The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic Book 13)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “You will,” Gordian said.

  Emily looked down at the papers. “I’ve assigned students at random.” She didn’t think Aloha had put any more thought into her assignments. “If you happen to be closely related to any of the firsties, swap that student for someone else. The idea is to avoid family ties as much as possible.”

  “A student of the same sex,” Gordian added. “I don’t want boys mentoring girls and vice versa.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said. “If you have any questions about the other material in the folders, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  She handed out the folders, then dismissed the Fifth Years. It was mid-morning, yet she still felt tired. Sweat was prickling on the back of her neck. Speaking to so many students, even issuing orders rather than holding conversations, was practically painful. She hadn’t found it that hard to walk into a necromancer’s lair, despite the near certainty of death. And yet, she’d done it.

  “Reasonably well done,” Gordian said. “You covered all the basics. You could have been a bit more assertive in places, but your reputation will probably give you some cover.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Emily said.

  She really did feel tired. If it hadn’t been less than an hour until lunch, she would have thought seriously about taking a shower and perhaps a nap. Frieda had tried to talk her into going walking again, after lunch, but Emily didn’t have the time. She had to meet Caleb too. God alone knew what he wanted.

  “You’ll be there when the First Years arrive,” Gordian said. “Make sure you’re wearing your formal robes and badge.”

  Emily sighed. The Head Girl wore white, apparently. She wasn’t allowed to wear sorcerer’s black, even the traditional robes of a Sixth Year student. She’d probably be allowed to get away with not wearing it outside formal functions, but she was scheduled to attend a number of them over the coming months. Being Head Girl was already more trouble than it was worth.

  And I’ve only been Head Girl for a week, she thought, balefully. How bad is it going to be after the first month?

  She shrugged, inwardly. The mentoring program had slowly decreased in importance after the first couple of months, although the near-collapse of the entire school had probably helped. She hadn’t had that many questions after she’d returned from Beneficence, even though she had made time to have tea with her mentees every month. She’d have to do it again, just once. She owed it to her charges to check up on them one last time.

  But the Head Girl has far too much to do, her own thoughts mocked her. She has to give the speech at Final Feast, as well as everything else in-between.

  Gordian cleared his throat, loudly. Emily jumped.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was miles away.”

  “I could tell,” Gordian said, with heavy sarcasm. “Make sure you get back in time to greet the firsties. You’ll need to set a good example for everyone else.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said. “I know.”

  She sighed. She had no idea what Caleb wanted, unless it was to discuss their work. But she didn’t think so. He wouldn’t have been shy about that, not after they’d rebuilt enough of their friendship to work together.

  It’s going to be a long year, she thought. And it’s only just begun.

  “This will be the most important year of your education,” Gordian warned. “You do not want to mess it up.”

  Emily nodded, slowly. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “That’s all I ask.” Gordian’s voice was pleasant, but there was a hard edge hanging in the air. “You are not expected to succeed in everything.”

  Really, Emily thought. You would be pleased if I failed.

  Chapter Eight

  IF EMILY WERE HONEST, SHE’D HAVE to admit that she could grow to like her office very quickly. It was large enough to store a considerable selection of reference books and school tomes, and secure enough that she felt reasonably safe working on some of her private projects at her personal workbench. Indeed, with a little effort, she could turn it into a personal spellchamber, although she suspected that wasn’t a good idea. It would have been far too revealing to anyone who looked closely.

  And if it hadn’t come with the Head Girl responsibilities, she acknowledged as she felt someone tapping on the door, it would have been perfect.

  She sighed inwardly as she linked to the wards, commanding them to open the door. Caleb stood on the far side, looking oddly nervous. He’d grown his hair out, Emily noted absently, and he was wearing a shirt and trousers instead of his robes. She felt a flicker of ... something ... as she remembered him holding her, an odd wistfulness she brushed aside with grim determination. They were better off just being friends. And if they couldn’t overcome the awkwardness by the end of the year, perhaps they’d be better off being apart.

