind up in the midst of another coup.”

  Emily shook her head. “I very much hope not,” she said, primly. The last attempted coup had been nightmarish, with one of her best friends a prisoner and the other very much at risk. “Lady Barb intends for us to stay out of danger.”

  Void smirked. “Danger will find you,” he assured her. “It always does.”

  Emily nodded, reluctantly.

  “I meant to ask,” she said. She’d actually written several letters, none of which had been returned. That had hurt, but if Void had been spying on a necromancer, he wouldn’t have had time to reply. “What are you planning to do about Lin and Mountaintop?”

  “The Grandmaster has requested that he be allowed to handle it,” Void said. His face twisted into a thin smile. “I have agreed to respect his wishes.”

  Emily lifted her eyebrows. If there was one thing she had learned about Void, who had saved her life and sent her to Whitehall, it was that he had a habit of riding roughshod over everyone else if he felt it was the right thing to do. Lady Barb disliked him, with reason; the Grandmaster seemed to be wary of him. And non-magicians found the thought of Emily being his bastard daughter worrying. Void had quite a reputation.

  “And I understand that you have been corresponding with young Jade again,” Void said, hastily changing the subject. “Have you made up your mind about him?”

  Emily blushed bright red. Jade had proposed to her at the end of her first year at Whitehall – and, by his lights, he’d done her a favor. But Emily had been reluctant to commit herself, not after watching how badly her mother had screwed up her life by marrying the wrong man. And then Emily had been ennobled and Jade’s letters had dried up for months. Now they were talking again, but there was a barrier between them that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t considered socially acceptable for a commoner, even a combat sorcerer in training, to court a baroness.

  “We’re going to meet soon,” she said. Jade’s letters had talked endlessly about the Great Faire, which was apparently going to be held near Lady Barb’s home. “I think we’ll talk about it.”

  “Good luck,” Void said. He smirked. “Would you care to know how many requests for your hand I have received?”

  “No,” Emily said, quickly.

  Void laughed. “I’ll see you again soon,” he said. He gave her a small wave. “Goodbye.”

  There was a surge of magic and a flash of light. When it faded, he was gone. Emily felt a flicker of envy – she planned to learn to teleport as soon as possible – and then scowled as the door opened. Ahead of her, she saw a passageway leading out of the building. Sergeant Miles clearly felt that having Void’s help to return to human form was cheating. Gritting her teeth – if the sergeant decided she’d done it deliberately, she wouldn’t be sitting comfortably for a few days – Emily walked through the doors and out into the grounds. Bright sunlight struck her and she lifted a hand to cover her eyes.

  “Careful,” Sergeant Miles said. “You never know what you might miss.”

  Emily turned to face him. He was a short, friendly-looking man, the sort of man anyone could trust on sight. And he was trustworthy, Emily knew. He took very good care of his students, including Emily, giving them good advice and encouragement when they needed it. But woe betide the person who tried to take advantage of his good nature.

  “That was Void,” he said, shortly. “I thought it was him.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “I didn’t call him...”

  “I didn’t say you did,” Sergeant Miles pointed out, dryly. “Is it just me or are you being too defensive these days?”

  Emily shrugged. Term had ended a week ago; Alassa and Imaiqah had gone home to Zangaria, leaving Emily to wait for Lady Barb. She’d been...encouraged to spend her days practicing with Sergeant Miles, who didn’t seem to have anywhere else to go. But the tests had gotten harder and harder, constantly pushing her to the limit.

  “Lady Barb wishes you to meet her in the library,” the sergeant added. “Good luck on your patrol.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. “And thank you for keeping me busy.”

  It was hard work, she knew, but she didn’t want to think about the tiredness in her mind, or the growing exhaustion with life. Shadye, the Iron Duchess, the Mimic – and exams, of course – had all taken their toll. There had been too many days, as the term came to an end, when she’d seriously considered just trying to stay in bed. If it hadn’t been for her friends, she had a feeling she might well have plunged into complete depression.

  As it was, she had failed one subject in the exams – and come far too close to working herself to death

  “You’re welcome,” Sergeant Miles said.

  Emily dropped him a curtsey, then turned and walked through the forest, back towards Whitehall. For once, there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. It was pleasantly warm; she smiled as she caught sight of butterflies flitting about in the air, and bees moving in peaceful purpose from flower to flower. Just breathing the peaceful air made her feel better, for a long moment, despite the tiredness in her limbs.

  When Whitehall came into view, she stopped and stared at the castle before resuming her walk. The white walls of the massive building, topped with towers reaching up towards the sky, still had the power to take her breath away. It was a wondrous sight, even after two years. There was nothing like it on Earth.

  Inside, she blinked in surprise as she saw two boys cleaning the Grand Hall, an eagle familiar hovering over their heads. Both of them had been held back after a prank had gone wrong – Emily didn’t know the full details, although the rumors had ranged from possible to the completely absurd – and had been set to cleaning the castle. Given Whitehall’s multidimensional nature, Emily rather doubted they would be finished before the holidays were over and schooling resumed. There were literally miles of corridor in the building.

