Dionne raised her hand. “What if level four spells can’t break the charm?”
“Then congratulate your target on her success,” Damia said, curtly. “Partner up. Now.”
Emily watched, silently, as the class followed Damia’s order. It was easy to see who knew each other, much less trusted each other enough to let them hurl spells at their defenses. Damia moved from group to group as spells began to fly, offering advice to students who were having trouble casting the charm and reprimanding a girl who used a level five spell to blast her partner across the room. The wards caught her before she could crash into the wall and get seriously hurt. Emily helped her to her feet, then pointed her at a chair. She hadn’t disengaged the ward in time to save herself from a nasty headache.
“You’re not trying,” Lenore said. She’d partnered with Lillian, apparently because no one else was willing to partner with either of them. Her voice rose as she criticized her partner. “You’re not trying to shield yourself.”
“Let me help,” Emily said. Up close, Lillian looked as if she couldn’t so much as look Emily in the face. “You need to build the charm up from scratch, first.”
“You’re stuck with the loser,” Dionne jeered. “You’re stuck...”
“Concentrate on your own spells,” Emily advised. Damia hadn’t said anything... why hadn’t she? She could have intervened. She could have... but she’d probably wanted to see how Emily would handle the situation. “Let me help Lillian.”
She looked the younger girl in the eye. It was clear she had a lot of power, but most of it was unfocused. A lack of confidence, perhaps, or a lack of proper training... had she entered Laughter later than usual? Or... Emily put the thought aside for later contemplation and started to demonstrate how to build up the charm, then anchor it to her magic. Lillian followed suit, casting the spell carefully. It wobbled alarmingly - Emily knew she could batter it down through brute force - but it was there.
Emily stepped back. “Lenore?”
Lenore nodded and cast the spell. Lillian caught it on her shield and deflected it. Emily nodded as Lenore cast another spell and another, trying to batter the shield charm down rather than search for weaknesses. Emily hated to think what Void would have said, if she’d tried that trick, although Lenore had been ordered not to use more complex spells. She could only try to dislodge the charm, not crack it...
The charm started to break. “Disconnect,” Emily ordered, as Lenore hurled another spell. “Now...”
Lillian stepped aside, wincing as the charm started to fracture and break. Raw magic flew everywhere, just before Lenore hit it one final time. It shattered, Lillian grunting in pain as the recoil struck her magic. Emily heard someone - Dionne, she was sure - giggle as the young girl stumbled, nearly toppling. Emily put out a hand and steadied her before she could fall and hit the ground. Lillian’s face flushed, alarmingly. Emily winced. She’d just made the younger girl look like a fool in front of her classmates.
“Trade partners,” Lady Damia ordered, before the giggling could get any worse. “I want you moving from partner to partner after every spell.”
Emily stepped back and watched as the girls rotated around the room, alternately casting spells and shielding themselves. It was interesting to watch them get better at protecting themselves, although there seemed to be hard limits on just how far they could go. Emily puzzled over that for a moment, then remembered she’d been started on the more advanced spells practically from scratch. The students who hadn’t taken Martial Magic had lagged behind for years. Damia didn’t seem to feel the urge to speed things up a little.
She moved from student to student, offering help and advice. Dionne and her cronies didn’t seem inclined to listen, but the others did their best. Emily suspected they were in for a nasty shock when they started using level five spells to crack the shields, although that probably wouldn’t happen for a while. Damia would want to be confident the girls could handle the spells and discard a fracturing shield. before letting them mess around with something more dangerous. That might take some time.
“My shield is solid,” Dionne boasted. She was wrapped in magic, the crude charm surprisingly solid for such a young magician. “I’ve held it against everyone.”
“Very good,” Damia said. “Emily, perhaps you would care to test Dionne’s shield?”
