Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (14 page)

Unsurprisingly, she spent most of her evenings in the library. Each of the classes had a long reading list, mostly composed of books that were specific to the individual class. Emily had a feeling that Subtle Magic, Law, and Construction and Warding were linked together, but it didn’t seem that way from the reading lists. And she had a long essay to write on werewolves from Master Tor. By the time the weekend rolled around, she was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

“Don’t forget we’re going to Dragon’s Den,” Alassa said, on Saturday morning. “You need a break.”

“Five days,” Emily muttered, tiredly. “Five days and I already need a holiday.”

“You should be spending more time just relaxing,” Alassa informed her, blithely. “Come and watch us play, even if you don’t play yourself.”

Emily snorted. Alassa could never be a combat sorceress, or anything apart from princess and later Queen of Zangaria. In one sense, it didn’t really
matter
what degrees she brought home—or if she qualified as anything at all. Her blood had already determined her future. Emily, on the other hand, needed qualifications...at least if she wanted to be anything more than Baroness Cockatrice. But it was tempting just to go back to her castle and hire tutors, rather than coping with the pressures of Whitehall. Last year hadn’t been so stressful, at least when Shadye hadn’t been attacking the castle.

But you spent last year learning the basics
, she reminded herself.
Now you have to learn all the tedious little background details
.

Imaiqah nudged her. “Did you complete your essay for Master Tor?”

“I did,” Emily said. It had been fascinating, although most of the books on werewolves had contradicted one another. They seemed to act like pack animals most of the time, even when in human form, but the writers weren’t sure if they
were
animals or if they were merely taking refuge in animal behavior. Maybe the latter made sense. Werewolves found outside their tribal lands were summarily executed, as if they were wild beasts. “I’ll give it to him later.”

“Nice of him, giving you an essay so early in the year,” Imaiqah said, sarcastically. “What does he have against you anyway?”

“Probably wants to establish that he’s not scared of the Necromancer’s Bane,” Alassa said, dryly. “Or maybe he thinks...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily said, seriously. “We survived Shadye. We can certainly survive Master Tor.”

Alassa grinned, then took a final sip of her kava. “Come on,” she said. “The coach leaves in ten minutes and I don’t want to be late.” She rubbed her hands together with glee. “Clothes shopping!”

Emily rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother to argue. She’d never been fond of shopping for clothes on Earth, even though most girls her age had been happy to spend hours in the shops, just trying on outfit after outfit. Now, she had enough money to outfit the entire school in the local version of designer brands...and it still seemed like a waste of time. But she did need some new outfits, including working clothes.

“I have to visit the enchanter,” she reminded them, as she finished her juice. “After that, I’ll meet you in the clothes store.”

The ride to Dragon’s Den was almost as she remembered, although the carriage seemed to have problems on the icy road, despite all the charms protecting it. Outside, the fields were covered in snow for as far as the eye could see. Some of the townsfolk were building snowmen or having snowball fights; several of them launched snowballs towards the carriages, then fled before the occupants could hurl jinxes or hexes in their direction. Emily waved cheerfully after them, then smiled as the city itself came into view. It looked as if hundreds of people had been clearing snow from the streets.

“Remember the rules,” Master Tor said. He’d ridden in the lead carriage. “If you need help, signal.”

Emily smiled. The first time she’d come to Dragon’s Den, she and Alassa had wound up being kidnapped—but that was very much the exception. Normally, the worst danger any student of Whitehall had to face in Dragon’s Den was high prices and shopkeepers who knew more about bargaining than most of the students. Emily had a private suspicion that the presence of Whitehall—with hundreds of rich students—was actually driving prices in Dragon’s Den upwards, although it was hard to be sure. It was possible that the locals got lower prices.

