Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We made it,” Alassa said, very quietly. “Make sure you jam the door open. We don’t want to get locked out here.”

  “That would be embarrassing,” the Gorgon agreed, dryly.

  Emily had to smile as Alassa opened her bags and laid the blankets on the stone floor. They wouldn’t be in any danger, she was sure, but they’d be caught in the morning and laughed at by the entire school. She sat down on the blankets and started to unpack the box of sandwiches, shaking her head in disbelief. Cheese sandwiches, cold chicken and ham, potato salad, lettuce and tomato, lashings of ginger beer...if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that Alassa had been reading stories about the Famous Five. Her friend must have bribed one of the cooks to get so much food on short notice.

  The Gorgon had the same idea. “How did you ask them for the food?”

  “Told them we were planning a picnic after the games tomorrow,” Alassa said. “They were quite happy to provide what I asked.”

  Emily frowned. She hadn’t planned to attend the games - she had far too much work to do - but Frieda would be there...wouldn’t she? Alassa would be furious if Frieda didn’t show up, particularly after working so hard to earn a place on the team. Emily wouldn’t have cared to be a Second Year with a Fourth Year mad at her. But then, she’d been a First Year who’d had students from both Fifth and Sixth Year mad at her.

  Maybe I should go, she thought. She could take an hour away from her work with Caleb, if he didn’t mind. She needed to talk to Frieda. I could wait until the game had finished, then catch up with her.

  “Here,” Alassa said, passing her a piece of chicken. “You should try eating instead of thinking.”

  Emily smiled, took the piece of chicken and began to nibble. It tasted heavenly: pure chicken, without any of the flavorings the cooks used for regular meals. She rose to her feet and strolled over to the battlements, peering out over the darkened countryside. The flow of magic around the school seemed stronger in the open air, but there were no lights beyond the wards. She looked towards Dragon’s Den, then up at the stars. Were they the same stars as shone on Earth? There was no way to know.

  “I’m going to miss this place,” Alassa said, as she stepped up behind Emily. “I can be myself here.”

  “You should stay,” Emily said. “You could do another couple of years, couldn’t you?”

  “Father wouldn’t let me take any of the oaths,” Alassa said. “I am the Princess of Zangaria, Heir to the Throne. If I’d had a brother...”

  She shook her head. “I have to go back after the end of term and learn how to rule,” she added. “Father says he intends to pass more of his duties to me, once I’m out of school. I’m not looking forward to it.”

  Emily understood. Alassa would have power - real power - but she would also live in a gilded cage, even if she did have Jade as a husband and magic of her own. She would be forever imprisoned by her name and title. Jade might be able to leave - as a Court Wizard, he would be expected to deal with any magical threats to the kingdom - but Alassa would be trapped. How could anyone endure such an existence?

  “I’m sorry, you know,” Alassa added. “You will come see me, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will,” Emily said. She’d be busy at Whitehall for the next two years, but she would have holidays. It wouldn’t be hard to travel to Zangaria. “And you will have the parchments.”

  “I need to get a private one to share with Jade,” Alassa said. “He was promising he’d visit, at the end of the second term. We can make one then.”

  “Good thinking,” Emily said.

  Alassa nudged her. “And how are you and Caleb getting along?”

  Emily blushed. “Very well,” she said. “It’s...different.”

  “I suppose it would be,” Alassa said, wistfully. “At least you weren’t threatened with a chastity spell.”

  “Your father actually threatened to cast a spell on you?” Emily asked, shocked. “A chastity spell?

  “I told him I’d leave if he tried,” Alassa said. “How could I learn self-discipline with a spell keeping me in line?”

  She stared into the darkness, shaking her head. “It isn’t easy,” she admitted. “But if father hadn’t been able to ask questions...”

  Someone cleared her throat, loudly. Emily jumped, then spun around. Mistress Irene was standing by the door, scowling at them. Her pinched face didn’t look remotely pleased.

  “Lights Out was nearly three hours ago,” she said, into the aghast silence. “Why are you up here in the middle of the night?”

  Emily winced as she was beckoned forward to stand next to the other girls. They’d been caught...the unspoken rules prevented the staff from using the wards to track them, but they had left the door open. Maybe Mistress Irene had walked down the corridor and felt the draft. Whatever the cause, it hardly mattered. They were in deep trouble.

  “I’m waiting for an explanation,” Mistress Irene said, patiently. “Why are you up here?”

  Alassa stepped forward. “It was my idea,” she said. “I brought them up here.”

  “I see,” Mistress Irene said. Emily didn’t dare to even breathe. “And you, a Dorm Monitor, decided to break the rules you are charged with enforcing?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” Alassa said. “It was my fault. I should be punished, not them.”

  Mistress Irene eyed them all for a long moment. “And so you shall be,” she said. “You will come with me, now. The rest of you” - Emily cowered under her cold gaze - “will return to your bedrooms and report to your advisers in the morning. Go.”

  Emily caught sight of Alassa’s pale face before hurrying down the stairs and back to their bedroom. Alassa was in deep trouble, but she wasn’t the only one. Emily knew...