Emily kept her face impassive as she stepped forward. Dionne looked... apprehensive, yet oddly confident. Emily blinked - she’d unmasked her power in the town - then understood. Dionne knew she wouldn’t use anything more than a level four spell. That would be cheating. Real cheating. Emily mustered a single spell, then studied Dionne’s spellwork carefully. The girl had done a good job, but there were cracks in the magic. Emily concentrated, aimed and shattered the shield. Dionne gasped, stumbling back in shock as her magic recoiled. She hadn’t realized, yet, why there’d been so little recoil...
Too late, Emily thought, as she cast the second spell. You should have jumped aside.
Dionne froze. Emily watched her for a moment, magic spilling around her as she tried to free herself. It wasn’t hard to break a freeze spell - students mastered those in first year - but... Dionne would find it difficult to concentrate with her shield shattered. Her body wavered as the spell finally broke, then crumpled. Someone giggled as Dionne hit the ground. Emily didn’t care to look to see who it was.
“Emily used very basic spells,” Damia commented, as Dionne staggered to her feet. “She didn’t even overpower them. All she did was spot the weakness in your shield and take advantage of it. I trust you’ve learnt something useful?”
She strode towards her desk, not giving Dionne a chance to reply. “The world outside these walls is not safe,” she added. The students hurried to their desks and sat down. “It is vitally important that you learn to protect yourself. As you grow in magic, you will grow more tempting to those who want you for darker purposes. Do not expect them to go easy on you.
“It is not just a matter of knowing spells. You all know dozens of spells, some of which were designed for defense and some of which can be adapted for defensive purposes. It is a matter of thinking, of not relying blindly on raw power to shield yourself from harm. Lady Emily thought about what she was doing, when she challenged Dionne. She took down the shield practically effortlessly. What was Dionne’s mistake?”
Lenore raised a hand. “She underestimated Lady Emily?”
“Quite,” Damia agreed. “Lady Emily didn’t have to break the rules in order to win. And she didn’t have to spot a weak point, either. She could have simply overpowered the spell and smashed Dionne’s shield. Dionne assumed her shield would be enough to protect her, as long as Lady Emily played by the rules. She was wrong.”
Emily felt her cheeks heat. It hadn’t been a fair contest. Dionne should have known... she should have disengaged from the shield sooner, rather than tying her mind to her magic tightly enough to disorient her when the spell broke. And yet... she shook her head as the students kept their eyes on their teacher. She felt as if she’d been thrown in the deep end, with sharks swimming below. She thought she knew, now, why her predecessor had quit so suddenly.
It’s just the first day, she told herself.
“For homework, you are to read chapters three and four of Advanced Defense Concepts,” Damia said. “I also want you to think about tactics for the dueling circle, later this week. I want you to show a little imagination, rather than stale old tricks that everyone - and I mean everyone - knows to expect.”
The bell rang. “Dismissed,” Damia said. “And don’t run in the corridors.”
Emily hid her amusement as the students hurried to the doors, a handful lingering behind to allow the more popular students to go first. Lillian glanced at Emily, hesitated as if she were on the verge of saying something, then strode away. Emily let out a breath, wishing she could go with them. She’d attended some nerve-racking classes before, but... she’d never been a tutor. Not really. She’d taught a handful
of junior students, but she’d never handled a whole class...
You didn’t handle this one either, she thought. It was Damia who did the work.
“You did well, for a first lesson,” Damia said. “There are aspects you could have handled better, which we will discuss on the weekend, but your practical work was superb.”
“Thank you,” Emily managed.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have time for a proper induction into teaching,” Damia said. “Do you have any questions...?”
“Dionne was being obnoxious,” Emily said. “Why did you let her?”
“Students need to learn to stand up for themselves,” Damia said, curtly. “If they can’t handle themselves in here, they’ll certainly not be able to handle the outside world.”
Emily scowled. “And how can anyone learn if she’s being knocked down all the time?”
“It can be done,” Damia said. Her voice was icy. “I survived.”
“Yes,” Emily said, bluntly. She’d heard that argument time and time again, but she didn’t believe it. “And how many didn’t?”
