But we’re still in danger, she told herself.
She forced herself to run as the shaking resumed, the corridor walls suddenly looming closer and closer. But it was hard to keep going... Frieda gave her a shove when they could no longer run side by side, then slammed a force punch into her back. Emily flew forward and landed badly, rolling over and over in a desperate attempt to absorb the force of the blow. But when she caught herself and turned back to Frieda, there was no sign of her friend. There was nothing behind where she’d been, but bare stone...
Frieda was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
EMILY STARED AT THE BARREN STONE, unable to believe her eyes. Frieda couldn’t be dead, not like that... she deserved so much better than to die in the collapsing remains of the school. And yet... Emily tapped on the stone, praying desperately that Frieda was alive, merely trapped on the far side. If she was, if she answered, they could blast her out...
... But there was no reply. Either the walls were too thick, or Frieda was in no state to reply. Frieda couldn’t be dead; she’d been too full of life to die. And yet Emily had learned, all too often over the past five years, that death could come for anyone, at any time. There was no way to guarantee that someone would remain alive.
She sank to the floor, kneeling as she wiped tears from her eyes. Frieda was dead—or trapped, somewhere behind the wall—and it was her fault. If Emily had not accompanied her, Frieda might well be alive... it was silly, she told herself, but it might be true. Her entire body shook with grief and a dull, bitter frustrated sorrow, one that burned her very soul. Frieda had been her friend... she told herself, again, that no proof Frieda was dead, but she had no proof Shadye was dead either. The black hole she’d seen was the final bitter jest, mocking her. She didn’t want to go on.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to rise and mark the wall, before turning to look for a way out. The doorway opened into a history classroom—she bit off a savage curse aimed at Professor Locke—that had been turned into a debris field by the earthquake. If he hadn’t been exploring the tunnels under Whitehall, if he hadn’t touched something that should have been left untouched, Frieda would be alive. She threw a fireball at the desk, just for the satisfaction of watching it explode, then walked through the second door. It led to another corridor, one that led down. She listened, hearing voices below, then walked down to the bottom. Master Tor and Sergeant Miles stood there, talking together in low voices.
“Emily,” Sergeant Miles said. It looked as though he was standing in front of the doorway to the Great Hall, but it was firmly closed. “Are you all right?”
“Frieda isn’t,” Emily said, bitterly. She looked around for Caleb, but saw no sign of him—or of anyone else. Bracing herself, she ran through a complete explanation. “She’s... she’s trapped.”
“She isn’t the only one,” Sergeant Miles said. He sounded worried. Somehow, that bothered Emily more than she cared to admit. “The recent change cost us half of the rooms and corridors we’d rediscovered. If this goes on...”
“Whitehall is doomed,” Master Tor said. He looked as ghastly as Emily felt. “Two-thirds of the students are unaccounted for, along with at least a quarter of the staff.”
“We may relocate them,” Sergeant Miles said. But he didn’t sound optimistic. “It’s clear that at least some of the wards are still working...”
Emily sighed, leaning against the wall. She just wanted to sit down and cry, then think of something—anything—that would allow her to find her friend. Maybe she could find those damned books, wherever they were, or maybe there was something hidden away in Professor Locke’s collection of manuscripts. He hadn’t found anything, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t. She wondered, vaguely, if he knew where his office was now. If he did, she could go there...
“The Grandmaster wanted to speak to you,” Master Tor reminded her. “He’s currently inspecting the bedrooms. They’re just down the corridor.”
Emily shook her head, fighting off the urge to start laughing hysterically. The bedrooms! They’d found their bedrooms, again! What about the books and tools they needed to escape?
“Thank you, sir,” she said, instead. “How... how many students are still in the Great Hall?”
“Only the first-years and a handful of second-years,” Sergeant Miles said, grimly. “If you meet any of the search parties, send them back here.”
Emily nodded and started to make her way to the bedrooms. Whatever was reorganizing the school, she decided, had an odd sense of humor; the sixth-year dorms were right next to the first-year dorms, while the fourth-years were paired up with the second-years. No one would be very pleased, she knew, if the new arrangement lasted more than a few days. The first-years would hate having the sixth-years so close, while the sixth-years would mutter darkly about being matched up with the “children.” She rolled her eyes at the thought, then gasped in surprise as she felt a sensation at the back of her mind. The ward she’d hidden in Tiega’s room, by her bed, had been tripped.
She gasped. Now?
For a moment, she hesitated, unsure what to do. Gordian had asked her to meet him, after all, and she didn’t want an argument, not now. And yet, she felt responsible for Tiega... hell, she was responsible. She’d already failed Frieda. She was damned if she was failing Tiega too.
She turned and walked into the first-year dorms, striding down the corridor to Tiega’s bedroom. The doors were still marked—the first-years had carved their own names into wooden plaques, rather than use the wards to indicate their rooms—and Tiega’s door was firmly closed. Emily hesitated again—she didn’t like going into someone’s bedroom without their permission, then pushed open the door. A slight form was bending over Tiega’s bed, her back to Emily. She jumped and spun around as Emily entered, hurling a freeze spell at her head. Emily deflected it with ease.
“Jasmine?”
