Little Witches (Schooled In Magic Book 21)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  The waiter returned, carrying two dishes which he placed in front of them. Emily smiled tiredly, then tucked in. The food was blander than she’d expected, probably a reflection of just how few inns there were in Pendle. There weren’t many other places for short-term visitors, even without the risk of getting hexed by the witches. Emily was fairly sure the inn would be safe. People who intended to visit the school normally stayed at the inn.

  She tried not to yawn as she ate. Jan had come a long way to see her. She wasn’t sure if he’d teleported, or used a portal and walked up to Pendle, but either way it couldn’t have been easy. He deserved better than a... she yawned, helplessly. She really hadn’t had anywhere near enough sleep.

  Jan eyed her, concerned. “Do you want to go to bed? I mean... really to bed?”

  Emily shook her head. “I’ve drunk too much Kava,” she said. She eyed the empty pot and thought about ordering more. “I’ll have to try to stay awake until I get back to the school.”

  She changed the subject, quickly. “What do you make of Pendle?”

  “I had a brief look around,” Jan said. “It’s not as... interesting... as the stories suggest.”

  “I’m pretty sure most of those stories were made up by teenage boys,” Emily said. “Or your old tutor.”

  “Nah,” Jan said. “They’re not disgusting enough.”

  He laughed, then turned serious again. “That said, there’s definitely a hint that something’s going wrong. People are walking on eggshells. I’ve felt the same in magical quarters across the world, but there... people don’t have to walk near a magician’s house. There are people who will go well out of their way to avoid walking past, even though it very rarely goes wrong.”

  Emily frowned. “It feels as if something has already gone wrong.”

  It has, her thoughts added.

  Jan tightened the privacy ward. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It’s hard to put into words,” Emily said. “The girls... many of them have been taught that magicians have the right to rule mundanes...”

  “A common belief,” Jan pointed out.

  “Yes,” Emily agreed. “But they are starting to act on it. And some of the teachers are just going along with it, when they’re not encouraging it.”

  And we still don’t know if there’s an outside influence behind it, Emily added, in the privacy of her own mind. The fact that it suddenly became a great deal worse suggests so...

  She scowled. The world had changed overnight, the moment the necromancers had been broken. Void and Lady Barb had made that clear. Too many long-buried problems were bubbling up, too many unresolved disputes were threatening to turn into outright wars... she gritted her teeth at the thought. She could see why border disputes might get out of control, now the necromancers were gone, but why would trouble break out at Laughter? The school was far enough from the Craggy Mountains to be relatively untouched by the war. If anywhere, it was Whitehall she’d have expected to develop problems. That school had been the cork in the bottle...

  “I’ve been trying to show them that mundanes have more up their sleeves than just their arms,” she added. “But it’s hard to show them the truth because... they just don’t have the experience to understand what they’re seeing.”

  “Something that is true in the other direction,” Jan pointed out. “Master Lucknow thinks nothing of teleporting across the entire planet, just to attend a dinner party. A common-born magician might not be able to imagine having friends in the next village, let alone on the other side of the world. They don’t understand us and we don’t understand them.”

  “I know,” Emily said. It was easy to forget sizable chunks of the world existed if you could fly - or teleport - from place to place. “But it’s frustrating.”

  “You grew up in a world of magic,” Jan pointed out. “How much do you know without knowing you know it? How much do you know because it’s common knowledge, because you picked it up without really realizing what you’d learnt? And how much do you assume everyone else knows because you don’t understand you had to learn it too?”

  He shrugged. “There’s a lot about being a girl that you understand instinctively and I do not,” he added. “I wouldn’t know about it until you told me.”

  “And the same would be true in reverse,” Emily agreed. “What is it like being a boy?”

  Jan laughed. “I can’t put it into words,” he said. “Can you?”

