Emily didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. The statue was... absurd. It was so badly out of proportion that it looked more like an absurd parody than anything else. She tried to imagine how such a person would walk and drew a blank. Void had cautioned her to wear a hood and cloak, but... if they expected to find someone who looked like the statue, they’d take one glance at her and decide she couldn’t possibly be the Necromancer’s Bane. Charlie Chaplin had once entered a lookalike competition and lost, even though he’d been a star of stage and screen. Emily... she was fairly sure no one would notice if she walked down the street. The descriptions of her she’d read in the broadsheets were vague, when they had even the slightest hint of accuracy.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she walked past a bookshop and paused long enough to glance through the window. There were hundreds of new books in view, from fiction to stories of the war and biographies of powerful figures. She was amused to note a string of books written by exiles, blasting King Jorlem of Alluvia for a string of crimes that she thought weren’t physically possible. A magician with a total lack of scruples could do one hell of a lot, but there were limits. There were more, she noted, including a book that claimed to have been written by Alassa’s former Mistress of the Bedchamber. The picture on the front was a fantasy. They hadn’t even gotten the hair color right!
The bookseller stepped outside and waved at her. “We just got a new shipment, My Lady,” he said. “Would you like to browse?”
“No, thank you,” Emily said. She was tempted to ask if the bookshop had a book on her, but she didn’t want to know the answer. “I’ll be back later.”
The bookseller smiled and hurried back into his shop. Emily turned and headed up the street. She would have loved to browse, to search the shelves for ancient tomes that might have been lost years ago only to resurface in a bookshop, but she didn’t have time. She was already pushing it. The streets seemed to grow more crowded as she passed a pair of dancers, hooting and hollering as they swung around and around. Emily didn’t know what they were doing, but the children and their parents seemed to like it. She felt a flicker of envy as she saw a handful of girls standing beside their loving parents. Would her life have been better or worse, she asked herself, if she’d been raised in the Nameless World? Or would she have found herself a pawn? Melissa had been very lucky to escape such a fate...
She smiled as she saw the restaurant, on the edge of the residential quarter. Jan was standing outside, looking slightly nervous. Emily hesitated, wondering just what was going through his head. Void hadn’t told him his letters had been held back until she recovered. He must have thought she was ignoring him. Or... she sighed inwardly, remembering how angry Cat had been at the accusation he’d left her to die. It wasn’t his fault, but it hadn’t stopped too many of the others accusing him of cowardice. And Jan hadn’t been allowed to go to the war in the first place. He hadn’t had a chance to prove himself.
Silly, Emily thought. Half the problems she’d encountered on the Nameless World could have been solved if one side had backed down and the other agreed not to rub it in too much. Or at all. It wasn’t his fault either.
“Jan,” she called.
Jan looked up, spotted her and smiled. He looked surprisingly young, even though he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than she was. He was tall, a head taller than her, with tanned skin, dark brown eyes and an infectious smile. He’d donned the shirt and trousers of a merchant’s son, rather than an apprentice’s robes. Emily guessed, as she gave him a hug, that he was rebelling against his master. Master Lucknow had always seemed the type of person to insist on observing the formalities at all times.
“Emily,” Jan said, quietly. “Welcome to Celeste.”
“It’s been a while,” Emily said. She allowed him to open the door, then followed him into the restaurant. “I’m sorry about the long silence.”
“It’s alright,” Jan said. “Master Lucknow kept me very busy.”
Emily grinned. “Did he say anything about granting you your mastery?”
“Not yet.” Jan frowned as they sat down. “You know he was away during the war? Left me alone, without any supervision? And now he’s back and... he gave me a bunch of work to do, but otherwise he seems occupied elsewhere. He hasn’t sat down with me to discuss my progress, let alone offer me new lessons. I don’t know what he’s doing.”
“Void’s been busy too,” Emily said. “He thought I needed time to recover.”
Jan gave her a questioning look. “What happened? I heard rumors...”