  “Emily,” Caleb began. He sounded nervous too. It was something personal, then. Caleb had always been more enthusiastic talking about magical theory and spellwork than anything more personal. Spells weren’t embarrassing, after all. “How was your summer?”

  “I spent most of it preparing for the exams,” Emily told him. It was hard to sound welcoming when she wasn’t sure what she felt. “Come on in and close the door behind you.”

  Caleb entered, taking one of the smaller chairs. Emily sat down at her desk, silently glad it was between her and Caleb. It wasn’t much of a barrier—she knew a dozen spells that could reduce it to atoms—yet it put something solid between them. It was yet another reminder that there was no way they could go back to being just friends without some bumps along the way.

  I don’t know how Imaiqah managed to have so many boyfriends, she thought. Imaiqah had had more lovers than every other girl in the year put together, as far as Emily could tell. She found a boy, spent a few weeks with him and then broke up and moved on. But then, she didn’t have to work with any of them.

  She met his eyes, trying not to think about his arms around her. “How is your family?”

  “Recovering.” He shook his head, slowly. “Father is on the new city council; mother’s practically taken over Sorcerer’s Row, now that some of the former residents have moved away. That won’t last, she says, but it keeps her occupied. She’s been talking about trying to attract more magical talent to Beneficence.”

  “That would be interesting,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea—too many magicians too close together tended to lead to fights—but Sienna presumably knew what she was doing. “And the city itself?”

  “A mess,” Caleb said. He shifted, uncomfortably. “Oh, things look to have returned to normal—on the surface—but there’s an undercurrent of fear running through the streets. We lost quite a bit of investment immediately after the Fists were defeated, even though your bankers remained in place. I daresay Cockatrice picked up a lot of our deserters.”

  Emily shrugged. Imaiqah sent her regular reports, but Emily hadn’t had the time to read them. She’d been too busy with her studies. She trusted that Imaiqah would use the chat parchments to alert her to anything that required immediate attention. An influx of trained craftsmen from Beneficence wasn’t a problem, not in Cockatrice. There was no shortage of work for them if they were willing to stay permanently.

  King Randor might worry about immigration, she thought. But he’s unlikely to put up with any nonsense.

  She shook her head, inwardly. Ideas were spreading all over the Allied Lands, changing and growing as they were fitted to local conditions. The attempted assassination of King Randor and his sole daughter—his sole legitimate child—had merely been the tip of the iceberg. Who knew what would happen when republicanism and socialism, if not communism, really took off? The basis of power in the Nameless World—the aristocracy of might and magic—was already being questioned. There was no way the kings and princes could put that particular genie back in the bottle.

  Because they can’t counter it, she mused. What does give them the right to rule?

  “I’m sure the locals don’
t mind,” she said, out loud. Cockatrice and the other cities within the barony had a constant influx of newcomers, mainly runaway peasants from the nearby estates. Most of them rapidly blended into the city’s population and vanished. She’d certainly never been interested in hunting the immigrants down and returning them to their former masters. “There’s always work for willing hands.”

  Caleb smiled, weakly. “There is.”

  Emily leaned back in her chair, wishing—suddenly—that they were talking about their project. Or magical theory. Or something that didn’t feel as though they were tap-dancing over an emotional minefield. She hadn’t had any problems working with him over the last year, had she? She’d thought those feelings were dead and buried. But she hadn’t spent any time outside work ...

  We used to go on dates, she reminded herself. She’d never thought she would enjoy it, but she had. And now we don’t.

  She nodded to the sideboard. “Kava?”

  “Please,” Caleb said, sounding relieved.

