“Yes, Master,” Bernard said. He sounded relieved. Emily didn’t blame him. The thought of having his education pushed back still further clearly bothered him. “After lunch?”
“Report to me,” Whitehall agreed.
“And Robin has a new spell,” Lord Chambers said.
Whitehall’s lips thinned in disapproval. Emily allowed herself a moment of relief. Clearly, the stories insisting that Lord Whitehall detested the Black Arts were true. Demons simply could not be trusted, particularly when the spells they offered tended to have dangerous side effects. And she was sure that the spell Robin had started to use so casually would cause all sorts of problems in the future.
“He can trade it to the other students, if he wishes,” Lord Chambers added.
“After it has been checked carefully,” Lord Whitehall insisted.
Emily tensed, drawing her protections around her as magic started to shimmer around the two older men, the scent of demons surrounding Lord Chambers only adding to the growing tension. She knew she could defend herself, particularly if she wasn’t the target, but what about Julianne? Or Bernard, Robin and everyone else in the room? The two masters looked as if they were about to go to war, even though they were supposed to be friends ...
There are cracks in the commune, Emily realized, dully. And one of them could tear it apart.
“We will check it together,” Lord Chambers stated.
“Very well,” Whitehall said. Emily relaxed, slightly, as the magic drained away. “But it will be checked first.”
He looked at Emily. “You should go to bed early,” he added. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“Yes, Master,” Emily said.
Chapter Eleven
JULIANNE TURNED TO EMILY AS SOON as they were both in the bedroom with the door firmly closed. “How much magic can you do?”
“A lot,” Emily said. She eyed the door for a long moment. “Is this the sort of conversation that should remain private?”
“Yes,” Julianne said. She paused. “Can you keep it secret from my father?”
“... Maybe,” Emily said. She cast a privacy ward, reassuring herself that she hadn’t seen anything like it from any of the commune. But then, if magicians of this era guarded their secrets closely, she might not have seen them use wards. “I don’t think he can overhear us.”
Julianne met her eyes. “I don’t think he keeps that close an eye on me,” she said. “But you never know.”
Emily nodded. There were hundreds of spells that could be used to spy on someone, ranging from a very simplistic distance viewing spell to one that tracked its victim through blood. A magician could block most of those spells through wards and other countermeasures, but a mundane wouldn’t have a hope of avoiding surveillance. If Julianne’s father wanted to keep an eye on her, he certainly had the ability to do it.
“He doesn’t appear to be watching now,” she said. Her wards weren’t detecting anything, save for the ever-presence thrumming of the nexus point. “What do you want to talk about?”
She sat down on her blanket and watched Julianne as she paced nervously around the tiny room, her eyes glancing from side to side as if she expected her father to pop out of the walls at any moment. Emily already had a good idea of just what Julianne wanted to talk about—there wasn’t much else that Julianne would want to keep hidden from her father—but she knew she had to wait for Julianne to broach the subject herself. She waited, quietly keeping one eye on her wards. There were still no hints that someone was trying to break through her protections and spy on them.
Which is definitely a relief, she thought, wryly. I’m the only girl here with any protections at all.
“Father won’t teach me magic,” Julianne said, finally. She leaned forward, pleadingly. “Will you?”
Emily hesitated. She’d never taught anyone magic from scratch before, not even Frieda or the First Year students she’d mentored. They’d all had the benefit of training to show them how to tap their inherent magic and use it for spells. Emily knew, in theory, how to give someone that kind of training, but she’d never actually used it for real. Lady Barb had warned her, back when they’d traveled to the Cairngorms, that she wasn’t to do anything of the sort unless there was no other choice. If something went wrong, she’d said, the consequences could be dire.
She looked up at Julianne. “Why do you want to learn magic?”
Julianne looked back at her. “Why did you want to learn magic?”
Touché, Emily thought.
“To defend myself,” she said, after a moment’s pause. Void had warned her, after all, that if she didn’t learn to use magic she’d just wind up in more trouble. “And to ...”
“Exactly,” Julianne interrupted. “And I want to be something more.”
Emily took a long breath. “And what about the curse?”
Julianne snorted. “How do you know the curse is real?”
She went on before Emily could say a word. “There aren’t that many women with magic potential,” she said. “For all we know, the handful who did have magic and couldn’t have children had a run of bad luck.”
“True,” Emily agreed.
She frowned as she tossed it over and over in her mind. Experience told her that female magicians could and did have children, but it also told her that such beliefs tended to have a kernel of truth buried under the bullshit. Perhaps the curse was an excuse to keep girls from learning magic—primitive cultures did tend to be suspicious and fearful of powerful women—yet she knew better than to take that for granted. There might be a good reason to refrain from teaching magic to girls.
In this era, she thought. But that clearly changes before my time.
“I can’t pay for training,” Julianne said. “But I can offer you something in exchange.”
Emily looked at her. “What can you offer me in exchange?”
