Graduation Day (Schooled in Magic Book 14)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She closed her eyes, pressing her mind into the spellware. The suite was a fuzzy mass, blurred out by obscurification wards. And yet ... there were over thirty individual sources of magic within the room. Enchanted objects? Or magicians? Emily’s eyes narrowed. How many cronies had Fulvia brought? It was impossible to be sure, but she was starting to think there were more than a dozen magicians in the suite.

  The wards tightened, suddenly. Emily cursed under her breath and yanked her awareness back, an instant before the wards could snap at her. Her heart started to race as she stood and moved away from the wall, wrapping the shadows around her. If someone was monitoring the wards, they might just react ...

  Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Emily cursed again, then slipped further into the shadows. The school’s wards shifted at her mental command, concealing her from prying eyes. And yet ... Emily tensed as the door opened, a dark figure stepping into the room. He held a staff in one hand, ready for action. She guessed, from the way he moved, he was a trained combat sorcerer. Master Highland? Or someone working directly for Fulvia? Emily had no way to know.

  It could be one of the Guardians, Emily thought. She hoped Lady Barb was a long way away. If she caught Emily ... Or it could be someone else altogether.

  She held herself as still as possible as the dark figure scanned the room, then left as silently as he’d come. Emily didn’t move, even as she reached out to the wards to scan the corridor outside. The sorcerer hadn’t gone far, she realized. He probably hoped that whoever the wards had detected would think he’d gone and make a run for it. She stayed where she was, hoping the silent guard would eventually get bored and leave. It felt like hours before the guard finally turned and walked back into Fulvia’s suite. He’d probably concluded that the school’s wards had merely tried to adapt to Fulvia’s defenses - again.

  I’ll have to make sure it keeps happening, Emily thought, as she slipped out of the room and headed down the corridor. That should keep them from wondering if they got probed.

  She shook her head as she reached the stairwell, then stopped. A faint light was rising towards her, a light-globe ... someone was coming up the stairs. Emily slipped back into the shadows, wondering who would be out and about at this hour. Was someone else trying to probe Fulvia’s defenses? Or was one of her cronies returning from a mission? Or ... she thought someone had tried to get into her room. Perhaps Fulvia had sent someone to try to break in ...

  The timing doesn’t work, Emily reminded herself. Unless Fulvia has an ally in the school ...

  She dismissed the thought as the newcomers came into view. Fulvia walked up the stairs, the light-globe illuminating her path; Master Highland stood next to her, his hands clasped behind his back. Emily willed herself to be as quiet as possible, not even daring to breathe. Master Highland was trained to watch for things that might be just slightly out of place ...

  Fulvia paused, just for a second, before heading down the corridor. Emily held herself still, despite the overpowering temptation to just draw on the wards and blast Fulvia with enough power to reduce her to atoms. She wasn’t sure it would work - the wards hadn’t been designed to allow someone to do that - but she was perhaps the only person who could find out. And yet, she knew it wouldn’t solve anything in the long run. She had to find a way to make Fulvia back off ...

  She watched Fulvia and her companion vanish into the darkness, then hurried down the stairs herself. She’d assumed Fulvia had been in the suite ... she kicked herself, mentally, as the real implications dawned on her. Fulvia was wining and dining Master Highland - and, presumably, bargaining with him. That would give her four votes, Emily thought ... and five, if she could make an agreement with Grimhold. And then ...

  I’ll have to bargain with Master Highland first, Emily told herself. And see what I can offer him to get his vote.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs, then checked her watch. It wasn’t quite midnight, but it was late enough for most students to be in bed. Perhaps she could just go straight to bed herself. She was going to have problems getting out of bed tomorrow, whatever else happened. Professor Armstrong would not be happy if she was late - again - for his class.

  But Jacqui will be pleased, Emily thought. As far as she was concerned, it was a very quiet night.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “THERE WAS NO TROUBLE, THEN?” JACQUI said, the following morning. “You didn’t catch anyone out of bed?”