  She walked past them and headed up the stairs to the library. Whitehall felt strange to her without most of its students, although at least there wouldn’t be a crowd in the library. Lady Aylia was sitting behind her desk, carefully marking and tagging the new books from various printers. Emily couldn’t help a flicker of pride at seeing books produced by her printing presses. Given a few years, they were likely to revolutionize education in the Allied Lands.

  “She said to take a seat and wait,” Lady Aylia said. She barely looked up from her work. “I believe the Grandmaster wished to speak with her.”

  Emily nodded, unsurprised. They had planned to leave two days ago, but something had popped up and Emily had been told to stay at Whitehall. The Allied Lands didn’t believe in precise schedules, something that amused and irked her in equal measure. Sitting down at one of the desks, she pulled her notebook out of her pocket and started to write down ideas and thoughts she’d devi
sed in her spare time. There were spells she wanted to develop, spells that might help the Allied Lands when the necromancers finally came over the mountains...

  She’d faced Shadye and won – by cheating. The next necromancer she faced might be far harder to defeat.

  And she knew precisely what they would do to the world she had come to love.

  Chapter Two

  “AHEM,” A QUIET VOICE SAID.

  Emily jumped. She’d been so wrapped up in her work that she hadn’t heard Lady Barb come into the library and walk up behind her. She glanced at her watch and discovered that she’d been sitting at the table for over an hour, scribbling down possible ways to make the spell she’d invented work properly. But, no matter how she worked the variables, there didn’t seem to be any way to use the spell safely.

  She turned and looked up at Lady Barb. The older woman smiled, although there was something in her expression that suggested she was deeply worried. As always, Lady Barb looked formidable. Her long blonde hair cascaded down over stout shoulders and a muscular body. She might not have the porcelain-doll features Alassa enjoyed, but she had attracted the attention of dozens of male students. Emily rather suspected that the students were the ones who didn’t take her class. Lady Barb was a hard taskmaster.

  “You have to be more careful,” Lady Barb warned, dryly. “You never know who might be sneaking up on you.”

  Emily smiled. “In the library?”

  “Most of the spells used to keep students quiet have been deactivated for the summer,” Lady Barb pointed out. “If there were more students here...”

  Emily shrugged, her mind filling in the blanks. Students were allowed – even encouraged – to prank one another, in the belief that it taught them how to react to unexpected situations and learn how to defend themselves. But, right now, there were only a handful of students left in Whitehall. Even the Gorgon, who was one of the most studious students in Second Year, had gone home. Emily was the only student of her age to remain in Whitehall.

  Lady Barb nodded towards Emily’s notebook. “Are you keeping up with your security spells?”

  Emily gritted her teeth, then nodded. After Lin had stolen her notes and vanished from Whitehall, Lady Barb had given her a crash course in security spells that were normally untaught until the student took on an apprenticeship. Making them work was different, but no one apart from Emily herself should be able to read her notes. Lady Barb had warned her that she would be testing the notebook on a regular basis and Emily would regret it if she managed to crack the protections hiding her work. Part of Emily resented it, but she understood just how dangerous it would be if her notes fell into the wrong hands.

  More of my notes, she told herself, as she closed the notebook and felt the spells slide into place. They were based on her blood, rather than anything else; Lady Barb had told her that her unique blood – she had no relatives in the new world – would be the strongest protection she could hope to provide. She didn’t have to worry about a brother or sister accidentally cracking her protections. But there was no such thing as a completely unbreakable spell...

  She passed the notebook to Lady Barb and settled back to watch, hoping and praying that the spells remained unbreakable. Some of the spells she’d designed were harmless – or at least not particularly innovative – but some of them were revolutionary. She’d used memory charms to write down as much of the Mimic’s spell-structure as she could, knowing that whoever had created the mobile spells was a genius as well as a monster...and she dreaded to think what use an evil magician would make of them. The Mimic had been based on necromancy...somehow, the creator had managed to make necromancy practical. There was just too much room for abuse.

  But it wasn’t the worst of the spells.

  She caught her breath as Lady Barb broke the first ward. Shadye had died through luck, she had to admit, and there were other necromancers out there. One day, Emily knew, they would come over the mountains and attack the Allied Lands in force...and, on that day, they might prove unstoppable. She’d devised the nuclear spell to repel that offensive, but it refused to work properly. If triggered, it would detonate within seconds...taking out the caster as well as its target. And splitting atoms didn’t seem to require a very powerful magician. There were times when Emily suspected that this world’s industrial revolution would lead to complete and total disaster.

  Good thing it wasn’t a computer wizard who came here, she thought. He’d be a God-Mode Sue by now.