  She caught herself as a thought occurred to her. Alassa had taken her duties seriously, even though she’d had little power. And now she’d thrown them away...or had she? Had she meant to be caught?

  By the time Emily woke up to discover that Alassa hadn’t returned to the room, suspicion had hardened into certainty.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “THAT WAS DELIBERATE, WASN’T IT?”

  Lady Barb lifted her eyebrows. “There are more polite ways to enter a room and start a conversation, you know.”

  Emily winced, but refused to be deflected. “That was set up deliberately,” she said. “I don’t think Alassa would have thrown away her position accidentally.”

  “People do make stupid mistakes,” Lady Barb observed. “You’ve been known to do quite a few stupid things yourself.”

  “This isn’t about me,” Emily said. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t even had breakfast. “Why did she...just throw it away?”

  Lady Barb met her eyes. “Why do you think she threw it away?”

  “We were caught out of bounds in Second Year,” Emily said, sharply. “We were sent to the Warden, caned and then dispatched back to bed. I was not asked whose idea it was...”

  “You wouldn’t have been,” Lady Barb said.

  “And no one tried to confess,” Emily continued, ignoring the interruption. “I don’t think it would have mattered if someone had confessed.”

  Lady Barb shrugged. “You do know that Alassa won’t be returning after her Fourth Year?”

  Emily nodded. “Alassa said as much,” she said. “Is it wrong of me to wish otherwise?”

  “Not really,” Lady Barb told her. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Emily. “Alassa...has good reason to conceal the true scope of her abilities. Being caught luring six students into mischief - and she a Dorm Monitor, no less - will be enough to get her placed into indefinite suspension. To all intents and purposes, she will have been expelled.”

  Emily felt as if she’d been punched in the chest. “You can’t expel her!”

  “She will complete the rest of the year, along with the exams, but her grades will not be made public,” Lady Barb said, as if Emily hadn’t spoken. “It will be agreed, after some s
ecret negotiations that will unaccountably become public, that she will be spared the humiliation of actually being expelled, as long as she doesn’t return to the school after Fourth Year. King Randor will, of course, accept this punishment without making a fuss.”

  “Because it was what he wanted,” Emily said. “She could have told me.”

  “Her father would have given her strict orders to tell no one,” Lady Barb said. “And you know she can’t lie to her father.”

  “So she had to lead us all into temptation,” Emily said. She shook her head, bitterly. “Is it wrong of me to hate this...this whole game of thrones?”

  “It’s the only one we’ve got,” Lady Barb said. Her voice hardened. “Learn how to play the game, or be nothing more than a pawn for the rest of your life.”

  Emily sighed. She felt too tired to be mad at Alassa, who might well not have had much choice. If her father asked her, specifically, how many others had known about the plan ahead of time...she would have no choice but to answer. Alassa might not be a pawn any longer, not now she was the Confirmed Heir to the Throne, yet she wasn’t a Queen. Not yet.

  “I know,” she said, in bitter resignation.

  “You’re doing better than I expected,” Lady Barb said. “But you still have a very long way to go and time is short.”

  She cleared her throat. “We will now discuss your detention.”

  Emily felt her mouth drop open. “But...but it wasn’t real!”

  Lady Barb smiled. “Did Alassa cast a spell on you to make you take part in her midnight feast?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Emily admitted.

  “You made a choice,” Lady Barb said. “It would have been easy, I think, for you to have refused when she offered. Instead, you chose to let her lure you out of bounds. I can’t let that pass, even though it was always doomed to end badly.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said. Something else clicked in her mind. “That’s why Alassa wasn’t allowed to return, wasn’t it? She wasn’t actually punished.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Lady Barb agreed. “It would be the height of unfairness to penalize someone for something they didn’t actually do.”

  Master Grey would probably disagree, Emily thought. He hands out detentions like candy.

  “Let me see,” Lady Barb said. She struck a deliberately thoughtful pose. “It has to be something that will make you reflect, but not something too harsh. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “You could tell me very loudly I’ve been very naughty and I’m not to do it again,” Emily suggested. It was worth a try. “Or you could put me to work on my homework.”

  Lady Barb snorted. “I don’t think either of those are actually punishments,” she said. “I think you can spend an hour helping me in the infirmary. The rate of accidents has skyrocketed over the last couple of weeks.”

  Emily shuddered, remembering the Second Years. “Why?”

  “Good question,” Lady Barb said. “The Grandmaster thought, at first, that it was merely a run of bad luck. You know how many stupid accidents we get each year. Now, however, he’s starting to think there’s something badly wrong.”

  Emily looked at the stone walls. “There’s something not quite right with the wards,” she said. “I can feel it.”

  “They’ve been retuned,” Lady Barb said. “Since the start of term, we’ve discovered a number of attempts to insert various spying and probing spells into the school. One First Year even had his eyes charmed to allow someone else to peer through them. His father, it seems, was interested in something - or someone - at Whitehall.”

  “Me,” Emily said.

  “Probably,” Lady Barb agreed. “The changes in the wards are probably what you sensed.”

  She shrugged, then got up. “There’s something else you can do, afterwards,” she added, as she picked up a couple of bottles and inserted them into her belt. “Go talk to Alassa and reassure her that you’re not angry.”

