The Zero Equation (The Zero Enigma Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  ... But there were two tiny stones lying on the dusty floor.

  We walked into a trap, I realised as I scrambled for my spectacles. And a nasty one too, if Akin didn't sense it.

  I wiped dust off the lenses, then donned the spectacles. The corridor was suddenly awash in magic. A trigger - a network of spells too light to be easily sensed against the school’s wards - and a very nasty booby trap, hidden beneath the dust. It looked more like the protections around Aguirre Hall than something I’d expect to find in a school. Akin and Rose had been turned into stones and rendered utterly helpless. I’d have been transformed too if I hadn't been wearing the bracelet. We would all have been trapped until whoever set up the trap came to see who they’d caught.

  Clever, I thought. The designer might already know his trap had been sprung. And yet ... if the designer had already left school, he might never know what had happened. Clever and vicious.

  I wanted to hurry. The designer might already be on the way. But I knew I had to be very careful. Dispelling the wrong spell - or even the right one - might trigger off another reaction. It didn't look as though the booby trap had been tied into the school’s wards, but that didn't mean there wasn't a second trap hidden nearby. Dad had taught me to watch carefully for snares that targeted rescuers as well as victims. It took me nearly ten minutes to be sure I’d determined which parts of the spell could be safely dispelled.

  Bracing myself, I lunged forward. The bracelet started to warm, but I didn't allow it to stop me from striking the spells with the dispeller. They came apart, setting off a whole series of spells that flared in all directions. I muttered a rude word under my breath and grabbed my friends, yanking their stony forms off the floor. The bracelet turned red-hot again, but this time I was ready. I was halfway back down the corridor by the time the pain registered ...

  ... And I could hear someone coming from the other direction.

  “Hang on,” I whispered. I wasn't sure if Akin and Rose could hear me, but it didn't matter. I needed to reassure them. “We have to run.”

  I made my way down the corridors as fast as I could go, hurrying back to the entrance. I didn't think the footsteps were coming after me - their owner would have to get through his own spell first - but I kept moving until I sprang through the entrance and into the nearest bathroom. Thankfully, it was empty. I dispelled the charms on Rose and Akin and watched them return to normal. They both looked badly shaken.

  “I didn't even sense the trap,” Akin said, as he cast a spell to clean his clothes. “That ... that got me before I could react.”

  “It was designed to conceal itself,” I said. I would have been more impressed if we hadn't walked right into the trap. Next time, I promised myself, I’d make sure to wear the spectacles at all times. Whatever tricks had been used to conceal the trap from Akin hadn't fooled my spectacles. “Perhaps we should go somewhere else.”

  “Perhaps we should,” Rose agreed. “Who do you think set up the trap?”

  “An upperclassman, perhaps,” Akin said. “They set up their own clubhouse in the abandoned parts of the school.”

  I nodded. It wasn't as if any of the abandoned classrooms were in regular use. I could easily believe that an upperclassman had taken over a couple of rooms and booby-trapped the entrances, just to make sure no one could get in without permission. Upperclassmen liked their privacy. They didn't even have to share a dorm if they were willing to pay the extra fees.

  And there was nothing to be gained by tattling on them.

  “Let’s go to the roof,” Rose said, charming her clothes clean. “It might be more peaceful up there.”

  I let her clean my clothes - it wasn't something I could do for myself - then lead us up the stairwell to the roof. The upper levels were almost completely deserted, even though it was nearly lunchtime. I guessed that most of the lowerclassmen were still in bed, or in the library, or even - perhaps - in the arena. Who knew?

  A warmish wind - with hints of ice - blew across the rooftop as we stepped out of the door. I pulled my shirt tight, wishing I’d thought to bring a coat. It wasn't cold - yet - but I was sure it was going to rain. The weather in Shallot was often unpredictable. Dad said it was something to do with the high concentrations of magic in the Eternal City, only a few hundred miles away. I wasn't so sure myself.

  “So,” Rose said, as we ambled over to the battlements. “Why are your families feuding anyway?”

  I exchanged glances with Akin. Rose didn't know ... of course she didn't know. She hadn’t been raised in High Society; she hadn't been told who she needed to support, who she needed to cut dead, who she needed to avoid at all costs. Of course she didn't know ...

  “It’s a long story,” I mumbled.

  “It’s very simple,” Akin said, throwing a glance at me. “My family is the oldest in the city. That’s not bragging, Rose. That’s a simple fact. We can trace our blood all the way back to the days before the Eternal City gave birth to the Thousand-Year Empire. My ancestors were among the original Ninety-Nine Senators. We helped found the empire.”

  Rose looked at me. I nodded.

  “One of my ancestors, my very great-grandfather, was essentially told that he’d manage the family’s affairs in Shallot,” Akin added. “He wasn't given much of a choice.”

  “He was basically kicked out of the Eternal City,” I put in. “None of the stories actually agree on what he did to deserve it, but he was told to get lost and never come back.”

