At least Alana is on duty this morning, I told myself. I was always on duty, in a sense, but we’d agreed on a rota for weekend duties. She gave me some time to myself.
I grinned at Rose as we hurried down the stairs and into the lower levels. Jude’s was a maze of abandoned sections, hundreds of rooms and compartments that had simply been sealed off from the rest of the school and left to themselves. I’d spent much of the last six years exploring the underground passageways and I still didn’t know them all. Some of the abandoned buildings were bigger on the inside. The internal geometry of the school seemed to defy logic and reason.
There’s an Object of Power buried under the school, I reminded myself. Cat had told me about it, years ago. That’s probably warping the local dimensions out of shape.
“They’re going to offer me a healing apprenticeship next year,” Rose said, as she fiddled with a locked door. It wasn’t very secure. The staff had barely made even a token effort to keep people out of the underground. “You think I should do it?”
“I think you’d be good at it,” I said. The door came open, revealing a darkened corridor beyond. A handful of light gems, embedded within the ceiling, glowed faintly, so faintly that they barely provided any illumination at all. “And it would give you an excellent start in life.”
“I know,” Rose said. “But I want to be more than just a healer.”
I peered down the corridor, then cast a night-vision spell. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I want to help everyone,” Rose said. “And not just the people who can pay.”
It struck me, suddenly, that Rose and Louise had a great deal in common. “I think there would be nothing stopping you from helping everyone,” I said. “You’d just have to have the magic.”
“But not everyone can pay,” Rose said.
I grinned as I started to walk down the corridor. “You have powerful connections, Rose. I’m sure you can get a stipend as you help the poor.”
Rose followed me. “I spent part of the summer working in a clinic,” she said. “And it was hard to see people who needed help being unable to get it, because they couldn’t afford it. The healers worked for free, some of them, but they couldn’t afford the potions they needed to treat the sick ...”
I nodded, slowly. The economics of potions were very simple. The ingredients, even the very basic ingredients, cost money. And then one had to pay the brewer. It wasn’t illegal to brew potions at home - the law would have been unenforceable, if it had been on the books - but healers were supposed to purchase their potions from guildsmen. It was the only way to guarantee quality. But it also drove the price up ... Rose had a point. Even a very basic potion could cost two or three times as much as it should by the time it reached the patient.
“There must be some way to fix the problem,” I mused. “Perhaps you and Louise should talk about it.”
I heard the surprise in her voice. “Louise?”
“She wants to change things too,” I told her. “You and her might get along.”
I took a breath as we passed through a ruined door. The air tasted of dust. My throat was suddenly very dry. I took a drink of water from my canteen - six years of exploring had taught us to bring supplies - and cast a filtering spell on my mouth. Dust boiled up around us as we made our way further into the complex. I could feel it crawling into my clothes and running down my skin. I was going to have to take a proper bath when I got back to my suite. Alana was probably going to make sarcastic remarks about me trailing dust everywhere I walked.
“I’ll see,” Rose said. “But she hasn’t shown any interest in me.”
I winced, inwardly. The Great Houses didn’t have to look down on the commoners. We were secure in our supremacy. But someone who was only inches above the poverty line, someone who was all too aware that a single misstep could send them plunging back into poverty ... there was no one so aware of their place, and determined to keep it, as someone who lived next to a poor district. Louise’s parents were probably more snobbish than mine.
“Give her time,” I said. “Maybe she’ll learn.”
“Maybe,” Rose said, doubtfully.
I nodded in wry understanding. Common-born or not, Rose had shown a willingness to learn - and enough power and promise for people to overlook her flaws. Louise had power and intelligence - more intelligence than power, I suspected - but she seemed to expect the world to change for her, rather than trying to adapt herself to the world as it was. It was an odd attitude for someone from a merchant family. I’d always thought merchants had a good grip on reality. Perhaps Louise had been spoilt when she was a little girl. Or perhaps she was just too stubborn to change. I could understand why someone might think changing was a kind of giving up.
We pushed open another door and peered into a small classroom. My eyes went automatically to the bookshelves - I’d found some interesting books under the school - but these shelves were empty. The classroom itself looked eerie. I could have believed that the students would return within hours, perhaps days, if the chairs, desks and tables hadn’t been so dusty. I reached out and touched one of them. The dust was so deep that I was certain that no one had entered the room in the last few years.
“This would make a good place to practice spells and stuff,” I commented. “We’re meant to find a base ...”
Rose snickered. “Should I know where your base is ...?”
“I trust you not to tell,” I said. The rules stated that we had to have a base, somewhere that wasn’t a classroom, a bedroom or otherwise restricted in any way. We could secure it ourselves, if we wished, but we couldn’t rely on higher authority to secure it for us. “You won’t, will you?”
“Well ...” Rose drew out the word. “What’s it worth?”
I grinned, knowing she was teasing. “My appreciation?”