  Emily shrugged. She’d known boys at school who’d thought girls were little more than receptacles for their lusts and boys who’d thought the girls had an easier time of it, girls who’d thought the boys were mindless brutes and girls who’d insisted the boys had easier lives... she shook her head. The grass was always greener on the other side of the hill. It was easy to dismiss what you had and envy others, unaware the others envied you.

  “You don’t know how the world works for me,” Jan added. “And I don’t know how it works for you.”

  If I’d been a boy, I’d probably be dead by now, Emily thought. Jade and Cat certainly wouldn’t have been so friendly if I’d still been forced into Martial Magic.

  She put the thought aside. “So how does one tackle something like that?”

  “With difficulty,” Jan said. “If you talk about mundanes being... limited... by their lack of magic, you’ll boost those who think magicians are superior. I don’t know how to tackle it. It would be a mess.”

  “I know.” Emily stared at her empty plate. “I showed them some technology, but... they didn’t see how it will grow.”

  “I’ve been an apprentice long enough to know that openly defying my master is foolish,” Jan said. “Masters are a prideful bunch - yours as well as mine. Stand up to them and you get thrashed... not because you’re wrong, but because you’ve challenged their authority and that cannot be borne. Do it in public and it will be a thousand times worse. The trick is to let them reason out that they were wrong and then find a way to rationalize backing down to themselves. If you push them, it only makes them more determined to stand their ground.”

  “It’s not the same,” Emily said.

  “Not quite,” Jan agreed. “You’re dealing with an entrenched belief. The more you insist on it, the more people will instinctively oppose you. Not so much because they’re firmly wedded to the concept as because they want to keep their independence. And because you’re a teacher, it becomes harder to point out the problems without using your authority as a club to batter people into submission. Give them time to reason their way into agreeing with you.”

  “That could take longer than I have,” Emily said. “I’m not going to stay here.”

  “Then you just need to plant a few seeds,” Jan said. “And see if they grow into something wonderful.”

  He grinned. “And try to understand why they feel the way they do,” he added. “You can’t prescribe solutions if you don’t understand the problem.”

  “I know that,” Emily said. “I... I just don’t know how to solve the problem.”

  “Think about it,” Jan advised. “If you know why someone feels the way they do, you can tune your arguments to their concerns and - perhaps - overcome them. If you just flail around like an idiot, you’ll just” - he grinned - “flail around like an idiot.”

  “I think I understand why,” Emily said. “I just don’t know how to counter it.”

  She shook her head. “If someone thinks he is manifestly superior for good reason,” she added, “how do you convince him he isn’t?”

  Jan raised an eyebrow. “Does that make him superior?”

  “No,” Emily said. “But...”

  And then she heard the shouting outside.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “STAY HERE,” EMILY SAID, AS SHE stood. The inn’s wards were vibrating, as if someone was pinging spells at them just to irritate everyone inside. Emily wasn’t connected to the wards and she could still feel it, like raindrops splattering on the roof. “Don’t come out unless
I call.”

  Jan nodded, curtly. Emily gritted her teeth as she pushed open a door and stepped outside. It looked like a full-scale riot. A girl lay on the ground, bleeding from a nasty head wound; another was sitting, pressing one hand to her chest. The remainder - including Bernadette and Hannalore - were hurling hexes in all directions. Emily felt sick as she saw the frogs hopping on the paving stones, a grim reminder that everyone who lived in the town did so on sufferance. And yet... she saw a handful of men holding charmed weapons, using them to shield themselves from the hexes. They were keeping their distance, but they weren’t running...

  They should have lost by now, Emily thought. The riot - if it was a riot - had set fire to a handful of buildings, flames licking from house to house. Emily hoped to God they hadn’t set fire to an apothecary. That would be an utter disaster. What the hell happened...?