  “I caught the Grandmaster and two senior tutors,” Emily said, trying to hide her annoyance. Jacqui had summoned Emily to her office as soon as she stumbled out of bed instead of waiting until after breakfast. “As per your orders, I sent them to the Warden.”

  Jacqui stared at her in disbelief, then realized Emily was joking. “That isn’t funny!”

  “I suppose it isn’t,” Emily said. She eyed the latest set of disciplinary reports. They were upside down, making it hard to read, but there were still at least nine separate reports within eyesight. “Just how many students are in trouble these days?”

  “You really let things slide,” Jacqui said, crossly. She moved her papers, covering the reports. “Why wasn’t anyone out of bed?”

  “Perhaps they thought they needed their sleep,” Emily said, dryly. She needed her sleep too. Her body was insisting she go back to bed, even though she knew she couldn’t afford to miss classes. “This is Monday, is it not? Classes resume in—” she made a show of checking her watch “—less than an hour.”

  “That’s never kept anyone from sneaking out after hours,” Jacqui countered. She slammed her hand onto the table. “You should have caught one or two.”

  Emily shrugged. “There are nearly a thousand students in the first four years,” she said, dryly. “And yet, only a handful dare to sneak out each night. Maybe I just got lucky.”

  Jacqui eyed her, suspiciously. Emily wondered, absently, just what was going through her mind. Perhaps she thought Emily had merely holed up in a classroom and read a book until the time she could decently go back to the dorm. Or perhaps she thought Emily had simply turned a blind eye to students out of bed. Emily found it hard to care, as long as Jacqui didn’t guess at the truth. She wouldn’t hesitate to report Emily for probing the edge of Fulvia’s wards.

  And it would give her a distraction from her ongoing failure, Emily reminded herself. The staff would give Jacqui time to establish her authority - or put out enough rope to hang herself - but there were limits. It won’t be long before Gordian has to take official notice of her problems.

  “Very good,” Jacqui said, finally. “I want you to patrol on Tuesday and Wednesday too.”

  Emily shook her head. “I have prior engagements.”

  Jacqui scowled. “What could possibly be more important than keeping the school in order?”

  “I’ve got late classes on Tuesday,” Emily told her. “And Cat invited me to Dragon’s Den on Wednesday.”

  “Oh,” Jacqui said. A slow smile spread across her face. “A date?”

  Emily mentally kicked herself, sharply. She hadn’t needed to mention Cat’s name. Or anything, really. But then, it was a good excuse. Jacqui wouldn’t question someone going on a date. Emily was certainly old enough to try to arrange her own match, rather than rely on her parents or relatives. And Jacqui would certainly understand why Emily would want to arrange it.

  “It’s just a ... a night on the town,” she said, feeling her face flush. It was none of Jacqui’s business. She hadn’t even told Alassa or Imaiqah. “I don’t know if it’s a date.”

  Jacqui smirked. “A boy inviting a girl out doesn’t want to play kingmaker, you know,” she said, wryly. “Congratulations. I wouldn’t dare stand in your way.”

  Emily nodded, curtly. “Is there anything else? Or can I go?”

  “I may need you to supervise detentions later in the week,” Jacqui said. “I don’t have time to handle them myself.”

  “Perhaps there is something to be said for handing out fewer detentions,” Emily
said, deadpan. “I had problems managing my time too.”

  “You also managed to let a number of problems get out of hand,” Jacqui reminded her. “You deserved to lose your post.”

  Emily felt a flicker of annoyance. Jacqui had a point, but Jacqui was making the opposite mistake. Emily had been too loose - particularly where Frieda had been concerned - yet Jacqui was being too strict. Few magicians would take that lightly, not when learning to stand up for themselves was a vital part of magical education. Jacqui had practically united the entire student body against her.

  And anyone who hexes her successfully has to be let go, Emily thought, as she turned away and headed for the door. The wards were even stronger, charms and hexes piled together into an unwieldy mass. It’s only a matter of time before something blows.

  Jacqui spoke, behind her. “I didn’t dismiss you.”