Damia gave her a sharp look. “Go eat your lunch,” she ordered. “You’ll be back here within the hour.”
“I’ll be here,” Emily promised.
Chapter Eleven
“YOU LOOK TIRED,” BRIER SAID.
Emily said nothing as she sat on the proffered armchair and rested her head in her hands. The day had been exhausting, worse than anything she’d experienced at Whitehall. She’d never really considered just how annoying younger students could be, when she was no longer one of them. She thought she understood, now, why so many tutors were absent after lessons ended for the day. They were probably in their quarters, trying to recover from the rigors of their classes. She didn’t blame them.
Brier poured a glass of fruit juice and held it under Emily’s nose. Emily took a sniff, tested it was safe to drink and then sipped it gratefully. Brier herself sat on the bed, resting her hands on her lap. There was something odd about her expression, something that nagged at Emily’s mind. She was too tired to think about it. All she wanted was to go back to her room and sleep.
“And to think I wanted to be a teacher,” she muttered, more to herself than Brier. “I must have been out of my mind.”
“It does get easier,” Brier assured her. “It helps if your students willingly choose your class.”
Emily scowled. Brier didn’t know Emily had come to investigate the crisis. If, indeed, there was one. There was a strange lack of urgency pervading the school, as if most of the staff didn’t believe there was any reason to be concerned. And yet... she shook her head, feeling a stab of sympathy for Damia. Defense was compulsory all six years. The older woman had to feel as if she were being worked off her feet. She’d had to take classes that should have been taken by her former assistant.
No wonder she’s so determined to keep me around long enough to train up a proper replacement, Emily thought. She finished her drink and put the glass to one side. She needs an assistant to demonstrate the spells, as well as take additional classes.
She sighed. Lady Damia had told her she’d be taking a class - under supervision, naturally - the following day. Emily wasn’t looking forward to it. The older girls would be trying to assert themselves, all too aware there were limits to what she could do. She could send them to be caned, but that was about it. Life had been a great deal easier, she reflected sourly, when she’d been facing necromancers. There hadn’t been any limits on what she could do to them.
And Lady Damia expects me to give a lecture on how to fight a necromancer, she reflected, ruefully. Somehow, I don’t think she’d thank me for telling the girls to run.
Brier chatted about nothing as Emily sat there, gathering her thoughts. She wasn’t too interested in gossip about the teachers, still less the students, but she filed it away in her mind for later contemplation. It was a little disturbing to realize how closely some of the teachers identified with the students, to the point they were playing favorites. Emily hadn’t doubted it, yet... she shook her head. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be at the school long enough to develop favorites of her own. Lady Damia had been right. The teachers needed to keep a barrier between themselves and their students.
“If you’re not doing anything this weekend,” Brier said, “would you like to accompany me to Pendle?”
Emily blinked, wondering - for the first time - if Brier was hitting on her. It wasn’t impossible. There were stories about Laughter’s teachers and students being lesbians... although, like all other such stories, they read like the fantasies of depraved minds. Emily had heard enough rumors about herself that she knew not to believe everything she heard. And yet... she looked at Brier, unsure what to say. She wasn’t interested. She wasn’t even curious.
“I don’t know what I’ll be doing on the weekend,” she said. “Lady Damia probably wants to go through my teaching with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Ouch,” Brier said. “We can go at any point, if you like.”
“We’ll see,” Emily said. She hesitated. “I need to get a shower and get changed before dinner. I’ll see you later?”
She stood, feeling oddly uncertain as she stepped through the door and headed down the corridor towards her predecessor’s room. Was she wrong? Was Brier only trying to be friendly? It wasn’t as if there were many others who shared her interest in history. The class had never been that popular at Whitehall, once it stopped being compulsory. Students were more interested in learning practical skills than abstract knowledge. She found that regrettable. In her experience, abstract knowledge tended to come in handy.