Julianne picked up one of the bags she’d placed against the wall and opened it, revealing a handful of small tools. A stone mortar and pestle set, a handful of sharp knives, a couple of wooden spoons, a pewter jug and a large bowl ... it struck Emily, suddenly, that she was looking at a very basic alchemical set. Professor Thande would have sneered at it—the knives looked stained, which was asking for trouble when unwanted ingredients were added to the mix—but it was usable. A second bag contained a number of dried herbs and seeds, carefully packed into cloth bags. Julianne spread out a third blanket, then started to lay them out on the floor.
“My mother used to brew up remedies made from herbs,” Julianne said. She sighed. “Her family was supposed to have a reputation for producing potions from plants and other things they grew ... she would have taught me, I suppose, if she’d lived.”
Emily frowned. Was she looking at the birth of alchemy?
“I see,” she said. She recognized some of the herbs, although a handful were new. “Who did teach you?”
“My aunt,” Julianne said. She smiled, rather thinly. “My father dismissed it as quackery, but I’ve often found that her remedies worked.”
They would have, Emily thought, if magic was included in the mix.
“Put those four together with water and boil them,” Julianne said, pointing out a handful of herb bags. “You’ll have a painkiller that numbs the body, if one is hurt. Add a couple more ingredients and you have a paste you can rub on the affected area.”
She winked. “It is remarkable how many apprentices come to us and beg for it shortly after they begin their training.”
Emily had to smile. “And you don’t think this is magic?”
“It isn’t real magic,” Julianne said. “You can’t ...”
She sighed, sitting back on her haunches. “It isn’t impressive,” she added. “And I want to be something more.”
“I understand,” Emily said, quietly.
Julianne pointed to another cluster of bags. “You can mix them together and it will counteract the effects of most poisons,” she said. “The results are messy, as y
ou might expect, but the drinker will probably survive if he takes the potion quickly. Or you can alter the proportions to get a painless poison. A couple of magicians have asked to drink it before they lost their minds completely.”
“It seems very useful,” Emily said. She reached out and poked through the bag of dried ingredients. There didn’t seem to be anything but herbs. No dissected animals, no ground minerals ... it was definitely basic. “Do you experiment with the ingredients to see what you can do with them?”
“You need someone willing to drink the brew,” Julianne said. She smiled, rather humorlessly. “There aren’t many people who will volunteer.”
“I suppose not,” Emily said. She would have been reluctant to drink potions that might as well have been put together at random, knowing she risked stomach upsets at best and death at worst. And she knew spells that could test potions to make sure they were safe to drink, something Julianne lacked. “It would be tricky to convince them.”
“And there are some brews I was taught never to use,” Julianne said. “There’s one you can use to make someone ... compliant.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. She knew a couple of those too. “They can be dangerous.”
Julianne leaned forward. “Teach me some magic and I will teach you this,” she said, waving a hand at the small pile of ingredients and tools. “You will find it very useful.”
Emily hesitated. On one hand, she didn’t need to know how to brew potions—although she had to admit that it might be useful to know Julianne’s recipes, particularly if she wound up spending the rest of her life in the past. Julianne clearly didn’t have access to the ingredients Emily was used to using, ingredients that were harvested all over the continent and shipped to Whitehall. The recipes Emily knew might be worse than useless. And she would have a chance to encourage Julianne to invent the alchemical method ...
But on the other hand, she thought, Master Whitehall will be furious.
She met Julianne’s eyes. “Your father will be angry,” she said. “Are you prepared to handle it?”
“I can cope with beatings,” Julianne said, unflinchingly. There was a hard edge to her voice that reminded Emily of Whitehall. “And I’m not going to break his rules about demons.”
“And what about Bernard?” Emily asked. She played with the snake-bracelet on her wrist, thinking hard. “Have you given any thought to how he’ll react?”
Julianne looked down for a long moment. “He knows I want to learn magic,” she said, finally. “And if he’s unwilling to take me, after I do, I will live with it.”
Emily sighed, inwardly. She’d been told, back in her time, that mixed marriages—marriages between magicians and mundanes—rarely worked. But Caleb’s parents seemed quite happy together; they’d certainly produced five children. Now, though ... whatever Bernard said, he might have doubts about marrying a sorceress. He certainly hadn’t shown any sign of being interested in Emily.
But Robin is interested in me, Emily thought. Even though he thinks I’m barren ....
...Or maybe because he thinks I’m barren.
She scowled at the thought. It was unlikely, very unlikely, that Robin or any of the other magicians could cast a contraceptive spell. Unless Julianne knew how to brew something that had the same effect—and she doubted any of the boys would want to ask her for a contraceptive—there was no way to use any kind of birth control. The little she’d heard about primitive condoms had been enough to convince her she didn’t want to use them, despite the risk. Sleeping with a barren woman might be the only true contraceptive available to them.
“I know I’m asking a lot,” Julianne said, quietly. She leaned forward, her voice pleading. “I would be very grateful if you taught me ...”