  “I think she was trying to apologize to me,” Emily said, slowly. “But...”

  “Go talk to her, once I dismiss you,” Lady Barb said. “You need your friends more than ever, I think, and so does she.”

  Emily nodded, and followed Lady Barb to the infirmary. It was clean and bright, but she’d never liked it, not least because she’d spent too much time there. Normally, only a handful of beds were filled, but today several of the students had to share beds or lie on the floor, with only a thin blanket between them and the cold stone. Lady Barb spoke briefly to the Healer, and turned back to Emily.

  “You’ll be healing those with minor injuries,” she said, flatly. “I expect each and every one of them to be healthy when you have finished, but if you run into any problems you are to call me at once. Do not attempt to fix someone when you’re not sure what you’re doing.”

  Emily nodded - it beat changing and washing bedpans, at least - and got to work. The students were mostly younger than her, all with minor injuries that seemed to suggest they’d been deliberately hurt - or that they’d deliberately hurt themselves. She fixed a nasty bruise one girl sported, then asked her how she’d hurt herself. The girl said she’d merely run into a ball while playing Ken.

  “They all have stupid excuses,” she complained to Lady Barb, when the older woman came to check on her. She’d started writing them down after the third such excuse; they all claimed to have hurt themselves accidentally. “It can’t be right.”

  “The verification spells say they’re telling the truth,” Lady Barb said. She sounded perplexed. “It isn’t uncommon for people who have lost fights to claim something - anything - other than the truth, but the spells insist they’re not lying.”

  Emily felt tired and drained by the time the detention finally came to an end. It was practice, she had to admit, and it was more practical than some of the other detentions she’d had to endure, but it was depressing. Lady Barb eyed her for a long moment, and passed her a potion without comment. Emily drank it, trying hard not to gag at the taste; there was a surge of warmth through her body, leaving her feeling a little better. But she knew it wouldn’t last.

  “Go talk to Alassa, then get some lunch,” Lady Barb advised. “I believe there’s food in her room.”

  “Thanks,” Emily said. “Where is she?”

  “In your old room,” Lady Barb said. “I believe you know it.”

  Emily nodded, refusing to rise to the bait, and then hurried towards the room. Whitehall seemed oddly quieter now - Alassa’s team wasn’t the only one playing games, she recalled - and she passed almost no one until she reached the door and knocked. It opened with a click, revealing a tired-looking Alassa lying on the bed, staring up at nothing. Her face was so pale that Emily couldn’t help wondering if she’d eaten anything at all.

  “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Alassa said. “It was just...”

  “It’s alright,” Emily said. She sat next to her friend - it didn’t seem fair how Alassa managed to look beautiful even when she was clearly tired, upset, and depressed - and wrapped an arm around her. “I do understand.”

  Alassa’s blue eyes moved to her. “Lady Barb told you?”

  “I figured it out,” Emily said. “If you’d told me in advance...your father would have known.”

  “I’ll have to make it clear you figured it out,” Alassa said. “Is Imaiqah mad at me too?”

  “I don’t think she’s pleased,” Emily said. Unlike Alassa - or Emily herself - Imaiqah had fewer options if she had to leave Whitehall early. Maybe she was an aristocrat now, but her siblings would inherit most of the real power. “I’ll tell her and she will understand.”

  “They’re all going to hate me,” Alassa said. She sat upright and glared down at her hands. “I think that was the lesson father wanted me to learn. That I could do the right thing, the necessary thing, and still wind up being hated.”

  “A king must have a different view than his subjects,” Emily agreed, neutrally. How many quarrels had there been between kings and
subjects, just because they’d had different views of the world? Or of what needed to be done? “When are you going to come back to the room?”

  “Mistress Irene said I’d have to stay here for a day,” Alassa said. She waved a hand towards the pile of books someone had left on the desk. “And that I should take advantage of my time to work on my studies.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Emily agreed. Alassa would have to remain out of sight long enough for everyone to believe she’d been punished. Her friends would be angry if she hadn’t been, after the detentions they’d been given. “I can stay with you, if you like.”

  “Please,” Alassa said. She shook her head. “Have you managed to corner Frieda?”

  Emily shook her head. “I planned to catch her at the games,” she said, reluctantly. “But I’ll stay with you instead.”

  “It takes some people time to get over their feelings,” Alassa said. “I wasn’t in the best frame of mind after...after we first met.”

  “I remember,” Emily said. She sighed, resting her head in her hands. “Why is life so bloody complicated? Wouldn’t it be easy to go through life not feeling anything?”

  “I’m sure there are wizards who brewed potions to take away their emotions,” Alassa said, dryly. “I think they end up in the Halfway House.”

  She gave Emily a tight hug. “You might not feel bad when you get in trouble, but you wouldn’t feel good when someone praised you,” she said. “You might not feel grief when someone died, yet you wouldn’t feel happiness when a new child was born. You might not wallow in misery when you have a fight with your boyfriend, but you wouldn’t have the happiness of making up afterwards.”

  “And you wouldn’t have anything to spur you to better yourself,” Emily said. “Or to rise to the top in any field you chose.”