  “Correct,” Akin said, irritated. “This was over a thousand years ago, of course. Shallot was a tiny little trading town, so tiny that people sniggered when House Aguirre moved itself completely to Shallot. They thought the idiots were locking themselves out of the Eternal City. And then both families had the last laugh, because their descendents were the only survivors when the Eternal City fell. My family - and Cat’s - were among the original City Fathers. Unfortunately, over the years, we lost most of our power. It took us several hundred years to climb back to the top.”

  “With my family the only one between yours and being right at the top,” I said.

  “And so my father has been feuding with Cat’s,” Akin said. He had the grace to look embarrassed. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you get the basic idea.”

  “It’s silly,” Rose said, petulantly. “Does it really matter who’s right at the top?”

  “I know,” Akin said. I could hear bitter regret in his voice. “But my father thinks so.”

  “So does mine,” I said. “The family on top gets the best clients. And as long as they’re careful, they get to stay on top.”

  I looked over the city, silently picking out famous buildings and landmarks. Magus Court, clearly visible even as mist started to drift in from the sea; McDonald Hall, glowing with unearthly light; the Crown Prince’s flotilla, anchored on the very edge of our immense harbour ... I’d heard that a delegation from North Cairnbulg were on the way, just to visit their princess and her husband. Shallot was going to be paying host to them ...

  There was a blinding flash of light, from Water Shallot. A massive fireball rose into the air, followed rapidly by the sound of thunder. An explosion ...

  Rose stared. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Akin said, shocked. I could hear the sound of panic as smoke billowed over the city. “Cat?”

  “I don’t know either,” I said. “But I think we'd better get inside.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alarms started to ring as we made our way down the stairs.

  “ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS, ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS,” the Castellan’s voice thundered. It echoed through the wards, utterly impossible to ignore. “RETURN TO YOUR DORMS AT ONCE. RETURN TO YOUR DORMS AT ONCE.”

  “We’d better hurry,” Akin said. “We don’t want to be caught outside.”

  I nodded and started to run. Other students were bursting out of study rooms and clattering down the stairs themselves, mingling together into a vast tide of
humanity. They spoke in hushed voices, trying to understand what had happened. We’d been the only ones on the roof. It was quite possible that we were the only ones who’d seen the explosion.

  “We should tell them,” Rose said. Some of the rumours were already starting to get out of hand. Some idiot had been experimenting with potions, again. Another idiot had been testing military spells without proper shielding, again. A third idiot had blown up the South Wing, again. “Cat ...”

  “Not yet,” I said, as we reached the dorm level. A pair of upperclassmen were standing by the doors, directing us to our halls. “Tell them later, when we figure out what happened.”

  “Good idea,” Akin said. “But ...”

  “Cat,” a voice snapped. I looked up to see Sandy, looking as if she was stressed out of her mind. “Where have you been?”

  “Up on the roof,” I said, slowing to a halt. “I ...”

  “And you should be in your dorm,” Sandy said, glaring at Akin. “Do a hundred lines when you get back to your bed. I will go straight to my dorm when ordered to do so.”

  Akin looked irked. “Yes.”

  He nodded to us, then hurried off. His dorm was on the other side of the building. I hoped he wouldn't get in trouble from his Dorm Head as well as Sandy. A hundred lines weren't bad, but it might get worse. His Dorm Head would have to account for all of his charges.

  “And you two can do a hundred lines too,” Sandy added. She jabbed a finger towards the door. “Get in, now.”

  There was no point in arguing, not when she was clearly in a bad mood, so we walked past her and into the dorm. The dorm was filling up rapidly, with six of our eight dormmates already present. They’d probably still been in bed, the uncharitable part of my mind noted rudely. They had never felt the urge to go exploring at weekends when they could just stay in bed until lunchtime. Sandy wouldn't kick them out on the weekend.

  “Sit down on your beds and wait,” Sandy called. “Don’t even go to the toilet.”

  I shrugged and walked over to the bed, careful to check for traps before I pushed back the drapes. Isabella should have left me alone, after I’d beaten her in a duel, but ... she’d been slowly regaining her confidence over the past few weeks. And besides, there were other girls in the dorm. Quite a few of them would want to push at me, just to make it clear that they weren’t intimidated by me. I hadn't thought that was in doubt.

  Rose nudged me. “What do we do?”

  “A hundred lines, it seems,” I muttered back. Sandy was clearly in a very bad mood. I hoped she’d snap out of it soon. If she kept being unpleasant ... we could make an official complaint, but if the Castellan ruled against us we’d get double. Mum had told me that some Dorm Heads turned into tyrants, teaching valuable lessons about life to their charges, yet I hadn’t figured Sandy for one of them. “And wait.”

  I sat down on my bed and reached for a book. Rose sighed and picked up a book of her own, a guide to herbal ingredients for basic potions. I made a mental note to go through what she’d learned with her later and point out all the things the book didn't say. It was written for novices and whoever had written it had left out a number of tricks to make one’s potions a little more potent. Mum had taught me, back when she'd hoped that potions would unlock my magic. But it had been useless ...