Jasmine stared at her, shocked. “Emily!”
Emily took a moment to find her voice. “You’ve been leaving those notes?”
She looked past Jasmine to see the scrap of paper, placed neatly on Tiega’s pillow. “How could you?”
Jasmine’s face crumpled. “I... I had to.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “You had to?”
She watched the younger girl carefully for a long moment, unsure just what Jasmine would try to do. Deny everything? Try to escape? Or explain herself? Jasmine shouldn’t be able to beat her in a fight, no matter what she might have learned from the Travellers, but she might be too desperate to care about the odds. How the hell had she even gotten into the room, let alone evaded the wards and trap spells?
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Jasmine said. “I just...”
Emily’s patience snapped. “Jasmine, you have been sending Tiega those damned notes for nearly three months,” she said. It was hard to keep from shouting. “You have come far too close to driving her out of Whitehall altogether! And you didn’t mean to hurt her?”
She reached out and picked up Julia’s hairbrush, lying on her bedside cabinet. “My friend may just have died,” she added, hardening her voice as she slapped the back of the hairbrush against her palm. “The rest of us may be about to follow her. I do not have the time to deal with your excuses. Tell me what you did—and why—or I’ll thrash your bottom black and blue before I hand you over to the Grandmaster!”
Jasmine stared. “The Grandmaster?”
“You could be expelled for writing those notes,” Emily reminded her. “Tiega’s family will certainly see to it, even if the Grandmaster is reluctant.”
She sighed inwardly as Jasmine wilted. Tiega’s parents were neglectful, at the very least, if not abusive. She doubted they would bother to lift a finger to make sure Jasmine faced some kind of justice for her actions, although arranging for her expulsion probably wouldn’t cost them more than a few hours of their time. But Jasmine wouldn’t know that, she hoped; she’d been caught red-handed. The threat of expulsion was very real.
“I... she kept tormenting Lillian,” Jasmine said, finally. Her brown eyes—only a shade or two darker than Emily’s—looked down at the floor. “Hitting her, poking her, belittling her... she used to keep turning her into things until Lillian learned a few basic protections. She just wouldn’t stop.”
Emily eyed her, darkly. “And you didn’t think to ask for help?”
“Students hexing other students is perfectly fine,” Jasmine said, bitterly. “I couldn’t stop her.”
“And so you started writing those notes,” Emily said. The hell of it was that she agreed with Jasmine. Whitehall tolerated far too much from its younger students. “How did you even slip into her room...?”
She stopped as the answer occurred to her. “You swapped rooms,” she added, sourly. In hindsight, that was blindingly obvious. “You used to have permission to enter this room. It was just never revoked.”
“Madame Razz showed us how to swap rooms,” Jasmine said. “I was careful not to erase my access rights to this room.”
“Very clever,” Emily said. “You were planning this for a while, I see.”
She could have kicked herself. She’d spent a great deal of time and effort trying to find a way someone could have outfoxed the wards, when Jasmine had merely walked through them. Lady Barb would have been disappointed, while Sergeant Miles would have bawled her out—publicly—if she’d made such a mistake during Martial Magic. She dreaded to think what Mistress Danielle would have done.
“I hoped things would get better if I was sharing a room with Lillian,” Jasmine admitted, quietly. She looked up, trying to meet Emily’s eyes. “Julia wanted to share a room with Adana and Tiega. I hoped...”
She shook her head, chewing on a strand of hair. “It didn’t make things better.”
“No, I suppose it didn’t,” Emily said. “How did you write the letters?”
“I used a charmed pencil,” Jasmine said. “There were no traces of my signature anywhere near the paper.”
“Very clever,” Emily said, again. “It’s a pity you weren’t using that intellect for something more... useful.”
“If Tiega was kicked out of school, Lillian would be happy,” Jasmine insisted. “We would all be happy.”
“You should have brought it to me,” Emily said. She shook her head, tiredly. “I could have had a word with Tiega...”
“You couldn’t have done anything to her,” Jasmine said. “She wasn’t breaking the rules, was she?”
“Probably not,” Emily conceded. “But you could have brought it to me anyway.”
But what would be the point? Tiega hadn’t been caught keeping other students from classes, not since the first time. Everything she’d done to Lillian had been mean, but perfectly in keeping with tradition. The worst Emily could have done was told her to behave herself—or issued a punishment, knowing that she would share it. Perhaps it would have been worthwhile...
She cleared her throat. “What you did was thoroughly unpleasant,” she said, sharply. “What would your aunt and uncle think of it?”
“They wouldn’t care,” Jasmine said. “After I insisted on going to Whitehall, they practically disowned me. If someone hadn’t paid my fees, I wouldn’t have been able to go.”
And you don’t know I paid your fees, Emily thought. Lady Barb had promised she would handle it, back when she’d first met Jasmine. Or did Lady Barb arrange for a scholarship?
“Clever,” she said, instead. “And now... what will happen to you if you get expelled? You won’t get your fees refunded, so you’ll be penniless. And you’ll have some very powerful enemies. What were you planning to do if everything went wrong?”
“I could sing,” Jasmine said, stubbornly.