She removed her old trunk from the carriage, cast a pair of lifting spells on it to make it easier to carry, then turned and followed Alassa as she led the way towards the shops. Hardly anyone noticed her on the streets, she was glad to see. Everyone knew her in Whitehall, even the upper classes who generally had very little to do with the younger students, but in Dragon’s Den she was just another student. She pulled the robe tighter around her as they stepped into a long street crammed with shops and smiled as she saw the hawkers, who were offering everything from food to cheap clothes and alchemical ingredients. Professor Thande had warned them, quite specifically, not to risk buying any of the latter until they were qualified alchemists. It was hard to tell where the ingredients had really come from—or how it had been harvested.

“That’s Yodel’s store,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the clothes store.”

Emily stepped into the cluttered store and looked around, remembering everything she’d seen the first time she’d visited. There was a Hand of Glory, a magical device made from a human hand, sitting on one table; another held a shield emblazoned with strange runes. After what she’d learned in Subtle Magic, she had a feeling that the runes were intended to help the shield hold firm, no matter what struck it. A third table was covered with metal arrows, each one charmed to fly directly to its target. The fourth held a silver necklace that glittered under the faint light from high overhead. Emily reached out to touch it, only drawing her hand back when she realized that it was enchanted.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Yodel said. He stepped out of the shadows and bowed politely to her. This time, he was wearing protective gear that kept his face and hands thoroughly covered. “That necklace is charmed.”

Emily frowned. “To do what?”

“Private commission,” Yodel said, bluntly. He looked her up and down, then removed his mask, giving her a moment to realize that he hadn’t changed at all since their first meeting. “You have become someone
interesting
since we last met.”

“Yes,” Emily said, flushing. She’d been new to Whitehall when she’d first visited Dragon’s Den. Since then, she’d beaten Shadye
and
been ennobled by King Randor. “And I may have broken my trunk.”

Yodel lifted an eyebrow, then stepped past her to examine the trunk floating in the air. “And what, exactly, did you do to it?”

Emily felt her flush grow brighter. “I put a Cockatrice in it,” she said, and explained briefly. “There was no other choice.”

“I am...reassured to hear it,” Yodel said. He tapped the trunk with one finger. “Is the beast still in there?”

“No,” Emily said, feeling a stab of guilt. She hadn’t gone to see the Cockatrice since it had been decanted from the trunk and installed in Whitehall’s zoo. It had already become the star attraction for Mistress Kirdáne’s Magical Creatures class. “It had to be removed.”

“A good thing too,” Yodel said, dryly. He started to cast spells Emily didn’t recognize over the trunk. “You did pretty shoddy work. You’re lucky that the safety features weren’t triggered, throwing everything you stored in the trunk out into the open.”

Emily nodded. She knew, better than most, what happened if a pocket dimension snapped out of existence. Trunks and other dimensionally transcendent artefacts were designed to expel their contents if the dimensions were on the verge of collapse, which would have been disastrous if the trunk had still been holding a very angry cockatrice. Thankfully, the spells had held long enough to get the beast back to Whitehall, rather than forcing her to kill it and use the body for alchemical ingredients.

“If you were my apprentice, I’d sack you for this,” Yodel added. “You really
were
incredibly lucky. I don’t think the trunk could have lasted much longer, not the way the spells were slowly starting to unravel. If I hadn’t anchored them so firmly...”

“I know,” Emily said. “Can you fix it?”

“You might be better off buying a new trunk,” Yodel advised. “The spells have been warped, making it difficult to be sure that they
were
completely fixed. I don’t know anyone with the kind of precision required to inspect each and every one of the charms worked into the trunk, let alone ensure that they work together properly. Most of the more advanced features would be disabled in any case. They simply couldn’t be trusted.”

Emily winced. The trunk was the first item she had bought with money she had earned, rather than cajoled from her mother or stepfather. And it was where she had hidden her books, including Void’s spellbook. It held a special place in her heart.

But if it broke down completely, she risked losing everything.

It crossed her mind that Yodel might be lying, that he might want to sell her a new trunk rather than go to all the effort of repairing the first one, but she knew that he was probably telling the truth. She’d had to improvise desperately when she’d turned the trunk into a trap and she’d almost certainly damaged the trunk quite badly in the process. In hindsight, she might have done better if she’d sent it directly to Whitehall, rather than keeping it with her.

