“Which is another reason to ask my mother to speak for her,” Caleb insisted. “It prevents Fulvia from dragging my family - and my sister - onto the witness stand. I don’t want Marian to face an interrogation from a bunch of angry jurors.”
Which would probably get Frieda executed on the spot, Emily thought, grimly. If Marian stands up, in her current state, she’ll have them all feeling sorry for her.
“Furthermore,” Caleb continued remorselessly, “my mother speaking for Frieda is a pretty solid sign that she doesn’t consider Frieda guilty. She wouldn’t stand up and fight for Frieda’s life and freedom if she thought Frieda had acted of her own free will.”
“I suppose,” Emily said.
She sighed. She wasn’t sure what to do. Caleb made a convincing case, but ... she had no idea if Sienna would even agree. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her if she did blame Frieda for Marian’s condition. And besides, Lady Barb might be a better choice. She’d have to write Lady Barb a letter, sooner rather than later. The afternoon was going to be spent writing letters.
“In the meantime, you work on finding proof that Frieda was actually manipulated,” Caleb said. “And, perhaps, find ways to undermine Fulvia’s position. If you can draw a line between Fulvia and Daze, she might just abandon the proceedings rather than risk being called to account for herself.”
Emily nodded, shortly. “How will the inquest proceed? I mean ... what happens?”
“I don’t know which set of rules they’ll use,” Caleb said. “The most basic inquest will be carried out by the grandmaster himself, serving as sole judge and jury. I doubt the grandmaster will go for that, if only because it’ll make him powerful enemies whatever he decides. Then you have the tutors serving as the jury, which isn’t likely to happen either.”
“Ouch,” Emily muttered. She could have bribed Gordian, if he was serving as judge and jury. She had something she knew he wanted. But the tutors? Some of them probably hated her now. They’d nominated her for Head Girl, a position she’d lost because of her own carelessness. “And the other two?”
“Both have outside sets of jurors,” Caleb said. “One has the jurors chosen at random, the other has both sides nominating jurors. I’d bet on one of those, just to shift the blame a little, but which one? I have no idea.”
“I understand.” Emily groaned. “We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”
“I’m afraid so,” Caleb said. “Do you want me to write to my mother?”
Emily hesitated. “I’d like to ask Lady Barb first,” she said, truthfully. “But you can ask your mother to prepare herself.”
“She might also be called as a witness,” Caleb reminded her. “Asking her to serve as the Defender eliminates that possibility.”
“I’d still like to ask Lady Barb first.” Emily looked up at him. “Are there no other options?”
“Not that I know about.” Caleb shrugged. “You could try and talk House Ashworth out of bringing charges, but you’d need a fairly hefty bribe.”
Emily considered it for a long moment. Fulvia would be satisfied with nothing less than Emily’s head on a platter, but what about the rest of her family? Emily had plenty of magical concepts she could show them, from batteries to the secrets behind Whitehall’s nexus point. If she offered them to the family ...
It would cause problems, she told herself. The nexus point secrets were bad enough, in the wrong hands. She dreaded to imagine what unfriendly minds could do with them. And the batteries would be even worse. But those problems would be in the future.
“I’ll think about it,” Emily said. “Do you know anyone who might take a message to Melissa’s grandfather?”
Caleb frowned. “Adana would probably be the best bet, although she’s too young to have any serious influence,” he said. “Melissa herself has been disowned.”
“I know,” Emily said. “Can she not talk to her father? I mean, as a private citizen?”
“Probably not,” Caleb said. “It would depend on the exact terms of her banishment. And they might be very harsh indeed.”
“I’ll ask her,” Emily said. “And then ...”
Caleb held up a hand. “Emily, be careful. Fulvia wouldn’t go to all this trouble for Frieda.”
Emily felt a chill running down her spine. She’d concluded as much herself, but it still bothered her to hear Caleb say it too. Fulvia wasn’t interested in Frieda, not really. She wanted Emily. And that meant ...