“I’ll settle for a visit to the potions lab,” Rose said. “Or a trip outside the walls.”
“We could.” I was surprised. “You can go on your own, you know.”
Rose shook her head. “I’d sooner have someone with me,” she said. “I feel ill at ease within the city.”
“I’ll come,” I promised. “And we can try and take Cat too.”
“I’ll look the other way from time to time,” Rose said. “But not too often.”
I rolled my eyes. High Society wouldn’t bat an eyelid at Alana and I sharing a suite, if only because we weren’t sharing an actual bedroom. And the very idea of Rose and I doing something when we were alone wouldn’t occur to any of them. But if Cat and I were seen in public, without a chaperone, we’d face some pretty astringent criticism. We couldn’t even talk in private - just talk - without fuelling the rumours. I promised myself that I’d make any rumourmongers pay, if I ever figured out who they were. The really dangerous ones managed to hide themselves pretty well.
“Thanks,” I said. “Perhaps we should go to the zoo.”
Rose laughed and followed me through a series of twisting corridors. I honestly didn’t understand why this part of the school had been abandoned. There were sections that seemed permanently on the verge of collapsing, perhaps sparking a general collapse as they tumbled into rubble, but this section seemed intact. Classrooms, dorms, a handful of offices ... I opened a drawer in one of the offices and found coins dating back over a hundred years. I pocketed half of them, after checking to see if the coins were cursed, and gave the rest to Rose. It was possible they were worth quite a bit of money now.
“Everyone else will be setting up secret bases too, won’t they?” Rose grinned as we started to make our way back towards the surface. “Are you going to look for them?”
I shrugged. Sabotage might be part of the Challenge, but ... I didn’t have anything worth sabotaging, not yet. The four of us - I’d have to look for at least one or two more - had barely gotten off the ground. I wondered, absently, what they’d think about sabotaging the other teams. Francis would be all for it, I was sure; Louise and Saline might have other ideas.
Louise clung to the rules so tightly that I doubted she’d approve of any attempt to make things harder for the other teams.
But they’ll start making things harder for us, soon enough, I mused. And then we’ll have to start pushing back.
“I don’t think I’m allowed to discuss it with you,” I said, finally. “And besides, I have no grand plans either.”
Rose nodded. “Alana said the same,” she said. “She can’t discuss her plans with me.”
I smiled. “I’m just glad she doesn’t have you,” I said. “You’d tip the balance in her favour.”
“Thanks.” Rose reddened. “Be glad she doesn’t have Cat.”
“Yeah.” I sighed, tiredly. “I am ...”
I broke off as I heard the sound of crying, coming from further down the corridor. No, not crying. Whimpering. I glanced at Rose, then picked up speed. Something was dreadfully wrong. If someone was in trouble ... the noise grew louder as I walked up the corridor, trying to determine precisely where we were. We were just outside the more well-travelled parts of the school, the corridors and passageways everyone knew about even if they didn’t use ...
“Let me go,” someone sobbed. “Please ...”
I clenched my fists as I turned the corner. Two beefy-looking boys and a girl - all three upperclassmen - were casting hexes on a pair of lowerclassmen. A girl was stuck to the ceiling, hanging from her hands and legs waving helplessly in the air; a boy was leaning against the wall, his face covered with painful pimples and bruises. He cried out, again, as a hex stuck his chest. They weren’t just trying to humiliate him. They were trying to hurt him and ... a rush of anger shot through me. How dare they?
“Stop.” My voice thundered through the air. “Now!”
The upperclassmen jumped, then spun to face me. The boys looked, just for a moment, as if they wanted to fight; the girl glanced at the nearest door, as if she was calculating if she could make a run for it. I readied myself, suddenly unsure of my badge’s ability to stop a fight. If I lost, my position as Head Boy would become untenable. I’d be a laughingstock.
I met their eyes, one by one. “What do you think you are doing?”
The girl looked defiant. “This is our territory,” she said. “And ...”
I made a show of looking around. “I don’t see any markers. Do you?”
The girl coloured, angrily. “This is our territory. Everyone knows it!”
“Really? I don’t.” I glanced at Rose. “Do you know it?”
“No.” Rose shook her head. “No one told me.”
“We found this place,” one of the boys said. “It’s ours.”
I glared at him. “Then you put locking spells on the doors, or traps to discourage intruders,” I said. That, at least, was tradition. “You do not torture students who happen to enter anyway.”
“It isn’t torture,” the girl protested. “It’s just ...”
I cut her off. “You’re upperclassmen,” I told them. “You’re meant to set an example. A good example. Not engage in sadistic tortures, particularly not of lowerclassmen ...”
“But ...”
I ignored her as I drew the punishment book from my belt. “The three of you have detention,” I said. “And you will write out a hundred lines, each. I will not bully younger students.”
“That’s not fair,” one of the boys said. “I ...”
