Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (29 page)

Emily shuddered as she took in the condition of the body. Travis looked utterly desiccated, as if something had sucked all the life out of his body. It seemed to be on the verge of crumbling into dust; Emily was mildly surprised that it was even recognizable. She checked the blade protruding from his chest and frowned, inwardly. It was definitely a stone knife.

But there was no sense of necromantic power surrounding the corpse.

“Strange,” she said, out loud. She looked around, but none of the walls were scorched. “I don’t know
what
happened.”

“Neither do I,” the Grandmaster’s voice said. He was standing in the shadows, his expression grim. “The knife is stone, but there is no trace of power.”

“Or blood,” Lady Barb said. “There should have been some blood.”

Emily tuned them both out as she stared at the body. If there
was
a necromancer somewhere in Whitehall, he might well have killed the Warden to ensure that he remained undetected—and then started preying on the students. Travis, whatever else could be said about him, would have provided plenty of power for a budding necromancer. But from what she’d read, a necromancer’s victims just...
died
. They didn’t turn into dust.

It didn’t make any
sense
. If the necromancer was sane enough—despite drawing a vast torrent of power through his mind—to hide, why not destroy the evidence completely? The victim had been in Martial Magic; no one would have questioned Travis leaving the school and going for a hike, someplace where he might have had an accident. Or perhaps he would have run away from school...it wasn’t uncommon. God knew
Emily
had been seriously considering it after the third or fourth hex thrown at her unprotected back.

But if the necromancer was
insane
, why wasn’t he trying to tear the school apart?

“Good question,” Lady Barb said, when Emily outlined her thoughts. “But not
all
necromancers go completely insane at once.”

“But they do have problems thinking straight,” Emily countered. They wouldn’t even
know
that they weren’t thinking straight. A dangerously-flawed plan a five-year-old child would have laughed at might have seemed a work of genius to them. It was very difficult to overcome a problem inside one’s own head. “Nothing about this makes
sense
.”

She scowled. “Unless someone is trying to
pretend
to be a necromancer,” she added. “But why?”

Lady Barb shot a quick look at the Grandmaster. “Discrediting you,” she said. “A murder in Whitehall...that would be grounds for a formal investigation by the White Council.”

“It’s possible,” the Grandmaster agreed. He looked at Emily. “I’d like you to help with the investigation.”

Emily blinked in surprise. “I’m not a policewoman...ah, a forensic sorcerer,” she said. “I don’t know how I can help.”

“You’re the Necromancer’s Bane,” the Grandmaster pointed out. “Your assistance might help to strengthen confidence in the school’s defenses.”

And reassure people that I’m not killing students
, Emily thought, feeling a confusing mixture of emotions. It was a relief to know that the Grandmaster wasn’t blaming her for the murder, but oddly worrying to realize that he wanted to use her fame to help him.
She
knew better than to think she could stop a necromancer by clicking her fingers—and he should know better too. But if it was the least she could do to help...

“If you think I can help, I will,” she said, finally. She
owed
the Grandmaster; at the very least, he’d prevented Master Tor from expelling her. “But I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

Lady Barb’s lips twitched. “Just try to look confident when someone asks what’s happening,” she said, dryly. “Fear will destroy us as surely as any necromancer.”

“We have a necromancer running loose in the school—or someone
posing
as a necromancer,” Emily said. “Shouldn’t they be very, very afraid?”

“Maybe,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “But we should do what we can to reassure them.”

She looked over at the Grandmaster. “Under the circumstances,” she added, “I believe that the restriction on unsupervised magic can be removed.”

The Grandmaster turned his face towards Emily, his hidden eyes seeming to scrutinize her
thoroughly
.

“Very well,” he said, finally. “But I would suggest that you behave yourself. No matter what we say, quite a few people will still consider you the primary suspect.”