Emily hesitated, thinking hard. Whitehall was not going to approve, when he found out about it—and he would find out about it. His magic sensitivity was nowhere near as good as Emily’s—his own sloppy magic would drown out any traces of Julianne’s magic—but when he was alone with his daughter, he might well pick up something. She wasn’t scared of beatings either—Master Grey had battered her to a pulp during the duel—but being thrown out of the castle was a very real threat. Without the nexus point, there was no way to get back to the world she knew.
And yet, she knew one hell of an opportunity had been dropped in her lap. If this was the start of alchemy—and it certainly looked like it—she could work with Julianne to set the whole system on a solid footing. And if she taught Julianne a couple of spells to help her test her experiments before forcing anyone to drink them, it might help convince her father that women should learn magic. And if she could uncover the truth behind the curse ...
“I can teach you,” she said. She forced herself to think for a long moment. At least Julianne didn’t have anything to unlearn, unlike Frieda. “But you’ll have to give me a day or two to work out the best way to teach you.”
Julianne leaned forward and gave her a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret it.”
“Just get between me and your father if he decides to be furious,” Emily said. “And now, I think we should go to sleep.”
“Of course, Master,” Julianne said. She was grinning from ear to ear as she packed up her tools. “Or ... should I call you Mistress?”
“Just stick with Emily,” Emily advised. She leaned back and pulled the blanket around her body. “And don’t tell anyone until you’ve mastered a few tricks.”
“Of course,” Julianne said.
Emily had half-expected not to be able to sleep again, but darkness overwhelmed her almost as soon as she closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, it was morning and Julianne was shaking her awake. Emily resisted the urge to hex her—deliberately this time – as she stood and used the chamberpot, silently promising herself to discuss hot and cold running water with Whitehall and Master Wolfe as soon as possible. Tapping the nexus point would open up a great many possibilities.
“My father said you should meet him outside, after breakfast,” Julianne said, as Emily dressed. The clothes were still itchy, but she was getting used to them. “Do you think he knows ...?”
I hope not,” Emily said. “We haven’t done anything yet.”
She ate breakfast quickly, then walked through the courtyard to where Whitehall stood by the grassy lawn. If he did know what she’d agreed to do with Julianne, he showed no sign of it as he demonstrated another couple of spells and watched, dispassionately, as Emily duplicated them. She couldn’t help wondering just what was going through his mind—to him, her powers had to seem a form of outside context magic.
“I don’t think there’s much I can teach you,” Whitehall said. “And you’re still holding back.”
Emily nodded. There was no point in trying to deny it, so she changed the subject.
“Did you have a chance to look at Robin’s new spell?”
“We found no unpleasant surprises,” Whitehall said. “But with demons, one never knows.”
Emily frowned. There was an unpleasant surprise—the spell used too much power, slopping magic everywhere. But to Whitehall, that was normal. He might not even see just how the spell could be modified to use less power, yet still have the same effect.
She looked up at him. “Why don’t you trust demons?”
“My old master believed that demons were dangerous,” Whitehall said. “They grant wishes—if the price is right—but the wishes always come with nasty surprises attached. He was fond of telling stories about fools who sold their souls to demons, only to discover that the demon kept the letter of the bargain and not the spirit.”
He shrugged. “There was a man who sold his soul for the fairest beauty in all the land,” he added, after a moment. “And the demon kept the letter of the deal—it brought the woman to him, as soon as the deal was made. But the woman was a haughty princess with five brothers and a very angry father.”
“And so the man was killed,” Emily guessed.
“Corre
ct,” Whitehall said. “I don’t think that was quite what the young idiot wanted.”
“No,” Emily agreed.
“Demons will offer much in exchange for very little,” Whitehall added. “Or so it seems. But the more you call upon demons, the more dependent you become on demons. Their magic becomes an addiction. You can perform fantastic spells by using demons, but only by using demons. And who’s really in charge if the demon is the one performing the spell?”
“You’re compelling the demon to serve you,” Emily mused. “Aren’t you?”
“A demon is a vastly powerful creature,” Whitehall reminded her. “And it will take advantage of any loophole in the orders to wreak havoc.”
He snorted. “And the DemonMasters hear their demons all the time,” he added. “They tend to go mad quicker than other magicians.”
“Oh,” Emily said.
“There isn’t much else I can teach you,” Whitehall said, changing the subject again. “Your tutor appears to have given you an excellent grounding in magic.”
“Thank you,” Emily said.
“Master Wolfe has requested that you work with him,” Whitehall added. His lips curved into a warm smile. “He has some theories he wishes to run by you.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Emily said.
Whitehall smiled. “Of course.”
Emily took a breath. “I would also like to try to learn from the other masters,” she said, carefully. For all she knew, it might be a touchy subject. If the apprentice system in the past was anything like the one she was familiar with, trying to learn from another master was a grave insult to her master. “They might well have something to teach me.”
Whitehall gave her a long, contemplative look. “They may refuse to show you anything,” he said. “Unless you have something you can show them in exchange.”
Emily sighed. There was a lot she could show them. But unless she was very careful, she’d do a great deal of damage to recorded history. Perhaps she was meant to do everything she did ...
... But what if she was wrong?
Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) Page 11