  Her eyes narrowed as she sensed the wards surrounding the witches. Dionne - it struck her, suddenly, that Dionne was nowhere to be seen - and her cronies had actually been paying attention. They’d cast wards to shield themselves against solid objects, from stones and bricks to bullets... Emily would have been impressed, if they’d thought it through a little more. They’d effectively penned themselves into a trap. It would have been bad enough even if they hadn’t cast wards that required constant maintenance, draining their magic until it ran dry. She shuddered to think what Sergeant Miles would have said, if she’d done it in class. Being trapped by the enemy was one thing, but trapping yourself was quite another.

  Jens was supposed to be on duty, she thought, looking from side to side. Where is she?

  A nasty thought struck her. Jens might even have encouraged this riot...

  Emily stepped forward and gathered her magic, then projected it out hard enough to get everyone’s attention. The witches stared at her, their faces a mixture of indignation and naked fear. There was still no sign of Dionne - or Jens. Emily couldn’t help finding that ominous. Where were they?

  She kept projecting power, even though she knew it was going to cost her. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The witches started talking in a body, talking over each other as they tried to gabble out an explanation. The townspeople started to talk a moment later, their words blending together into a headache-inducing nightmare... Emily gritted her teeth and cast the strongest silencing charm she could. Quiet fell, like a hammer. She could see Hannalore saying something, her lips moving soundlessly. Emily couldn’t tell if she was too angry to think straight or if she was trying to get the message across anyway. It didn’t matter.

  “Everyone stay still,” she ordered. “And wait!”

  She walked to the injured witches and swore under her breath. The first girl had been hit in the head by... something. The wound was bleeding badly. Emily hastily put her into stasis until the healers could take a look at her, knowing it might be already too late. Head wounds could be very unpleasant even if they weren’t immediately fatal. There were too many horror stories about wounded magicians going mad. Healers could do much, but they couldn’t treat brain damage. The Nameless World had shied away from any form of mental health care.

  “Hold still,” she ordered the second girl. She’d been hit in the gut by a wooden stake. “I’m going to put you into stasis, too.”

  She cast the spell, then straightened up and carefully started to dismantle the silencing charm. Sound rushed in, crackling echoing through the air as the flames continued to spread from house to house. Emily muttered a spell under her breath, trying to stem the flames as much as possible. It was hard to know what to do. There were no spells that could make it rain, not without a ritual she didn’t have the time or numbers to perform.

  “Lady Emily,” Hannalore said. “They attacked us!”

  “You attacked us,” a shopkeeper shouted back. “They went...”

  “They started throwing stones,” an oily voice said. Emily turned to see Dionne hurrying towards her friends. “They started it.”

  “You weren’t there,” Emily said. She bit down hard on her temper as she saw Jens coming up from behind. Where the hell had she been? “Mistress Jens, escort these students back to the school. I’ll deal with the aftermath.”

  Jens gave Emily a look that said, very clearly, you don’t get to give me orders. Emily hid her amusement, although she knew - if she’d wanted to keep the teaching post - a senior tutor could make life very difficult for her. Jens couldn’t defy her openly, not without breaking the united front the tutors were supposed to show in front of students and townspeople alike. The older woman scowled and started snapping orders, then casting spells to levitate the injured students and take them to the castle. Emily prayed, silently, that they’d be fine. It felt wrong, somehow, that she couldn’t remember their names.

  She gritted her teeth as she looked at the frogs, hoping the witches had used basic spells. If they’d used something more complicated... she’d heard some of the younger witches discussing transformation spells that required the caster to kiss the victim if they wanted to lift the spell. She shuddered in disgust as she mustered a cancellation spell, then cast it with an effort. The spells broke, leaving men and women scattered all over the pavement. They all looked stunned.

  “Emily,” Jan said. “What happened?”

  Emily had to fight to keep from swaying. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. Right now, Dionne and her cronies would probably be getting their stories straight. Dionne hadn’t been there... Emily scowled. Cold logic insisted Dionne couldn’t be responsible for everything, but it was hard to believe. “Help me put out the fires and clean up the mess.”

