I looked around, hastily. We’d joked about the girls’ locker room being a place of wonder and mystery, but it didn’t look that different than ours. A cluster of benches and lockers, showers and toilets ... if I hadn’t spotted the dress, I might not have realised the danger until it was far too late. I felt oddly disappointed, but ... I put the thought aside as I checked the door. It was closed. There wasn’t enough room for me to slip underneath, even as a frog. The wretched spell was making it impossible to cast spells myself. Perhaps I could hide ... I doubted it. A paranoid girl might detect me and then ...
There was a window, right at the top of the room. I braced myself, then jumped onto a bench and then up to the lockers. The window was small, opening into the bright summer air ... I heard the door opening behind me and jumped, throwing myself right through the window and into the unknown. Girlish giggles echoed behind me as I tumbled into the gutter, rolling over and open as water carried me on; I hoped - I prayed - that they hadn’t seen me. It would be hard to prove anything, if I didn’t get caught, but I couldn’t afford to have rumours like that floating around. Ayesha knew the truth. She could spread the word.
The world tilted around me as the gutter threw me into a pipe. I struggled to gain control as it carried me on, but the pipe was too slippery for me to catch hold and right myself. I silently thanked my ancestors that frogs could breathe underwater - I felt as if I was going to drown, even though I knew I was safe - as the pipe opened up again. I plunged down, falling into a cool pond. Instinctively, I swam deeper. The water felt safe, safe and calm and welcome and ...
I caught myself, sharply. The frog’s mind was gnawing at mine, threatening to subsume me. I hadn’t realised the danger, not really. Childish spells - spells I’d learnt when turning some unsuspecting victim into an animal had seemed the height of humour - had safeguards, designed to prevent the victim from losing his mind. But whatever Ayesha had cast on me was different. It was hard, so hard, not to let the frog take control. Only the thought of being lost forever - or coming back to myself somewhere far from home - allowed me to keep myself together. The green water wasn’t welcoming at all. It was a deadly trap.
Move, you idiot, I told myself. Get up!
I broke the surface and looked around. I’d been carried into the grotto, a pond half-hidden behind the rear of the school. It had been a long time since I’d walked through the tangled mass of greenery and skirted the lake - I’d been reluctant to return, ever since we’d been kidnapped and stolen from the school. Rose had never wanted to return, and Francis had been more interested in playing sports than walking for pleasure. The thought helped me come back to myself. Francis could have been caught. Or he and Harvard could be looking for me, right now. I swallowed hard as I concentrated, summoning all my reserves. I had to break the spell before it was too late.
And if someone threw Francis into the locker room, I thought bitterly, he’d get away with it easily.
The spell was still strong, twisting and turning as I tried to break it. I swore silently that I would never be annoyed at Saline again, not if I got out of this mess. The frog’s body wasn’t designed to cast spells, but that shouldn’t have made a difference. I struggled and struggled and struggled, yet ... it felt useless. I wondered if I shouldn’t just hop back to school and announce myself. I knew the signs to prove I was a transfigured human, not a real frog. And yet, if I did, I would become a laughingstock. My position as Head Boy would be untenable, even if no one figured out who’d enchanted me or why. I hadn’t wanted the post, but now ...
Concentrate, I told myself. Focus!
I felt the sword, resting somewhere at the back of my mind. It had been transfigured too, but ... it was still there. It was real, it was ... the spell seemed to tense, snapping and snarling at the sword’s sheer presence, then it broke. I found myself choking, swallowing foul-tasting water as I slipped below the waves. The water was suddenly very cold and clammy and ... I kicked off my shoes and swam towards the shore, clambering onto a rock and sitting there, coughing up water. I’d never realised how deep the pond actually was. No one, as far as I knew, had ever swum in it before. The stories about monsters lurking at the bottom suddenly sounded very believable.
“Well,” I managed. I silently thanked the ancients that I’d worn comfortable clothes, rather than my uniform or something expensive. “That was embarrassing.”
I picked myself up and carefully cast a pair of drying spells, gritting my teeth at the unpleasant sensation of water trickling down my legs and pooling on the rocks. My clothes felt dry, now, yet I still looked a mess. I cast a summoning spell, hoping to recover my shoes, but nothing happened. They were too deep - or too stuck - to be yanked out of the water. I peered into the pond, but saw nothing beyond utter darkness. Perhaps there was a monster at the bottom after all.
Shaking my head, I turned and started to walk back to school. The grassy path was scratchy and unpleasant against my bare feet, but it could have been worse. I kept away from the nettles - and a handful of plants I knew to be dangerous, if treated without great care - as I slipped out of the grotto and walked towards the rear entrance. I could hear cheering in the distance, from one of the sports fields, but no one was in sight. I hoped I wouldn’t meet anyone as I sneaked back to my room. It would be difficult to explain why the Head Boy was walking around without his shoes.