  Emily rose and walked to the sideboard, trying to keep her emotions under tight control as she poured the drinks. And yet, the mere act of preparing Kava the way he liked it hurt. Imaiqah had once told her that men were useless when it came to dealing with emotions, but Emily didn’t feel any more competent at controlling hers. She’d thought, once, that she’d never have a boyfriend, let alone a real relationship with a man. And yet, when she’d been offered the chance, she’d jumped right into it ... she hadn’t thought, she knew. She’d gone too far, emotionally if not physically. Perhaps that was Imaiqah’s secret, Emily wondered. She’d kept sexual pleasure separated from her more intimate emotions.

  She passed Caleb the mug and returned to her desk. Caleb sipped his drink gratefully, but she knew he was stalling for time. She’d known him long enough to be sure when he was reluctant to broach a particular subject. Her imagination provided too many possibilities, ranging from their joint project to their former courtship. She didn’t think his parents would want him to try to restart the courtship, but what about the rest of his family? House Waterfall might just feel they had a say in his relationships, after all.

  “It wasn’t easy for any of us,” Caleb said. She knew, from experience, that he was slowly circling the subject at hand. “Casper’s death shook the family, followed by ... well, everything else that happened. Marian’s betrayal ...”

  “She wasn’t in her right mind,” Emily said. She’d had enough experience with mind-warping magic to know how dangerous it could be. “I didn’t think anyone knew about her.”

  “No one outside the family knows the truth, save for you and Frieda,” Caleb said. “Mother was careful to warn us to keep it to ourselves. The council ... father fears they are still looking for scapegoats.”

  Emily sighed. Janus was dead, killed by his false god. Very few of the other Fists of Justice had survived the mobs, when their grip on the city was shattered. Anyone who had survived had probably fled by now, knowing they’d be brutally murdered when—if—their secret came out. She just hoped they hadn’t taken Master Wolfe’s papers with them, if they hadn’t been lost. It would probably be better, all things considered, if they’d been destroyed in the final battle.

  And if the council can’t fix the city’s problems in a hurry, she thought sourly, they might try to put a scapegoat on trial just to hide their failure from their people.

  “I won’t breathe a word of it,” she said. She felt a stab of raw sympathy for Caleb and his family. They were sitting on a secret that could see them lynched—or forced to flee their hometown. And it wasn’t really their fault. Subtle magic had a way of twisting people until black was white, up was down and right was wrong—or vice versa. “Is that what you wanted to ask?”

  Caleb shook his head. “Emily ... Marian is coming here.”

  “To Whitehall?” Emily had heard something about that, but it had been months ago. “She’s going to be a firstie?”

  “Yes,” Caleb said. “She’s coming here.”

  Emily frowned, inwardly. Marian blamed—had blamed—Emily for Casper’s death. Emily recalled, all too clearly, just how unpleasant Marian had been. And yet, Marian had already been affected by Justice and his followers. It was impossible to tell how much of her unpleasantness had been hers and how much had been shaped by subtle magic. Even Marian herself wouldn’t be able to provide a real answer. Her moral compass and her ability to monitor it had shifted.

  “Mother and father didn’t think she could handle Stronghold, not after ... well, everything,” Caleb added. “There was some suggestion she would go to Laughter, but she missed the cut-off date. Mother even considered holding her back for a year, just to give her more time to recover ...”

  Emily leaned forward as his voice trailed off. “How is she?”

  “She’s been getting better, apparently,” Caleb said. “I mean ... most of the time, she’s normal. Just like I recall from before ... before Casper’s death. But there are times when she suddenly starts crying for no apparent reason. We’ve worked our way through most of the tangles in her mind, but we think some are left.”

  “Ouch,” Emily said. A person who’d been warped by subtle magic would have problems when they were forced to confront the difference between their mental conception of the world and reality. Their train of thought might as well run into a brick wall. Some people never recovered from the experience. “Have you discussed this with the Grandmaster?”

  “I believe mother spoke to him at some length.” He paused. “But you know how little he can actually do.”