She rubbed her forehead in frustration, trying to resist the urge to second-guess herself. The wrong move could bring everything crashing down. All she’d done over the last six years, everything she’d re-created from Earth and given to her new world ... it could all be destroyed beyond repair. Frieda was just a pawn in a deadly game. Fulvia was gunning for Emily herself.
Caleb patted her hand. “I’m on your side. And you do have other friends.”
Emily looked at him. “Enough?”
There was a sharp tap on the door.
Caleb looked irked. “Open.”
Melissa stepped into the room. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t managed to go to sleep. She probably hadn’t. Trainee Healers were expected to practice on anyone unlucky enough to enter the infirmary, unless their wounds were genuinely serious. The dueling club and martial magic produced a steady string of injuries to keep the healers in practice.
“Emily,” she said. “Madame Kyla sent me to get you. Frieda is awake!”
Emily blinked in surprise. That was early. Madame Kyla had said that Frieda wouldn’t be awakened for at least a couple of days. Had something gone wrong? Or right, perhaps. Frieda might have recovered faster than anyone had expected. She felt a surge of hope, mingled with bitter fear. Soul magic was dangerous. Someone might look normal up until the moment they collapsed in a heap.
She stood. “I’m coming,” she said. “Caleb?”
“I’ll see you later,” Caleb said. “Good luck.”
Chapter Five
FOR A LONG MOMENT, EMILY COULDN’T help wondering if the infirmary’s patients had switched beds in the night.
The girl sitting upright in the bed couldn’t be Frieda, could it? She was so thin, so weak ... her body was unmarked, but her faint movements suggested she was in pain. And yet, the face was the same. Emily shivered as she remembered the thin girl she’d met three years ago. Frieda had fallen, and fallen far.
“Frieda,” she breathed.
She walked forward, leaving Melissa by the door. Frieda didn’t look up, didn’t even move as Emily approached. Her eyes remained fixed on the bed. The white nightgown she wore draped oddly over her body, as if it had been designed for someone much larger. Emily had the impression, again, that Frieda was smaller. Her magical signature was dangerously muted.
There’ll be wards around the room, she reminded herself. The healers won’t want her lashing out with magic while they’re trying to heal her.
She sat down on the bed, unsure what to do. Should she hug this ... this stranger in a friend’s body? Or should she try to talk? Or ... she didn’t know. Frieda had been through hell. Daze had warped her mind, then ... then Emily might well have inflicted further damage while trying to undo Daze’s work. Madame Samra’s words echoed in her mind. Soul magic was dangerous, particularly when done in haste. Emily might well have saved Frieda from one problem only to cause any number of others.
“Frieda,” she said, quietly.
Frieda looked up, then lunged forward. Emily almost yanked up her magic, a second before Frieda wrapped her arms around Emily and held her, tightly. Her entire body was shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks. Emily hugged her back, cursing Daze and Fulvia under her breath. If Frieda could not recover, she promised herself, she’d spend the rest of her life making Fulvia pay for what she’d done. She had knowledge and power. She could use it to take down the ancient crone ...
But Fulvia isn’t the only problem, she reminded herself, as Frieda sobbed. It’s the entire family that needs to be convinc
ed to back off.
She patted Frieda’s back, awkwardly. Frieda didn’t seem to have any self-control ... Emily wasn’t sure she had any conscious thoughts. She’d be awfully embarrassed if she ever recovered, Emily was certain. Losing control like that would be mocked relentlessly, if it had happened in class. Emily wondered, bitterly, if Frieda would ever be able to return to classes. She certainly wasn’t in any state to face her classmates, let alone the teachers.
“I’m sorry,” Frieda said, between sobs. She clutched Emily as a drowning man might clutch a life preserver. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Emily lied. She heard a faint snort from behind her, but didn’t look round to see who was there. “You’ll get better soon.”
Madame Kyla appeared, holding a potion bottle in one hand. She gently pulled Frieda back and pressed the bottle to her lips. Frieda drank quickly, her movements odd; Emily wondered, grimly, if she’d been enchanted to make her more compliant. There was something oddly jerky about the way she lay back in the bed. A second later, she was asleep.