Emily felt a surge of intense relief and joy that almost sent her to her knees. Magic had been her delight ever since Shadye had kidnapped her, the one skill she’d developed on her own—although reverse-engineering concepts from Earth had forced her to think along lines she’d never had to explore previously. Being banned from using it outside classes—at least openly—had been a terrible punishment...and it would have been terrible even if it
hadn’t
drawn a bulls-eye on her back.

“But you are not allowed to use magic directly to complete your detention,” the Grandmaster added. “I suggest that you bear it in mind.”

Directly
, Emily thought, and nodded. Come to think of it, if she no longer had to avoid using magic outside class, she didn’t really
need
Aloha to produce the makeshift vacuum cleaners. But the older girl would probably have more success anchoring the charm in place.

“I will,” she said, out loud.

“Watch your back,” the Grandmaster warned. He turned back towards Lady Barb. “Take Emily back to her room. There will be a formal announcement later today.”

Lady Barb nodded. “This way, Emily,” she said. “Come on.”

Emily took one last look at the body, then followed Lady Barb out of the room and down into the network of secret passages. The school felt deserted again, completely empty; she wondered, suddenly, just what would happen if the murderer wasn’t caught. Could the White Council use it as an excuse to remove the Grandmaster?

But who would want to remove him?

She looked at Lady Barb. “Does the Grandmaster have any political enemies?”

“Hundreds of them,” Lady Barb said, sardonically. “The Grandmaster holds one of the most important posts in the Allied Lands. Of course he has enemies.”

Emily scowled at her tone. “Enemies who might be prepared to kill at least one student?”

She shook her head. Even if one accepted that the Warden wasn’t human—and that destroying him wasn’t
murder
—there was still the issue of someone being prepared to kill Travis. What sort of blowback would they experience if they were caught? Travis had been part of a great magical family; his murder would be, to all intents and purposes, a declaration of war. Or had he been targeted randomly?

“That is indeed the issue,” Lady Barb said. “Anyone sane would not have considered Travis a potential target.”

Emily winced. Imaiqah—before her ennoblement, at least—would have made an ideal target. Her family had no political power, nor any real connections to great sorcerers or powerful aristocrats. She could be killed without major repercussions. And she was hardly the only student in Whitehall who fit that particular bill. Why would someone pick on Travis when there were other targets? Unless it was a deadly gamble. Losing Travis might spur the White Council to act faster, but it would also push them to investigate thoroughly.

“I’m going to have your trunk moved back into your room,” Lady Barb said, as they stopped outside the bedrooms. “I would suggest, however, that you try not to be alone. And that you watch your back.”

She opened the door and led the way to Emily’s room. Madame Razz stuck her head out of her office and scowled at them; Lady Barb motioned for Emily to go into her room while she had a few quick words with the housemother. Emily hesitated, then obeyed; inside, the Gorgon looked up from her book and frowned at her.

“What happened now?” She hissed. “Why are we back in lockdown?”

“Travis is dead,” Emily said, as she closed the door. She didn’t bother to question if the Gorgon
knew
Travis. “And the Grandmaster wanted my help.”

The Gorgon’s face was hard to read, but she didn’t seem convinced. Emily shrugged, picked up a book from her bedside cabinet and sat down, trying to concentrate on legal precedents for crop-sharing along the borderlands. Maybe Master Tor
hadn’t
written the book, but it was just as boring as listening to him talk. What did it really
matter
which way the wind was blowing when it came to haggling over the exact border between two states?

Lady Barb opened the door and levitated the trunk inside, putting it down in front of Emily’s bed. “I’d check it carefully,” she advised, dryly. “And stay in the room until the Grandmaster makes his announcement.”

The Gorgon leaned forward. “Is she still on restriction?”

“Not any longer,” Lady Barb growled. “And I suggest that you pass that around the school.”

Emily scowled, inwardly. Had it been the Gorgon who had told everyone that she wasn’t allowed to do magic outside class? Perhaps; she might not have hexed Emily directly, but she’d certainly been mad enough at her to set her up for an endless series of humiliations. Except that was over now...she allowed herself a smile as she contemplated what she could do to Melissa, the next time she tried to hex her. Or one of the others who had seen a helpless target and lashed out.