“They’re not true,” Emily said, quickly. She had no idea what the rumors were, but she was sure they were untrue. “I went into a necromancer’s lair and came out alive. Again.”
“Again,” Jan echoed. “You didn’t get yourself killed?”
“No,” Emily said. It wasn’t entirely true - her bilocated self had died - but she was alive. She’d survived. “I just got a little hurt.”
She sat back in her chair as the waitress came over to take their orders. It still struck her as strange that hamburgers and pizzas were regarded as luxury foods, even though they were relatively simple to make. She supposed it made a certain kind of sense - she’d taught her kitchen staff to make them and her staff had then sold the concept as noble food - but it still bothered her. She wasn’t sure why. She had no interest in banning people from eating whatever they liked... she shook her head. It wasn’t her problem.
“I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries,” she said. “Jan?”
“The same,” Jan said. He grinned at her as the waitress retreated. “Master Lucknow won’t allow newfangled foods in his home.”
Emily smiled. “Where is he now?”
“The White City, I think,” Jan said. “He told me not to expect him back for a week or two.”
“Ouch,” Emily said. “What’ll that do for your apprenticeship?”
“I don’t know.” Jan was suddenly serious. “I want to graduate quickly, but I need to be ready first. And the longer I take to graduate...”
Emily nodded in understanding. Apprentices were supposed to complete their masteries as quickly as possible. The longer it took, the less respect the newborn master would have when he passed his exams. Jan was caught in a bind, unable to graduate and yet unable to seek out another master. It wasn’t something that had really bothered her - she didn’t have to look for employment, when she completed her studies - but she could see how it would irk someone else. Jan might have a delayed mastery through no fault of his own.
“I had an offer,” Jan added. “A bunch of my old schoolmates were talking about moving south and setting up shop in the Blighted Lands. They figured it was time to get there before someone else did. What do you think?”
Cat’s already trying to set up his own country, Emily thought. She’d read his letter with great interest. And he’s running into a bunch of problems.
She took a moment to compose her thoughts. “It will be a long time before the Blighted Lands are fit for human habitation. The handful of inhabitants I encountered were barely keeping themselves alive, barely managing... they weren’t really growing enough. They would have had real problems if the necromancers hadn’t been farming them like animals. Your friends may discover they have problems setting up shop there.”
Particularly if they don’t have a nexus point, her thoughts added silently. They would have real problems just warding themselves against magical storms.
Jan cocked his head. “Do you think it’s worth trying?”
“I think it will be very far from easy,” Emily said. “And they shouldn’t leap into it without careful preparation.”
She frowned. There was a land grab going on. Void had said as much. Magicians would be taking the lead, if only because they could teleport across the Craggy Mountains. But it wouldn’t be long before Alluvia and the other southern kingdoms started trying to claim the mountains themselves. America hadn’t seemed very useful back before the War of
Independence, to the point the British had given up territorial claims on the mainland in exchange for the sugar islands. It had taken two centuries for America to become the linchpin of the world. Who knew what the new kingdoms would become?
Jan started to say something, then stopped as the waitress returned with their food. Emily felt her mouth water as she picked up a fry and ate it. The burger was nothing like the greasy fast food she’d eaten on Earth. It was huge, cooked perfectly; she wondered, suddenly, if she’d be able to eat the whole thing. The waitress would be happy to let her take it home, she was sure, or simply eat the remainder herself. Emily shrugged, reminding herself she had to eat if she wanted to power her magic. A magician who ate poorly would find it hard to cast any spells.
She looked around with interest as more customers entered the restaurant and greeted the waitress. They looked upper-class, although it was hard to tell in a city-state where Sumptuary Laws didn’t exist. They were definitely magicians, magicians who weren’t making any attempt to mask their power. Void had insisted that was a show of insecurity, a hint that the braggart thought he had little to brag about. Emily tended to agree, if only because an unmasked magician was making himself a target. Too many others would come out of the woodwork to challenge him to a fight.