I passed through the door, then stopped dead. What if ... what if Ayesha had reported me for being in the locker room? She wouldn’t have had to lie. She could just have left out a few details and delivered the coup de grace to my reputation. The Castellan and his staff could be searching for me right now, bent on expelling me before the scandal broke ... I tensed as I heard someone pound down the corridor towards me, then told myself it didn’t matter. Ayesha could hardly admit the truth - not now - without admitting what she’d done too. I doubted her reputation would survive either.
Francis came into view, followed by Louise and Saline. “Akin! You’re alive!”
“Yeah.” I tried not to notice how they stared at me. I probably looked terrible. “And I need a shower.”
“Yeah.” Francis made a show of holding his nose. “I wasn’t going to mention that, you know.”
I glared at him, then led the way back to my suite. Thankfully, there was no sign of Alana as we entered. She was probably drilling her team, or having a day in town, or ... or something. I didn’t care, as long as she was elsewhere. It was going to be hard enough to tell my team what had happened without having to admit it to her too. Alana would mock me relentlessly for it.
“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Francis nodded. “Can we burgle the Head Girl’s desk while you’re gone?”
“No!” After everything that had happened, I didn’t think that was very funny. “Leave Alana’s desk alone.”
I hurried into my room, stripped bare, threw my clothes in the washing basket and showered as quickly as I could. My body was covered in stains from the pond ... I muttered a pair of soaping spells, silently grateful that I’d let my governess teach me. I wanted a bath, not a shower, but ... there was no time. I climbed out, dried myself and changed into a fresh outfit. The old outfit might have to be discarded. The laundry staff might ask awkward questions if they took a careful look at it.
At least it wasn’t expensive, I told myself. I hadn’t bothered to invest in expensive gym clothes or duelling outfits. Francis had spent half his allowance on kitting himself out for sports matches, but I hadn’t seen the point. I can buy another complete set if necessary.
“So,” Francis said, as I rejoined them. “What happened to you?”
I scowled. “What happened to you?”
“I sneaked out and hid,” Francis said. “There were others on the way, so I slipped away and linked up with Harvard. The tracking spell we used on you kept spinning crazily until we finally found you. What happened to you?”
“Ayesha cast a spell on me,” I said. I wasn’
t going to admit how she’d cast the spell on me. The feel of her lips against mine still tingled, even though she’d enspelled me. “She turned me into a frog and dumped me in the girls’ locker room.”
Francis stared. “You lucky ...”
Louise reddened. “Lucky? You ... you ...”
I held up a hand before she could start hexing one or both of us. “I didn’t see anything,” I said, quickly. “I managed to make it out of the room and escape. The spell ... just took a long time to break.”
“Hours,” Francis said, quietly. “What did she do to you?”
“She kissed you,” Saline said. There was no accusation - or amusement - in her voice. “Didn’t she?”
I flushed. “She just jammed her lips against mine ...”
“Sounds like a kiss to me,” Francis said. “How ... terrible ... that must have been.”
Louise was looking at Saline. “She kissed him?”
Saline reddened. It was clearly visible, even on her brown skin. She mumbled something so quietly that I couldn’t hear it, something that ... something I couldn’t follow.
“Speak up,” Louise insisted. “What do you mean, she kissed him?”
I shot her a warning look. If I spoke to my friends like that, all the time, it wouldn’t be long before I didn’t have any friends. Louise ignored me, her eyes fixed on Saline. Saline seemed frozen before her stare. I opened my mouth to tell her that she didn’t have to tell us anything, whatever Louise said, but she spoke before I could say a word.
“There are spells.” Saline’s voice was very quiet. “Girl spells. Some of them are taught to us before our first blood, spells to protect our lives and our virtues. Others are taught afterwards, when we” - she shook her head, as if she didn’t want to talk about it - “one of the spells is designed to be cast when we kiss, if we don’t want to kiss. Someone who tries to steal a kiss gets turned into a frog. I was told it couldn’t be broken.”
“It was very hard to break,” I said. “She kissed me. Did that weaken the spell?”
“Mother told me the spell is powered by emotion.” Saline sounded as if she wished she’d never said anything. “If she kissed you ... yeah, the spell might not have worked quite right.”
Louise had something else in mind. “How come ... how come no one ever taught me those spells?”
“They belong to the Great Houses.” Francis smirked. “I dare say your mother didn’t know the spells. And if you didn’t start studying magic early, you wouldn’t have been able to cast them.”
“That isn’t fair,” Louise protested. “Do you know how many girls get ... kissed ... or, or worse, against their will? Do you know ...?”
“Then learn the spells,” Francis said. “Oh right, you can’t. No one will teach you.”
“I can teach you,” Saline said, quietly. “They’re not that hard.”