Emily looked at the healer. “What did you give her?”
“A tailored sleeping potion,” Madame Kyla said. She waved a hand over Frieda, then nodded to herself. “It’ll put her back to sleep for another few hours.”
“And then?” Emily stood, suddenly feeling very old. “What happens when she wakes up the next time?”
“She’s already shown some reaction to you,” Madame Kyla said, briskly. She nodded to the door. Emily took the hint and followed her and Melissa out of the room. “We’re hopeful that she’ll recover to the point where her mentality can be examined within the next few days. By then, we should also have repaired most of the damage to her body. The nutrient potions alone will do her a power of good.”
She looked pained as she closed the door behind them. “That said, it may be a long time before she recovers completely. She veered between being helplessly lethargic and crying fits when she woke up. We’re keeping her under very close observation, but it may be hard to prevent her from committing suicide. Her magic may kill her if the desire to end her life grows overpowering. She begged us to kill her, you see.”
Emily started. “She tried to kill herself after Daze’s death,” she said. “Did he leave another suicide command in her mind?”
“It’s possible,” Madame Kyla admitted. “And its equally possible that Frieda feels she simply cannot go on. We won’t know until she’s recovered enough to tell us.”
“I see,” Emily said, slowly.
She looked at the closed door, fighting down the urge to run back inside and sit next to her friend until she recovered. She understood, all too well, just how strong the urge to end it all could be. There had been times when she’d thought about killing herself, when she’d gathered the pills necessary to end her life ... she wasn’t sure, at times, just why she’d survived long enough for Shadye to kidnap her. Perhaps there had been a part of her mind that had simply refused to give up.
I could have left home at eighteen, she thought. If nothing else, I would have been away from my mother and stepfather. And then ...
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. Right now, she had other problems.
“Madame Samra will examine her once she’s a little more stable,” Madame Kyla added, as she led the way into her office. “It may be possible to prove that she was manipulated by magic. In that case ...”
“I’d have something I could show the inquest.” Emily rubbed her forehead. It was early morning, yet she felt unbearably tired. The urge to go back to bed was almost overpowering. “That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Madame Kyla said. “But a lot would depend on precisely what was found.”
“Until then, she stays here,” a new voice said.
Emily looked up, then blinked in surprise as she saw the Warden. The homunculus was standing by the wall, looking oddly inhuman. It wasn’t his looks, she noted as she took in his shape and form; it was his demeanor. He was completely motionless while standing still, utterly unmoving. His eyes didn’t blink, his face didn’t twitch ... even his hair didn’t seem real. He could pass for human, in dim light, but he wasn’t a living being. His bland features, neither handsome nor ugly, only underlined the impression that there was something fundamentally wrong with him.
“I’m surprised you left your office,” Emily said. “What are you doing here?”
“The Grandmaster wishes to ensure that Frieda does not leave her room, either of her own free will or under duress,” the Warden said. His voice was toneless, as chillingly inhuman as his face. “I am present to watch her.”
Emily nodded, curtly. The Warden’s duty was to mete out corporal punishment to students, nothing else. But then, he was connected to the wards. A full-fledged homunculus would make a pretty effective guard if the spellwork that created him was solid. Bribing the Warden - or even subverting him - was close to impossible. Gordian had made a good call, she admitted sourly. Emily was probably the only person who could work around the Warden without being caught.
At least Fulvia won’t be able to kidnap Frieda, Emily told herself, firmly. They’ll need a legal determination before they can take her out of the school.
Madame Kyla cleared her throat. “The recovery may be a long one, I’m afraid,” she said, firmly. “But we’ll do everything in our power to stabilize her.”
“I know,” Emily said.
She gritted her teeth as Madame Kyla continued to talk, explaining everything she’d be doing to help Frieda. The Nameless World didn’t have any real concept of mental health, let alone mental treatment. There were no therapists, let alone healers trained in helping the mentally ill crawl back from the brink. It was practically taboo to even think about treating the insane.