“I don’t know what’ll happen,” Jan said, as he finished his meal. “The world seems to have turned upside down.”
“And everyone is trying to pretend that everything is still normal,” Emily agreed. “It isn’t easy to change.”
Jan stood. “You want a tour of the city?”
“Why not?” Emily stood and took his hand. “Or...”
He smiled, suddenly. “You want to visit my lair? I can show you my charms.”
Emily couldn’t help herself. She giggled. “What will Master Lucknow say?”
“I’m allowed to have guests, as long as they don’t go into his private chambers,” Jan said, seriously. “He’s never objected to anyone before.”
“I’m surprised,” Emily said. “Void isn’t keen on me bringing people home.”
“I imagine he has more secrets,” Jan said. He made a show of looking both ways, then lowering his voice. “Master Lucknow isn’t that special.”
Emily grinned. Jan would be for the high jump, perhaps literally, if Master Lucknow heard that. And... she hesitated, unsure of herself. Jan wasn’t inviting her home to see his magical charms. She was sure of it. He wanted to take their relationship to the next level by inviting her, giving her the opportunity to say no. She was torn between the awareness it had been a long time and the grim certainty it would make her life more complicated. She liked him and...
She made her choice. “Why not?”
Jan took her arm, paid and led her onto the streets. Emily relaxed into his arm, feeling his muscles under the shirt. Jan was strong and healthy - fat magicians were surprisingly rare - and yet he had a sense of calm and composure that made her feel safe. Caleb and she had done a lot of fumbling, she recalled; Cat and she had had a dramatic affair that had burnt out spectacularly. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d warned her they could never be more than lovers. If he’d told her that before they’d slept together...
The streets seemed emptier as they walked away from the shopping district, although the air was humming with wards... more wards, she noted, than she’d sensed on her previous visit. Industrial espionage was rife amongst magicians, with lesser wizards trying to steal the inventions of their superiors and reverse-engineer them into something more useful, but... this was different. The wards were designed to repel necromancer-level attacks, layer upon layer of charms woven into a protective mesh... her heart sank as she realized the truth. They were designed to stop battery-powered spells. She hadn’t expected the secret to leak so quickly. Everyone had sworn oaths to keep the truth to themselves.
They probably didn’t tell, she thought. But someone might have spied on them charging a battery and figured out the truth.
Jan glanced at her as they reached a mid-sized house. “Emily?”
“It’s okay,” Emily said. It wasn’t his fault. “I was just thinking...”
“A terrible habit,” Jan said, dryly. He led her through a maze of wards, then opened the door and cancelled two more. “Don’t try to get into any locked rooms.”
“I understand,” Emily said. “I pledge to hold my hand in your house.”
She looked around with interest as they walked through the door and into a reception room. Master Lucknow seemed to favor the minimalist approach, although he’d installed a sofa and a pair of comfortable armchairs. There were no paintings on the walls, no drinks cabinet... nothing to suggest that visitors were particularly welcome. Powerful wards pulsed through the stone, ensuring that no one could spy on the conversation. She was unsure what it said about the owner’s personality. She’d been in rooms designed to give away as little as possible to unwelcome guests.
“I have my own lab,” Jan said. He sounded nervous, rather than boastful. “Would you like to see it? Or would you like a drink?”
“Just water,” Emily said. She sat on the sofa, heart beating like a drum. “Or juice.”
Jan stepped out the door and returned, carrying two glasses of juice. He sat next to her, his eyes flickering everywhere but never quite meeting hers. Emily remembered Caleb and smiled, feeling a twinge of guilt and regret. Things could have been better... she wondered, suddenly, if Caleb had found someone new. He’d been spending time with a couple of girls at Heart’s Eye.
“I...”