  Lady Barb muttered an oath as her hands jerked back, shocked. “Not bad,” she said, drawing Emily’s mind out of her thoughts. “And the first ward was well-placed to distract attention.”

  Emily smiled, feeling a flicker of pride. Lady Barb rarely gave praise, but when it was given it was always deserved. The heavy security wards she’d wrapped around the notebook would almost certainly attract attention, so she’d crafted the first ward to resemble a normal privacy ward and the second one to conceal the others. Anyone who had seen the wards without that cover would have known that there was something inside worth concealing. No one, with the possible exception of Alassa, would conceal their personal journal with so much determination.

  She took the notebook back and dropped it into her bag. “Are we ready to go?”

  “More or less,” Lady Barb agreed. She gave Emily a reproving look. “Do you have your bag packed?”

  “It’s in my room,” Emily confirmed. “Most of my stuff is going to be stored at Whitehall.”

  “It should be safe enough,” Lady Barb agreed.

  Emily had her doubts. Whitehall was supposed to be invulnerable, but Shadye had broken into the school in her first year and the Mimic had killed dozens of students in her second year. There were times when she wondered if the Grandmaster blamed her for the series of disasters, even though he’d shown no sign of it. Her arrival at the school had triggered off the series of events that led to Shadye’s invasion.

  She stood up. “Where should I meet you?”

  “In the Entrance Hall,” Lady Barb said. “I hope you have packed everything I told you to pack...?”

  Emily nodded. Lady Barb had told her that she would have to carry everything herself, without benefit of magic. She was stronger than she’d ever been on Earth, but she knew there were still limits to how much she could carry. During Martial Magic, it had taken her months to build up the muscles the boys had taken for granted.

  “Go on then,” Lady Barb ordered with a smile. “But there’s no real hurry.”

  Emily waved goodbye to Lady Aylia, then walked out of the library and down towards the dorms. The school was quiet, too quiet. She found herself looking around warily as she passed a line of statues – famous magicians through the ages – and stopped in front of a painting one of the older students had produced. Every time she looked at it, she couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. It purported to show her battle with Shadye, but she knew all-too-well that the battle had been very different. She’d certainly not been a match for the maddened necromancer in raw power.

  She’d protested to Lady Barb when the painting had first been hung on the walls, but the older woman had pointed out that the painting helped reassure the younger students and their parents that Whitehall was safe. Emily hadn’t been convinced – magic could be very dangerous, even without a necromancer or a dangerous monster running loose in the school – yet further argument seemed futile. She looked up at her figure in the painting and shook her head, running her hands through her long brown hair. Painting-Emily stood tall, practically glowing with light, her long hair spinning around her as she cast a spell. She’d never been so beautiful in her entire life. Hardly anyone could recognize her from the painting.

  Snorting, she pressed her hand against the stone and watched as the door slid open, revealing a darkened corridor leading towards Madame Razz’s office. The stout housemother was nowhere to be seen, thankfully. Most of the First Years had gone home, but the handful who hadn’t were driving the housemother sl
owly insane. Emily smiled as she walked down the corridor and stepped through the door leading to her room. She rather liked Madam Razz, but the older woman could be quite strict.

  Inside, Emily couldn’t help wincing at how bare the room seemed. Emily and the Gorgon had shared it for the rest of the year, after Lin had made her escape, but the Gorgon was gone and there would be another room next year. The Gorgon’s bed had been stripped down to the mattress, leaving her side of the room looking mournful. Emily felt an odd lump in her throat as she walked over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. Once, she’d had problems growing used to the idea of sharing her room with anyone. Now...she found she missed the Gorgon. And the rest of her friends.

  The Emily she saw in the mirror was no longer the girl she expected to see. Her once-underfed face was filled out and healthy, the outdoor exercise giving her pale face at least a little healthy color. Her brown hair was thicker and with a little shine, an effect of better food. She had muscles she had never dreamed possible, even if she was still worryingly thin, and other developments she hadn’t expected either. It was chilling to realize she would never have developed into a grown woman on Earth.

  Shaking her head, she glanced into her bag. There was one set of dress robes, carefully tailored for her at Dragon’s Den, one standard student set of robes and four walking outfits. She’d also been warned not to bring more than a handful of books, something that bothered her more than the prospect of wearing dress robes. Her collection of books was small, but growing rapidly. Being separated from them bothered her, even though she knew it wasn’t logical.

  Emily picked up the white envelope from the cabinet and opened it, pulling out the single sheet of creamy white parchment inside. She’d never really cared about her grades on Earth, not when they were meaningless to her. No matter how well she did at school, it wouldn’t help her get out of poverty. But in Whitehall, grades were important. The exams she’d taken a month ago would help to shape her future, at least the part of it she would spend at Whitehall. She skimmed through the parchment, noting – again – that she’d done very well. Martial Magic was the only course she’d failed outright, and then only because the other students had had four extra years of schooling.