  Not entirely useless, I thought. I can brew the potion perfectly. And if someone does the magic for me, I can get it to work.

  Sandy chased Isabella and Zeya McDonald into the dorm, then closed the door with a bang. I glanced at it through my spectacles and saw a handful of locking spells sliding into place. I’d never seen that before, not in the dorms. I wasn't sure if we were being locked in or someone else was being locked out. Sandy paced to the centre of the room, her body glowing with protective spells. It looked as though she’d layered them on with a trowel.

  I removed my spectacles as Sandy glared around the room. “We are locked in here until further notice,” she said. “You are not to leave until they give the all-clear. Anyone who tries will be writing lines until their hand falls off.”

  A ripple of unease ran around the room, but no one had the nerve to protest. I didn’t really blame them. I didn't have the nerve either. Sandy was clearly in a very bad mood. I lowered my head to the book, trying to read, but it was hard to focus on the chapter. I kept thinking about the explosion. It was impossible to be sure, but it looked to have been far too close to buildings my family owned.

  “It can't be a fire,” Gayle Fitzwilliam said. “They’d be chasing us out of the building, surely.”

  “Someone probably managed to create a poisonous gas in a potions lab,” Clarian Bolingbroke said. She snickered. “Or maybe it’s just very smelly.”

  “And so we’re up here, waiting to be choked,” Gayle said. “That doesn't sound fair.”

  “The Castellan believes that this is the safest place for us.” Sandy sounded a little calmer now, thankfully. “And there are hundreds of wards running through the school. Any fire would be snuffed out before it could reach the dorms.”

  I wasn't so sure. Magister Von Rupert had shown me the wards - and the Object of Power at their heart. It was hard to believe that the wards were still perfect ... no, they weren't perfect. The Object of Power had been designed to protect a far smaller building. I had a great deal of respect for the Charm Masters who’d tied countless other wards into the network, but it wasn't particularly stable. Cracks had been appearing in the system even before Rolf and his friends had tricked me into making a wardbreaker.

  Isabella sniffed. “Perhaps you did something,” she said, looking at me. “What were you doing while we were tossing a ball around?”

  I looked back at her, evenly. She was wearing a shirt and shorts, instead of her uniform or weekend outfit. She'd been down at the Arena, then. Her hair was a mess too, indicative of just how quickly she’d had to leave the changing rooms and run for the dorms. If someone reported Isabella to her mother, Isabella would be in serious trouble. Her hair coming loose in public ...? Tut, tut. I would have felt sorry for her if she hadn't been such a pain.

  “We were studying,” Rose said. “Some of us actually have to work.”

  Isabella gave me a sharp look. “Is there any point in you studying? It isn’t as if you can pass the exams.”

  I felt a flash of hot anger. “I had to learn how to forge,” I reminded her, sharply. “And I have to do my own calculations before I forge Objects of Power ...”

  “This is all your fault,” Isabella snapped. “You should just give us back the sword!”

  “I didn’t take it from you,” I snapped back. I’d have been in real trouble if I’d stolen the sword, but I had an excellent alibi. My grandfather hadn't been alive when the sword was lost. “The chain of ownership was broken!”

  “No, it wasn't,” Isabella said. “The sword is ours!”

  “And Cat repaired it,” Rose said. She leaned forward, one hand raised in a casting pose. “I think she should just break it again, if you don’t ...”

  Isabella’s face turned red. She jabbed her hand at Rose, firing off a nasty-looking hex at her. Rose deflected it with an effort - the hex slammed into the ceiling and vanished in a flash of red light - and threw back a hex of her own. Isabella caught it on her wards, then tossed two hexes at Rose in quick succession ... and froze. My bracelet grew warm, just for a second. I didn't have to look at Rose to know she was frozen too.

  Sandy walked towards us, cold anger written all over her face. She’d tried to freeze me too ... I gritted my teeth, wondering if she’d order me to remove my protections. The bracelet and earrings would be easy to remove, but I didn't want to show her where I’d hidden the other two. Alana had taught me that it was better to keep a couple out of sight.

  “There is an emergency,” Sandy said. Her voice was so quiet that I couldn't help flinching away. “And you’re wasting energy on petty feuds.”

  It wasn't a petty feud, I wanted to say. Isabella would not have wanted to destroy
a priceless family heirloom, any more than I wanted to destroy it. But she didn't know that, did she? She probably thought I’d take the sword out from under my bed and prise out the gemstone on the spot. Or ... the words choked in my mouth. I didn't want to say anything.

  “You two can stay that way until they let us go,” Sandy told them. She looked at me. “And as for you ...”

  She jabbed a finger at my feet. I looked down, just in time to see the floor start to melt into ... something. It rose up around my feet and turned hard, again, a moment before I could yank my feet back. I was trapped. I stared at my feet for a moment, then looked up at Sandy. A faint smirk was playing over her face. She’d clearly been waiting for a chance to humiliate me.