  Emily nodded, shortly. The Nameless World had no concept of mental health treatment. There were certainly no psychologists. Anyone with a mental problem was expected to work their way through it on their own or be driven away, if they posed a danger to everyone else. She understood the logic—treating unstable magicians might make them all the more dangerous—but it had never sat well with her. Subtle magic wasn’t the only kind of abuse that could result in long-lasting trauma. Marian was on her own.

  “I don’t know how I can help,” she said, slowly. There was no way she could reinvent the science of psychology, even if she hadn’t held most of its practitioners in contempt. The school counselors she’d encountered had been universally useless. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just ... be nice to her,” Caleb said. “And don’t hold her actions against her.”

  “I won’t,” Emily said. “But I can’t turn a blind eye to misbehavior.”

  “I know,” Caleb said. “I just wish ... I wish she could take another year to get better.”

  Emily nodded in agreement. People didn’t recover that quickly from trauma. She’d had enough problems recovering from subtle magic and she hadn’t been anything like that badly affected. The bouts of mental incomprehension and confusion hadn’t lasted long enough to force her to retake the year. But Marian had been twisted until she’d betrayed her own family, staunchly convinced she was doing the right thing. It would take her years to get over it.

  And the taboo on treating mental disorders makes it hard for her family to help her, she thought, grimly. Sienna must be desperate for Marian to fix herself before it’s too late.

  “I won’t hold her accountable for anything that happened before now,” Emily promised, slowly. “But like I said, I can’t turn a blind eye to misbehavior.”

  She sighed as she realized just how much trouble this was likely to cause. Marian had said some pretty awful things to her, back in Beneficence. She could ignore them if they were said in private, even after Caleb’s sister arrived at Whitehall, but not if they were said in public. She’d have to insist on punishment, which wouldn’t endear her to Marian any further ... not, she supposed, that it mattered. She wasn’t going to marry Caleb, after all.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” Caleb said, looking relieved. “We do want her to get better.”

  Emily didn’t blame him. There were people, she knew all too well, who would consider Marian to
be little more than a maddened beast who needed to be put down. A magician who was already mentally unstable ... why wait until she embraced necromancy or the darkest arts to stop her? And yet, Marian was a sixteen-year-old girl, not a monster. Old enough to be treated like an adult, by the standards of the Nameless World, but not an irredeemable criminal.

  “I want her to get better too,” she said. “I’m sure she will.”

  Caleb nodded, gratefully. Emily kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t hate Marian. She just wanted as little to do with her as possible. Thankfully, she probably wouldn’t be expected to interact with Marian on a daily basis. She had no idea who’d been Head Girl when she’d been a firstie. Jade had been a prefect, if she recalled correctly, but Head Girl? For all she knew, it had been a Head Boy.

  I’ll have to have a word with whoever mentors her, she thought. In hindsight, she should have made the connection between the name on the list of firsties and Caleb’s sister, but she hadn’t looked too closely. She’d just matched mentors to mentees at random. If there are problems, that person can talk to me about it first.

  She sighed. That was going to be a problem too. The last thing anyone needed was rumors getting out. Marian’s betrayal wouldn’t have to become public knowledge for her fellow pupils to get wind of her problems. And then they’d start picking at that sore until Marian recovered or snapped completely. Emily made a mental note to make it absolutely clear to Marian’s mentor that word was not to get out, but she knew it might be pointless. Someone in First Year might notice the problem and then all hell would break loose.

  “I will do what I can to make it easy for her,” she said. “But you know it won’t be that easy.”

  “Yeah.” Caleb shook his head. “Is it wrong of me to want to protect her?”

  Emily felt a flicker of envy. She’d never had a brother, never had anyone to look after her ... would her life have been better, she wondered, if she’d had an older brother like Jade or Caleb or even Casper? Or would their overprotectiveness have been stifling? Frieda had had older brothers, brothers she refused to talk about. But it was clear she’d hated them. It hadn’t been an easy life in the mountains.