Louise looked doubtful. I didn’t blame her. Saline meant well, but ... she might not be a very good teacher. And with a spell that required a degree of intimacy to cast, Louise might never know she didn’t know the spell until she tried to cast it and something went wrong. And then ... I shook my head. Who could teach her? Penny? Or Alana? Or Rose? It was quite possible that Auntie Sofia, Lady Sorceress and Potions Mistress, had sat down with Cat’s best friend and taught her the facts of life.
“Saline can teach you,” I said. I was curious myself, although I would never have admitted it. “And if she doesn’t, we can ask someone else.”
“And then you can practice.” Francis leered. “You can test the spell on me.”
Louise reddened, again. “I’ll leave you a frog, you ...”
I held up a hand. “We can discuss that all later,” I said. “For the moment ... we didn’t do any damage to the McDonalds. And if she tells everyone what happened ...”
“She won’t,” Francis predicted. “She’d have to explain what happened and why. You could demand a formal inquest, if the rumours got out of control. And that would make sure that everyone knew she kissed you, rather than you forcing a kiss on her.”
“She doesn’t have to tell them that,” I objected. “She can just say ...”
Francis shook his head. “She has every reason to keep her mouth shut,” he insisted. “At best, she will be confessing to putting a boy in the girls’ locker room ... they expelled someone for that, didn’t they? And she had the excuse of being blackmailed into it. At worst ... Ayesha did something that could break a betrothal contract. To Cat, the one Zero. She’d be disowned by her family, just to keep them from being permanently cut out of any future agreements.”
He reached out and patted my shoulder. “You’re in the clear, Cousin.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“And I hope it taught you a lesson,” Louise added, primly. “Your lust for revenge nearly broke you.”
“Things will go better next time,” Francis said. “We learnt a lot from this experience.”
Louise lifted her eyebrows. “Like ... don’t do it again?”
“Possibly how not to do it,” Francis said. “We still have to repair the damage and replace the lost potions.”
“We can do that fairly quickly,” I said. “I think we’d be better served by trying to figure out what we have to do - and what we might need to do it.”
“They might change things every year,” Francis pointed out.
“Then they wouldn’t bother to hide the records,” I countered. “And besides, how many changes can they make?”
Louise snorted. “We don’t know what the original rules are - or were. We certainly can’t guess at how they might have been changed.”
“True.” I stared at my hands for a long moment. “We’ll keep training, of course. And we’ll see how much more we can learn before time runs out.”
“You could ask your father,” Louise said. She’d suggested it before, several times. “If he says no, then ... well, you’d know.”
“The rules say we cannot ask for adult help,” I reminded her. “And Father is very definitely an adult.”
“He’s old enough to be your father,” Francis cracked.
Saline gave him a shocked expression, then looked embarrassed as she realised it was a joke. I sighed, inwardly. It was a joke, but - in the wrong company - it could be very embarrassing. And dangerous, if someone believed it ... or merely pretended to believe it.
“Maybe we could find a new way to cheat,” Francis said. “Perfectly legal cheating, of course.”
“No,” I said. “We need to concentrate on our training. It’s what’ll get us through the Challenge.”
“You could ask Magister Niven,” Louise said. “He’s teaching us about how the city actually works. He might be able to point us in the right direction.”
I blinked. Louise didn’t like Magister Niven. But she had a point. If the Challenge was a reflection of real-world politics, as played by the Great Houses, Magister Niven might be the person to ask. And if there was any Magister who might defy the Castellan, it was Niven.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, as the door opened. Alana stepped into the room, her eyes widening as she saw us. “Don’t worry, we’re on our way out.”
Francis blinked. “We are?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s nearly dinner time.”
Louise took the hint. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she said, standing. “Saline can tell me all about ... well, everything later.”
I watched them go, then glanced at Alana. She was watching me, a curious expression on her face. It struck me, really struck me, that she was Cat’s sister. In that moment, the two girls looked very alike.
She smiled, wryly. “You do realise you’re not supposed to plot and plan in here?”
“We were just having a chat,” I said, flushing. Alana was right, technically. “You can have a chat too.”
“With you listening in?” Alana’s smile grew wider. “I think not.”
Chapter Twenty
It was no surprise t
o me, over the next few days, that something leaked out.
It couldn’t have been the truth. Francis was right. There was no way the staff - and our families - could have avoided doing something if they’d learnt the truth. But enough had leaked out to make Francis and I look like idiots. I gritted my teeth, trying to stay calm as upperclassmen pointed and laughed. It wasn’t easy. The McDonalds had broken into our base, smashed our supplies ... and we had made ourselves laughingstocks when we tried to fight back.
The only consolation, I supposed, was that the Magisters didn’t seem to care. They kept piling work on us, from more advanced potions and charms to forging and wardcrafting. A couple seemed determined to drive their entire class into an early grave, forcing us to abandon our training program and spend most of our evenings in the library. And I had more duties than any other upperclassman. I envied Francis, more than I cared to say. The Sports Captain had subordinates who could run games for him. I had no one I could order to take my place.
(The Zero Enigma Book 6) The Family Pride Page 20