The door to her predecessor’s room was sealed shut with a powerful charm, too strong for a student to break. Emily thought she could have broken it, when she’d been a senior herself, but the spell was lodged within the school’s wards. She doubted it was possible to break the charm without setting off an alarm, unleashing a horde of angry teachers and prefects. Emily snorted at the thought, then rested her hand against the doorknob. Lady Damia should have keyed her into the lock... she breathed a sigh of relief as the charm opened to allow her to step inside. She hadn’t wanted to go find Lady Damia and ask to be let into the room.
Emily opened the door, then closed her eyes and reached out with her senses. The background hum of the wards was almost audible, but there was no hint of any other magic within the chamber. There weren’t even the standard spells she’d come to expect in magical households, from basic reflection charms on the mirrors to toilet-cleaning spells. Emily opened her eyes and looked around, carefully. The room was practically an exact clone of the one she’d been given, save for the windows. Someone had erected a charmed lattice to prevent someone sneaking through the window and into the room.
She studied the floor for a long moment, looking for traps, and then stepped inside. The air smelt a little musty, but not unpleasant. Dust motes drifted in front of her eyes. She looked around, testing the wardrobe and washroom door for spells. There was nothing, not even up close. She was starting to think she was wasting her time, but she opened the drawers under the bed anyway. The school clothing had been folded neatly and left in place. There didn’t seem to be anything that belonged to the original occupant.
Emily frowned as she opened the wardrobe. There was a small collection of dresses, but nothing else. There was certainly nothing personal. Emily pulled the dresses to one side - Alassa had used to hide her letters from Jade behind her dresses - but there was nothing beyond a wooden wall. Emily tested it, just to be sure. There was nothing there.
No portal to Narnia, she thought, wryly. The wardrobe looked as if it was designed for easy removal. And nothing to suggest why she left in such a hurry.
Her eyes narrowed as she picked up the lumpy mattress and peered underneath, then started to poke around the entire room. She was definitely wasting her time. If there was anything hidden away, it was concealed so well that neither she nor the original investigators had been able to fin
d it. She pushed the lattice to one side and found herself peering towards the Redoubt, the ruined castle dominating the darkening skyline. A handful of witches were flying around, free as birds. Emily felt an odd little pang. She knew the dangers - a single spell could bring them crashing to the ground - but part of her still yeaned to join them. It must be nice to fly through the sky, ignoring the people on the ground.
Careful, she told herself. That’s what the supremacists think.
She sat on the bed and reached out with her senses, one final time. There were no hints of anything, not even a sense someone had so much as slept in the bed. A skilled magician wouldn’t have left too many traces of her presence, but still... Emily’s fingers stroked the blanket, trying to pick up magic that might have been left by her predecessor. There were none. The room could have belonged to a mundane, for all the magic she felt within it.
Maybe she was a mundane, Emily thought. She’d read a story about someone trying to sneak into a magical school and pose as a magician, but it had never struck her as practical. It certainly wouldn’t be easy to pretend to cast the spells. Or maybe she just couldn’t handle the job.
She frowned. Someone had made an effort to sweep the room free of magic. It was the only explanation that made sense. And yet, why? The original investigators wouldn’t have risked erasing evidence. She thought the staff wouldn’t have bothered, either. There was no immediate need to clear the room for the next occupant. The spellwork could simply be left to decay, the magic eventually being absorbed by the wards or fading into the background. It wasn’t easy to imagine anyone other than her predecessor sweeping the room clean before she left. And that meant she’d had something to hide.
Perhaps she was a spy, Emily thought. It was hardly unprecedented. The magical schools spied on each other constantly. Or...
She stood, shaking her head, and pushed the lattice back into place. There were no answers in the tiny room, nothing to suggest the occupant had so much as existed. She left the room, closing and locking the door. The staff would eventually assign it to someone new, she was sure. Emily hoped they vetted the next candidate better. It wouldn’t be easy to find someone who fitted all the qualifications.
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