Jan leaned forward and kissed her. It wasn’t their first kiss, but... Emily leaned into the kiss, wrapping her arms around him as it grew more and more passionate. Her body wanted him, despite the risks of complicating her life even further. His hands stroked her back, brushing against her dress. She wondered if he’d have the nerve to undo her clasp or touch her breasts... she felt a thrill of anticipation. Not knowing was half the fun.
She smiled as he drew back slightly, trying to look inviting. Cat had never hesitated. Caleb... she told herself, firmly, to stop thinking of them as Jan moved forward to kiss her again. His kisses grew harder, his hands reaching around to touch her... she pulled him closer, inviting him to straddle her. Her heart was still pounding like a drum...
The wards flickered, signaling an alert. Someone was at the door. Jan jumped off her so fast she thought she’d blasted him with a force punch, pulling his shirt into place before hurrying to the door. Emily swallowed hard, torn between murderous anger and embarrassment. Whoever was at the door had interrupted them and... she felt a sudden urge to rip the person to shreds or call Jan back and tell him to ignore the newcomer. How dare they?
“Emily,” Jan called. He sounded shocked. “It’s for you.”
Emily blinked. No one knew she’d come to Celeste. No one, but Void. He wouldn’t have come for her, yet... who else could it be? “For me?”
“Yes,” a new voice said. Lady Barb stepped into the room. “We have to talk.”
Chapter Four
EMILY TOOK A LONG BREATH, TRYING to compose herself.
It wasn’t easy. Lady Barb... the last she’d heard, Lady Barb had taken Sergeant Miles back to Whitehall. Emily hadn’t expected Lady Barb to seek her out, let alone interrupt her at a delicate moment. She felt a flash of bitter resentment, mingled with irritation and concern. Lady Barb wouldn’t have sneaked around to find her, not when she could just have written a letter. If she was sneaking around, she was doing it behind Void’s back.
“I’m sorry to surprise you,” Lady Barb said. If she knew what she’d interrupted, she had the grace not to mention it. “I needed to talk to you. Alone.”
Emily frowned. Lady Barb looked... older. She’d always been old enough to be Emily’s mother - she’d come to think of the older woman as a mother, of sorts - but now her blonde hair looked as if it was starting to turn white. They’d all been scarred in the war, yet... her blood ran cold as she remembered how Lady
Barb had been hurt and almost killed. It was terrifying to think the older woman might be mortal and yet she couldn’t escape the thought. No one was immortal, not even Void.
“I’ll go work in my lab,” Jan said, breaking the awkward silence. “Or you can leave and go elsewhere.”
“Thank you,” Lady Barb said. “I won’t forget your kindness.”
Jan’s face flickered as he left the room. Emily would have smiled, if the situation hadn’t been so embarrassing. They’d been making out; they’d been on the verge of making love... she wouldn’t have blamed Jan for being angry and hurt that they’d been interrupted. She told herself to be grateful that no one else knew what happened. It was easier to handle if the rest of the world wasn’t laughing in your face.
“Nice young man,” Lady Barb commented, as she set up a handful of privacy wards. The house itself was heavily warded, but it was impossible to be sure Jan - or his master - couldn’t spy on them. They’d designed and constructed the wards. They wouldn’t have had any problems leaving a weakness in place, a trick they could use to spy on their guests. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“You could say that,” Emily said, crossly. Her body was intent on reminding her just how long it had been since... she put the thought aside, angrily. “It’s good to see you again, but...”
She broke off as a thought crossed her mind. “How did you find me?”
“Long story,” Lady Barb said. She shot a meaningful glance at the walls. “I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t been desperate.”
Emily frowned, then motioned for the older woman to continue.
“I need your help,” Lady Barb said. “And... you might have to argue with your master for me.”
Emily stared at her for a long moment. Lady Barb was deeply worried about... something. It was unlike her to dance around an issue, rather than simply stating what she wanted. And if she suspected Emily would have to argue with Void... what did she want? Lady Barb had been one of Void’s former apprentices. They didn’t get on.
Little Witches (Schooled In Magic Book 21) Page 4