She opened the trunk and recovered a handful of books, returning them to her desk. There were other essays to write; if nothing else, the enforced confinement should give her a chance to finish the first drafts. The makeshift typewriters they’d been trying to produce in Zangaria from her rough plans were yet to be completed. Irritatingly, they would probably have been able to produce them without her help, if they’d had the concept.

“I’d watch yourself,” the Gorgon growled, as she went back to her book. “I
hate
having my property searched.”

Emily nodded. She’d read up on the Gorgons and discovered that the desert clans, having very little privacy, valued what they had. Intruding into someone else’s possessions was regarded as worse than murder, which had struck her as curious before she’d realized just how much they were forced to share with one another. The Gorgon had to think that sharing a room with
just
two other girls was the very height of luxury.

She was midway through an essay for Professor Thande when the Grandmaster’s voice echoed through the school.

“Attention, all pupils,” he said. His voice sounded tightly controlled. “I must confirm that Travis of House Athena was found dead—murdered—this afternoon.”

The Gorgon let out a hiss. Lin, lying in her bed, showed no real reaction.

“As yet, we have been unable to locate his killer,” the Grandmaster continued. “I would therefore like to ask you to ensure that you remain in groups at all times—and that you report
any
information or concerns you have to a member of staff. Investigators may wish to question you; if so, answer their questions as quickly and completely as possible. Do
not
take any risks.

“The school will remain in lockdown until tomorrow morning, allowing us time to search the school,” he concluded. “Do
not
attempt to leave the dorms. Food will be brought to the common rooms by the staff. Anyone caught outside will regret it.”

Particularly if they run into the murderer,
Emily thought, sourly.
Or if they get accused of
being
the murderer.

“Well,” the Gorgon said. Her tone became snide. “Did you murder Travis?”

“No,” Emily said, sharply. “I was out at Blackhall.”

But very few students, she knew, were going to believe it. It was easy for rumors to grow in the telling—and she had already been considered strange and dangerous, ever since she had defeated Shadye. Hell,
Alassa
had known that there was something deeply odd about Emily a long time before Emily had told her about Earth. She just didn’t have the cultural background shared by everyone else at Whitehall.

The Gorgon snorted and returned to her book. Emily scowled at her, then looked back at the three pieces of parchment she had written out for Professor Thande. He’d given them a set of alchemical formulas and told them to deduce what they were likely to do, without actually trying to make them. She knew what each of the components were used for—being forced to memorize such details had been a large part of first year alchemy—but it was harder to see how they would react if they were put together. One particular chemical actually did nothing unless it was mixed with another and then heated to boiling point. Another dampened magic to the point it rendered the whole concoction inert.

But that can’t be the answer, can it?
She asked herself.
Could it be that the recipe does nothing
?

She sighed and wrote it down, then scribbled out a paragraph justifying her decision. It wasn’t enough in Whitehall to give the answer; she also had to prove that she’d thought about it, applying both knowledge and intelligence to the problem. But it was so hard to concentrate...

Shaking her head, she found a spare notepad and started scribbling down ideas from Earth instead. At least that took her mind off the image of Travis’s body—and the nightmarish thought of a necromancer running through the school.

Chapter Twenty-Four

W
ELL,” ALASSA SAID, AS SHE SAT
down beside Emily and cast a privacy ward, “it seems that half of the school thinks you killed him and the other half seems to think you’ll save us all.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Her experience at breakfast had been distinctly surreal, even though she’d gone early in the hopes of avoiding the crowd. Several students had inched away from where she sat, while others had gazed in her direction with worshipful eyes, as if they thought she was the Second Coming. It didn’t help that the older students were loudly telling the younger students about Emily’s exploits, most of which only existed in the imaginations of broadsheet editors. She certainly had
not
befriended a dragon by pulling a thorn out of its paw!