Because some magicians would be unstoppable if they combined vast power with sanity, Emily thought, bitterly. Treating the mentally ill might lead to getting your own throat cut.
She understood the reasoning. Dua Kepala had been sane enough to nearly overrun an entire country and even he had bouts of necromantic madness. A sane necromancer would be an utter nightmare. Oh yes, she understood the reasoning. But she didn’t like it. Frieda hadn’t been experimenting with necromancy when her mind had been warped out of shape.
And yet ... Frieda might never be allowed to go free. If she was insane, or even mentally unstable, it was possible that she’d be put down like a wild animal. She was young, but she was powerful; untrained, yet brimming with potential. There were people who would want to put her to death, simply because she was dangerous. Emily could see their reasoning too.
But I won’t let it happen, she thought, digging her nails into her palms. I won’t!
Madame Kyla coughed. “Are you listening to me?”
Emily flushed. “I’m just a little distracted,” she admitted, ruefully. There was no point in trying to lie. She’d missed just about everything the healer had said. “I’m worried about her.”
“So you should be,” Madame Kyla said. Her voice was blunt. “Physically, she will recover. Mentally, I’m not so sure.”
“Thank you,” Emily said.
“Come back, every day,” Madame Kyla added. “Frieda may respond well to you.”
“I will,” Emily promised. She looked at the Warden and shivered. “Will you allow Frieda to have other visitors?”
“If they behave themselves,” the Warden rumbled.
They will, Emily thought, although she wasn’t sure who’d come visit. Frieda used to have more friends, but her behavior over the last few months had driven them away. Perhaps I can get some of them to visit.
She pushed the thought aside as she walked out of the office, Melissa behind her. “We need to talk,” she said. “Is there an empty room nearby?”
“Just down the corridor,” Melissa said. “Coming?”
Emily followed her down the corridor and into a small room. It was empty, save for a pair of chairs and an empty desk. She closed
the door, then cast a privacy ward that Lady Barb had taught her a few years ago. It wasn’t perfect, she recalled Lady Barb saying, but anyone powerful or skilled enough to break through the ward would set off alarms. Some of the more complex wards were less secure in the long term. They didn’t react quite so badly to being hacked.
“Fulvia is back,” she said again, then outlined everything that had happened. “How did she retake control of the family?”
Melissa paled. “I have no idea,” she said. “My grandfather ... ah ... Balbus Ashworth ... said she wouldn’t be allowed back. But he is Fulvia’s son.”
And his son died shortly after Melissa’s younger siblings were born, Emily thought. If that was a coincidence, she’d eat her non-existent hat. He’d been more than old enough to ask pointed questions about why Fulvia was dominating the family. But if Fulvia killed him, why wasn’t she caught?
She dismissed the thought with a flicker of irritation. Fulvia was clearly skilled at covering her tracks - if, indeed, Melissa’s father had been murdered. There was no way to know what had happened. It could have been an accident. Emily had heard plenty of stories about magicians who’d accidentally blown themselves up - or worse - while trying to push the boundaries of magical knowledge. Her own experiments had come far too close to total disaster time and time again.
“I haven’t heard anything from them,” Melissa added. There was a hint of pain in her voice. “My disownment has been total.”
Emily felt a stab of sympathy. Melissa had had a family, even if the matriarch had seen her as a pawn rather than a person in her own right. To be cast out and shunned had to hurt, badly. Melissa had Markus - and the start of a promising career - but she’d still lost her family. It was better than being married to Gaius, Emily supposed, yet ... she shook her head, tiredly. No matter what happened, someone wasn’t going to be happy.
She leaned forward. “Do you have no contact with them at all?”
“None,” Melissa said. “Anyone who contacted me would face disownment themselves - anyone I contacted would be expected to burn the letter and then forget it. It’s the rules, Emily. I went against my family and I have to be punished.”
Graduation Day (Schooled in Magic Book 14) Page 5