But then I wouldn’t have had a secret weapon
, she thought, remembering the crow-sorcerer and how close he had come to killing her and enslaving Alassa.
I was very lucky
.

“I think I’d better buy a new one,” she said, reluctantly. “Do you have one like this one?”

“I have two in stock, both just as good,” Yodel assured her. “And I am currently putting a third together that includes extra space for books. The reading lists at Whitehall seem to have tripled since last year and students want more space for books.”

It took Emily a moment to realize
why
. Producing books had been difficult and expensive...until she’d introduced the printing press, along with a number of other concepts from Earth. It hadn’t taken long for the printers to start copying as many books as they could, including spellbooks and educational textbooks. In the long run, literacy was going to skyrocket...

And my classmates will kill me if they discover that I expanded their reading lists
, Emily thought ruefully. Talk about unintended consequences! Maybe the forbidden tomes wouldn’t be copied, but everything else could be...what would
that
do to the world?

She pushed the thought aside for later contemplation and looked up at Yodel. “I think I’d want one of those,” she said. “And I need to ask you for something else.”

Yodel’s eyes glittered. “As long as it isn’t an apprenticeship,” he said. He tapped the trunk meaningfully. “Maybe you’ll be a capable enchanter in five years, but you have a great deal to unlearn.”

Emily smiled, weakly. “I was wondering if you had a book on enchantment,” she said. “I couldn’t find one in the library.”

“
That
isn’t too surprising,” Yodel said. “Enchantment can be a very rewarding career, if you have the mindset to make it work.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Is there a reason you want to borrow one of my books?”

“I could buy it outright,” Emily said, avoiding the question. She certainly didn’t want to tell him the
truth
. “I do have money...”

“Books like this are rarely
sold
,” Yodel said, flatly. “And even if they were, I might not be able to find another copy. I do not know if the printers have started producing books on enchantment yet.”

He looked down at the trunk. “On the other hand, loaning you the book might stop you from wrecking another trunk in the future,” he added. “But I’d want something in exchange.”

Emily hesitated, then lifted an eyebrow.

“Four hundred gold coins,” Yodel said. His voice was still flat, emotionless. “Or a place in your estate.”

“Four hundred gold coins is a staggeringly high price,” Emily said. “Besides, I don’t carry that much on me.”

She smiled at the thought. Credit and debit cards allowed someone to draw on their funds while reducing the risk of having the money stolen and spent by someone else, but there was no such thing in the Allied Lands. Yet, at least; she did have a plan to found a bank with something akin to debit cards. It would still take months for it to start working properly.

“You are a baroness,” Yodel pointed out. “You could easily offer me a place in your estate.”

Emily frowned. It seemed simple and cheap—which probably meant, in her experience, that there was a sting in the tail. She might have never been the consummate haggler that Imaiqah was, but she
had
learned a few things about bargaining. Why did Yodel even
want
to move?

“The City Fathers are threatening to raise taxes or otherwise conscript magicians into their service,” Yodel explained, when she asked. “Events last year scared the hell out of them.”

Emily didn’t blame the City Fathers, even if they had seemed a pack of condescending assholes when she’d met them. Shadye’s army had been stopped at Whitehall, but he could easily have left a force behind to keep Whitehall sealed and sent the rest of his monsters to pillage the surrounding lands. Dragon’s Den was walled, but she knew better than to think that would stop a necromancer. Or a force willing to take as many casualties as necessary to win the day. They might pile up their own bodies in front of the walls and scramble over them to break into the city.

“Besides,” Yodel added, “I might be of more help to you there.”

That
, Emily had to admit, was true, even if her theory
didn’t
pan out.

“Very well,” she said, finally. “You loan the book to me; I keep it for the rest of the term and return it to you during the spring holidays. In exchange, you will have my permission to leave Dragon’s Den and immigrate into my lands, provided that you behave yourself. Does that make sense?”