  She nearly lost her balance as she started to cast another set of spells. The townspeople ran, setting up a bucket chain to put out the fires. Emily tried not to wince at the glances they shot her, when they thought she wasn’t looking. She’d met people who idolized her and people who didn’t have the slightest idea who she was - and refused to believe her, because she looked nothing like her portraits - and even people who’d disliked her... and none of it was as bad as the looks the townsfolk were shooting her. She felt like an intruder, or worse. They were scared of her. They were...

  “You need to rest,” Jan said, stiffly.

  “I need to find out what happened,” Emily said. She glanced around, hoping to find someone who looked reliable. The innkeeper was standing by his door, but she knew he hadn’t seen anything. “Where did it start?”

  “There, perhaps,” Jan said. He pointed to a blackened ruin that had once been, if Emily recalled correctly, a general store. “It’s in the center of the chaos.”

  Emily nodded and headed over to the men who were carting pieces of debris out of the store. The woman standing by the door giving orders looked up and saw her, a scowl crossing her face that suggested she wanted to tell Emily to go to hell - or worse - and didn’t quite dare. Emily shuddered, seeing the woman’s future in her bleak eyes. She was going to leave as soon as she sold what was left of her shop...

  “What happened?” Emily tried to sound compassionate, even though she was falling asleep on her feet. “I need to know.”

  The woman winced. “They didn’t want to wait in line,” she said. “They pushed their way to the front. Someone objected and they hexed him. His friend threw a stone. Everything exploded from there.”

  Perhaps literally, Emily said. She’d seen riots before, but none of them had done so much damage so quickly. And none of them had remained so concentrated, either. The more she looked at the damage, the more she noticed how odd it looked. The rioting hadn’t spread out of control and devastated the whole town. What really happened here?

  She scowled as she nodded her thanks and turned away. Her head felt as if it were full of cotton wool. The Kava was catching up with her. She considered, briefly, going back to Jan’s room, purging herself and sleeping for hours. He’d understand... probably. But she’d pay for it later. She needed to stay awake long enough to make sure she slept at the right time or she’
d wake up with teleport lag. She was lucky she didn’t have anything to do on Sunday.

  I didn’t have anything to do, she corrected herself, as she walked towards the road leading to the school. Tomorrow is likely to be a very busy day.

  Jan walked beside her. “Do you want me to levitate you?”

  Emily was too tired to laugh. “Do I look that bad?”

  “You look like you’re on the verge of going to sleep,” Jan said. “I can carry you up to the castle...”

  “They don’t like men up there,” Emily said. “And some of them are just looking for a chance to put a knife in me.”

  “Remind them you killed umpteen necromancers,” Jan said. “And add an extra one to the list every time they prod you.”

  “That doesn’t help,” Emily said. “They want to make a show of not being intimidated by me.”

  She concentrated on remaining upright as she made her way up the road. It was easier to keep going once she was out of the town, the clear air soothing her lungs. She spotted a handful of despondent students ahead of her, walking rather than flying. She suspected Jens had ordered everyone back to the school, rather than just the ones involved in the riot. That was clever of her. Emily had heard enough muttering to know it would be very bad for any witch who got caught alone, even if she had her magic. The townspeople knew a stone had been enough to take down a witch.

  And they might have damaged her permanently, Emily thought. There’s nothing that can be done about permanent brain damage.

  She shivered, helplessly. She’d lost her magic and that had been bad, but at least she’d still been able to think. Losing her mind... she wondered, suddenly, if she would have lost her mind. It tended to go with losing one’s magic...

  Jan squeezed her hand. “Are you alright?”

  Emily glanced at him, blearily. When had he taken her hand? When had... she shook her head. Her mind was wandering. She was tempted, very tempted, to ask him to take her back to the inn. She could stay with him and... she ground her teeth. There was no guarantee she’d be able to meet him in town, not now. God alone knew what was going to happen at the school.