“Quite right,” I agreed. “You can write out two hundred lines instead.”
The girl glared at the boy, then looked at me. “We can’t have detention ...”
“Yes, you do.” I stared her down. “Would you like to do five hundred lines instead?”
“... No,” the girl said.
“Scram,” I ordered. “And don’t let me catch you bullying anyone, ever again.”
They turned and ran as if they were being chased by men with whips. I watched them go, then motioned for Rose to help the girl while I tended to the boy. The upperclassmen had been cruel. The girl’s weight could have pulled her arms out of their sockets, even if the bullies didn’t do anything else to her. And the boy’s face was bloated with hex scars and even a couple of minor curses ... I cancelled them all, carefully. His face slowly returned to normal.
“... Thank you,” he managed. He couldn’t meet my eyes as he wiped away tears. I understood. He’d been utterly outmatched, but he still felt as though he’d shamed himself. I hoped the girl wouldn’t tease him for breaking down. That would rub salt into the wound. “We were just exploring ... we didn’t know it was their room ... we didn’t ...”
“They should have marked it,” I said, gently. Rose and I had been chivvied away from rooms upperclassmen had claimed for themselves - and we’d tripped a handful of traps, which had been quite embarrassing - but we’d never been tortured. The upperclassmen had stepped well over the line. “If they’d wanted to keep it to themselves, they would have sealed it.”
I patted him on the back, silently wishing I could do more. He could have been my brother. But then, if he had been my brother, no one would have thought less of either of us if I’d taught the three upperclassmen a lesson. A real lesson. But I couldn’t help him so openly, not now. He was just lucky I’d stumbled across the scene. No one would call him a sneak.
Perhaps the rules do need to be changed, I thought, tiredly. But how?
The girl came over to me, rubbing her arms. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. She looked painfully thin, with pale skin and stringy red hair in a loose braid that had nearly come apart ... a commoner then, probably from the far north. I wondered, absently, if she knew Rose. “And just be careful where you go next time.”
The girl nodded, her eyes lingering on my Head Boy badge. “Is it true you know Lady Cat?”
“He’s going to marry Lady Cat,” Rose put in.
“Lady Caitlyn,” I corrected, sternly. One couldn’t shorten a lady’s name when one used her title. It was disrespectful. “And yes, I know her.”
The girl nudged the boy. “Markus, you should ask him.”
I frowned. “Ask me for what?”
Markus looked even paler. “I want to be a TA,” he said. “Magister Tallyman’s TA.”
“You’ll find him a demanding soul,” I said, warningly. I’d spent four years as Magister Tallyman’s TA. Demanding was being polite. A forger could not afford incompetence or sloppiness. There were no shortcuts - and anyone who thought otherwise was likely to injure or kill himself. “And if you make a mistake, he’ll sack you.”
“If you put my name in, I’ll do anything,” Markus said. “Anything, anything at all.”
“Don’t say things like that,” I snapped. My mother had told me, during lessons, never to make any open-ended promises. They had a habit of coming back to haunt you. “But I can put a word in for you, if you like. How are your grades?”
“Good,” Markus said. “I like forging, but ... I don’t have the background for an apprenticeship unless I TA or something.”
I nodded, slowly. I could have had that apprenticeship, if Father hadn’t said no. And if I couldn’t have it ...
“I’ll put your name forward,” I said. I’d been meaning to talk to Magister Tallyman anyway, when I had a moment. “But if you let me down, I’ll be furious.”
“He’ll turn you into a toad,” the girl said, cheekily.
Rose cleared her throat. “And who are you?”
“Isabel,” the girl said. “Nice to meet you!”
I flinched. “Isabel,” I said. It was suddenly very hard to speak. I knew I was being silly, but I couldn’t help it. I had to swallow hard before I could continue. “Nice to meet you too.”
Chapter Thirteen
I had loved Magister Tallyman’s giant classroom complex from the moment I’d first laid eyes on it. Even now, after six years of being a student and four years of being a TA, I still loved it. Magister Tallyman presided over a collection of workshops, from classrooms for large groups to tiny workrooms for one or two student
s, and a cluster of storerooms that held everything from common wood and metal to rare gems and elements that came from all over the world. Cat and I had spent many happy hours in the complex, when we were firsties; even now, without her, I still enjoyed sneaking into the workrooms and forging something for myself. It was a way to relax.
Magister Tallyman himself was sitting at a desk when I entered, staring down at a complex arrangement of lenses and gold threads. He hadn’t changed much over the summer; he was still immensely muscular, his body giving the impression of being seriously overweight even though he was more beefy than fat. But then, he’d always been larger than life to me. He’d been the greatest forger in the city until Cat came along and she’d had an unfair advantage. It was greatly to his credit, I thought, that he had never taken it personally.
(The Zero Enigma Book 6) The Family Pride Page 13