“You would find it hard to join another band of traveling performers,” Emily said. Lady Barb had told her that most traveling performers were families, part of a vast extended network that stretched over the Allied Lands. If Jasmine’s aunt and uncle had disowned her, she might not be welcome anywhere else. “And while you could sing at inns, you’d discover—very quickly—that you’d be expected to do more than sing for your supper.”
She reached out and tapped Jasmine’s shoulder. “And what do you think Tiega’s family might do to you? Hex you so you can no longer sing? Blind you? Mutilate you? Curse you into permanent obedience and sell you into slavery? They would have ample cause to make your life as miserable as possible... and no one would be interested in defending you.”
Jasmine blanched. “I didn’t think...”
“No, you didn’t,” Emily snapped.
She took a breath. “How long did you expect to get away with it, anyway?”
Jasmine said nothing. Emily studied her for a long, tired moment, wondering why she understood the girl all too well. The weak couldn’t afford to fight openly against the strong, not when Tiega was tough enough to beat Jasmine—and Lillian—either magically or physically. Hitting Tiega where it hurt—her fragile sense of self-worth—was all Jasmine could do, yet it had almost destroyed Tiega and turned Jasmine into a monster. Even if Emily hadn’t hidden a trap in Tiega’s room, Jasmine would have been caught eventually. The staff might have decided to take action if Tiega’s parents demanded a full inquiry.
If things had been different, Emily thought, Jasmine could have been me.
She understood. Yes, she understood. But that didn’t mean Jasmine was in the right.
“I’ll give you a choice,” she said, carefully. “And I want you to listen before you make up your mind.
“First, you will apologize for what you’ve done. The notes will stop, of course. You and Tiega will work together over the next few weeks”—if we get out of the trap, she added silently—“until you have learned to tolerate one another. I will make it clear to Tiega that she isn’t to seek revenge afterwards”—Jasmine looked rather doubtful of that—“or to spread the word about what you have done, which will ensure that things return to normal rather quickly.”
“She’ll kill me,” Jasmine said.
“I won’t let her kill you,” Emily said. Tiega might punch or hex Jasmine, but she probably wouldn’t try to kill her. “She won’t be very pleased, of course...”
“Of course not,” Jasmine said, miserably. “And the second option?”
Emily met her eyes. “I take you to the Grandmaster,” she said. “He will not be pleased if such a matter comes before him, certainly not one that’s festered for months. You will certainly be placed on probation, if you’re not immediately expelled. If you’re lucky, you’ll be in detention until you graduate; if you’re unlucky, you’ll find yourself penniless, jobless and hunted by Tiega’s family.”
“Those aren’t good choices,” Jasmine said.
“Tell me,” Emily said. “After everything you have done, after the hell you inflicted on an insecure young girl, what do you deserve?”
Jasmine flinched.
“She inflicted hell on us,” she said, finally. “Did we deserve it?”
“That was then,” Emily said. “What about now?”
She dumped the hairbrush on Julia’s bed, then sat down next to Jasmine as the younger girl began to cry, her body wracked with great heaving sobs. Part of her was tempted to just march Jasmine back to her room and leave her there, but instead she wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her tightly. She did understand Jasmine... she shook her head, tiredly. Something would definitely have to change. Hell, Frieda had all kinds of problems at Mountaintop too...
... And Frieda was gone.
“Stand up,” she ordered, finally. She stood as soon as Jasmine leaned back, then helped her to her feet. “You’re meant to be in the Great Hall, along with the other students. If we survive the next few weeks”—Jasmine flinched, again—“you can make your choice.”
Jasmine leaned on her, tiredly. “Will you be there?”
“When you confess?” Emily shook her head. “This is something you have to do for yourself.”
“It isn’t
fair,” Jasmine said. “Nothing about this is fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” Emily agreed. She felt a hot flash of anger, which she had to suppress. “It isn’t fair that one young girl should pick on another, only to be picked on in turn. It’s not fair. It’s not fair! But the world isn’t fair.”
She picked up the note and dropped it into her pocket, then helped Jasmine to the door and peered outside. The corridor was deserted, thankfully. She wasn’t sure what she would have said to Madame Razz, if she’d caught them leaving Tiega’s room. The housemother might not be aware of the notes—although Emily knew she did keep a close eye on her charges—but she would know that neither of them had any legitimate reason to be there.
“Clean yourself up,” she ordered, passing Jasmine a handkerchief. It wasn’t enough, but there was no time for a shower. “Once you’re in the Great Hall, do what you’re told.”
Another dull quiver ran through Whitehall as they made their way down to the door and stepped out into the corridor. A sixth-year student walked past, his face pale; Emily asked him to escort Jasmine to the Great Hall, then turned back to find Gordian. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have realized that Emily had been waylaid on her way to find him. And if he did...?
She sighed. Right now, she would welcome almost anything that would keep her mind off Frieda. Trying to sleep would be futile, even though she was hellishly tired. An argument would be very welcome...
Dust floated down from high overhead as yet another tremor echoed through the school, followed by a series of distant crashes. Emily glanced up, then hurried through the maze of corridors. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape the sense that the school was coming apart...
Infinite Regress Page 36