  “No,” Emily agreed. A number of sharp comments flashed through her mind, but she resisted the temptation to say them and start a fight. “You didn’t.”

  She stepped through the door, feeling her back start to itch. If Jacqui slammed a hex into her protections ... nothing happened, even though she was certain Jacqui had considered throwing something at her. Emily closed the door, torn between an odd flicker of sympathy and a wry awareness that Jacqui had brought all of her troubles on herself. She wouldn’t listen to advice from anyone, least of all Emily. And besides, there was something about Jacqui that made Emily feel a little bitchy.

  Which I really shouldn’t, she told herself, firmly. Jacqui is more than just Melissa’s former hanger-on.

  Sure, her thoughts reminded her. But when has she ever showed anything else to you?

  She considered the thought as she went down for a hasty breakfast. Jacqui had never been more than Melissa’s satellite. She’d been Melissa’s crony from birth right up until the day Melissa had been disowned and then ... Emily shook her head. She didn’t know. There was something odd about having one’s best friends chosen by one’s parents ... were they even friends? Jacqui would not have found it easy to talk to Melissa outside Whitehall, after the disownment, but she could easily have talked to Melissa when she returned to school. Yet she hadn’t. Melissa had been alone ever since she’d been cast out of her family.

  She has Markus, Emily reminded herself. She felt a moment of envy as Melissa’s memories rose to the fore - Melissa and Markus complemented one another in a way Emily and Caleb had never done - and then pushed the memories aside. It felt as though she was peeking on them, even though Melissa had willingly agreed to let Emily read her mind. She’s braver than she looks.

  Breakfast was coming to an end by the time Emily walked into the dining hall, but she was able to snag a bowl of warm porridge and a cup of Kava before the staff started clearing the tables. It tasted bland, but she didn’t feel the urge to eat anything stronger. She knew she should eat bacon and eggs, or something else to give her energy, yet she couldn’t force herself to eat. She hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. Thankfully, Professor Lombardi had told them the first class of the day would be purely theoretical. She shouldn’t need much energy to keep her going until lunchtime.

  Famous last words, she told herself. She pocketed a handful of ration bars as she stood and left the room. I might discover he changed his mind last night.

  She walked to the classroom and sat next to the Gorgon as Professor Lombardi launched into a long and complicated lecture on the interaction of different spell components. Normally, Emily would have found it fascinating, but the gnawing worry about Frieda kept her from focusing on the work. She was lucky, she supposed, that Professor Lombardi didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her. He was more interested in starting them off on a set of practical exercises.

  “Do not even think about casting any of these spells until I’ve checked them,” he ordered, briskly. “The slightest misstep could cause you no end of trouble.”

  Emily nodded. The spellwork was astonishingly complex, so complex she thought it would be easy to trim half the incants out of the network and achieve the same result. But it wouldn’t be quite so flexible, even if it would be less frustrating. Altering one variable would automatically cause a number of other variables to either shift out of position or vanish altogether, collapsing the entire network in their wake. She felt her eyes start to hurt as she worked her way through the equations, trying to understand how they went together. It was a grim reminder that, no matter how far she’d come in five years, she still had a long way to go.

  But I saw that last year, Emily reminded herself. Void went toe-to-toe with a necromancer and held his own.

  It was a relief - a profound relief - when the bell finally rang and Professor Lombardi dismissed the class. Emily felt her stomach growl as she rose, picking up her notes and nodding farewell to the Gorgon. She’d have to spend more time on the spellwork, she told herself glumly. Maybe she could find a spare hour or two as the week rolled on ...

  Caleb fell into step beside her as they left the classroom. “Emily,” he said. “Can we talk?”

  Emily blinked. She hadn’t had much time for Caleb over the last couple of weeks, but she thought he understood. He certainly knew that Emily had far too much on her plate. And yet ... he sounded off. Her stomach growled, again. She wanted - she needed - to eat.

  “Yeah, but not for long,” she said. “I need to eat.”

  He shot her a concerned look. “You’re looking thinner,” he said. “Have you been eating properly?”

  Emily frowned. The robes hid everything below her neck. A watcher who saw her lower body wouldn’t be able to tell if she was male or female, let alone guess at her age or weight. She certainly hadn’t noticed anything when she’d been getting dressed. But Caleb could see her face ... she rubbed her chin, wondering if her face had changed so gradually she hadn’t noticed. It was possible, she supposed. Or maybe he was imagining things.

  “I didn’t have much for breakfast,” she said, shortly. They stopped by a classroom and peered inside. It was empty. “Come in here?”

  She cast a privacy ward as they closed the door. The dust suggested that the classroom probably wasn’t in use - it was hard to escape the impression that Whitehall’s staff had expected a far greater number of students - but that wouldn’t stop the school’s wards keeping an eye on them. Someone might just leave a firecracker hex on the teacher’s chair, after all, even if the prank wouldn’t pay off for years. The culprit might be long gone by the time an unwary tutor sat down.

  If the hex lasted so long, she reminded herself. Old Whitehall had been infested with hexes, booby traps waiting to snare unwary visitors. She still had no idea who’d built the castle, but their spells had lasted decades, perhaps centuries. But then, so close to the nexus point, they might be able to draw power from it directly.

  She sat on a desk and looked at Caleb. He was antsy, moving backwards and forwards in a manner that worried her. He seemed to be having great difficulty even looking at her, something that was arguably worse. He’d seen her naked, after all. But then, neither of them had been really sure how to react after their relationship had reached its end. If they hadn’t needed to work together, she suspected they would have separated completely.

  Her stomach rumbled, loudly. “I don’t have time,” she said, shortly. She glanced at her watch. They had just under an hour to eat before the next class and she really didn’t want to eat so fast that she made herself uncomfortable. “What do you want?”

  Caleb looked down at her. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” Emily snapped, allowing her irritation to show. “What?”

  “That you and Cat are going on a date,” Caleb said. “Is it true?”

  Jacqui, Emily thought. She felt a hot flash of anger, mingled with the awareness that it was her fault. If she’d been a little more careful, Jacqui would never have known. She would just have had to think of another excuse. Damn it!

  “He invited me to dinner,” Emily said, finally. She didn’t h
ave time for this. It wasn’t as if she was cheating on Caleb, was it? Their relationship had ended nearly a year ago. “Does it matter?”

  “Dinner,” Caleb repeated. “And you just agreed?”

  Emily took a long breath, fighting to keep her rising anger under control. “He asked me to dinner. It isn’t as if we’re going to his house!”

  “Or your house,” Caleb said. “Does he know you have a house in Dragon’s Den?”

  Emily felt her temper snap. “Why do you care? We’re not together any longer, are we?”

  Caleb took a step backwards, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’m worried about you. He’s not ...”

  “Like you?” Emily finished. That was true. Cat and Caleb were very different people. But that didn’t give Caleb the right to control her life. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can handle yourself, magically,” Caleb said. “But there are other ways to get hurt ...”

  “Like you deciding you didn’t trust me after all?” Emily snapped. She considered - briefly - tearing down Jacqui’s wards and throwing a stink bomb into her office. Or something suitably humiliating. She didn’t need this argument, not now. “Or you deciding to start a courtship I barely understood ...”

  Caleb’s face flushed. “I’m sorry. I ...”

  Emily glared down at her pale hands, then looked up. “You’re a good friend,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. “And I enjoyed what we did together. And I’m sorry about the way things ended ...”

  She looked down again, trying not to think about their brief - too brief - time together. Caleb hadn’t been her first kiss, but everything else ... he’d been her first. And she’d been his first too. There was something special in that, she thought, even if there had also been a great deal of fumbling. Neither of them had really known what they were doing.

  The thought saddened her, dampening her anger. If she’d known what was going to happen ... she shook her head slowly. Everything she’d done had seemed perfectly reasonable, at the time. Only hindsight suggested otherwise ... and hindsight was always retrospective. Only God - and demons - knew the future.